Long covid and hypothyroidism.

[celticlady]

Being referred to long covid clinic with all the symptoms :short of Breath fatigue, dizzy, tachycardia, faint feeling. Is anyone else going through this and finding thyroid issues either lower or higher TSH? Mine was 0.52 recently but previously has been 1.1/0.72.

[Obsdian]

Lots of people suffering from long covid find they have developed POTS or other forms of dysautonomia. Worth asking about while you wait on your referral.

[Jaydee1507 Administrator]

Do you have an FT4 & FT3 result? TSH really doesnt tell us much at all. Get a private test if GP wont test full thyroid function.

How are your vitamin levels - ferritin, folate, B12 & D3?

POTS or dysautonomia is fairly common alongside hypo and covid has triggered POTS in many people. It might be worth looking into POTS as a separate issue, not sure how good the long covid clinics are with it.

[Judithdalston]

I am a long standing hypothyroid diabetic , and have had Long Covid for 4 1/2 + years with high BP/HR, breathlessness, no sense of smell, dysautonomia ( diagnosis from tilt table test specialist of postural hypotension) etc. I have had periods concentrating on my hypothyroid, or diabetic stats, but not found any obvious difference with now and pre covid ones. However have had long disagreement with GP who, despite the PH diagnosis, insists the high HR was due to ‘overmedication of Levothyroxine’. I have been on 100 mcg levo.with 15 mcg T3 ( private endo.prescription) for 7 years. Fortunately an NHS endo. I saw last week , who has a particular interest in thyroid and cardiovascular problems, said ‘no, not thyroid hormones’ creating high HR, but Long Covid most likely. I don’t know where you live, or the quality of the LC clinic you have been referred to, but if like mine 3 years ago it was run by physiotherapists simply teaching sufferers about how to breathe, with no link to other specialists like cardio’s.or even respiratory drs. I had to get referred to specialists separately to get likes of ecgs, echocardiogram, 24 hour Holter monitor, chest X-rays, respiratory tests etc…nothing found, so just released back to GP who had me on 5 different hypertensives…perhaps not surprising I was collapsing. I DIY a NASA lean test I thought I had PoTS, which later I found wrongly. Thus I did my homework and found a dysautonomia expert to get referred to. Have you looked at PoTS UK website,has a map of clinics, though very out of date, as most were closed, but good place to start off and ring them up to check if they do tilt table tests? A excellent site to look at is Stopfainting.com, run by London cardio Boon Lim, with lots of links, on recent research/ treatment/ tips etc. Perhaps you just need some T3 to help repair the body….