Please help. My blood levels haven't changed but I'm way more symptomatic now

[reycenteni]

I'm 31M. My TSH is currently at 4.3 and my free T4 is 14. It was also around this 9 years ago when I got diagnosed with hashimotos. I have never taken meds because I was "subclinical". Is it possible that my body was making adaptations when I was young and that's why I didn't exerience symptoms up until now? Because I definitely feel lots of awful symptoms now (heavy legs, constipation, fatigue, dry skin, burning eyes, tinnitus, hair loss, etc.).

[SlowDragon Administrator]

The longer you are hypothyroid the lower vitamin levels drop and the more your adrenal glands try to compensate for lack of thyroid hormones

Essential to test and maintain GOOD vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12

Please add most recent results

What vitamin supplements are you taking

[reycenteni in reply to SlowDragon]

My Vit D (180), Ferrtin (380), and B12 (600) are in range. They don't test folate here in Canada. If anything, my ferritin is a tad high. My cortisol is also high

I only take Vit D.

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to reycenteni]

what’s the unit of measurement for vitamin D in Canada

Is it nmol or ng/ml

180nmol is a bit high

180ng/ml would be very high

How much vitamin D are you taking

Cortisol is frequently high to compensate for low thyroid levels

Have you tested cholesterol levels

[reycenteni in reply to SlowDragon]

Vit D- 180nmol/L. It's in the range of 75-250. I take 5000 IUs of Vit D a day.

I did test cholesterol and it was high. My cholesterol was 5.24mmol/L which is over the 5.20 limit. LDL cholesterol (also high) was 3.74 which is over 3.5 limit. I had been eating healthy at that time (little junk food).

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to reycenteni]

High cholesterol directly linked to low thyroid levels

nhs.uk/conditions/statins/c...

If you have an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism), treatment may be delayed until this problem is treated. This is because having an underactive thyroid can lead to an increased cholesterol level, and treating hypothyroidism may cause your cholesterol level to decrease, without the need for statins. Statins are also more likely to cause muscle damage in people with an underactive thyroid.

[reycenteni in reply to SlowDragon]

That's very interesting, I didn't know that. But how come I didn't have high cholesterol 9 years ago? I'm eating the same things pretty much.

[Tina_Maria in reply to reycenteni]

High cholesterol has nothing to do with diet. If you have low thyroid hormones, you most certainly will have low T3, which is the active thyroid hormone and responsible for our metabolism. If our metabolism is 'primed' and has enough T3 to work with, cholesterol can easily be cleared from the liver and circulation.

Years ago, your thyroid was already struggling, higher TSH and low T4. In the early stages, the thyroid can somewhat compensate for that and produced more T3, so you may have had more T3 available at the time, hence your cholesterol was lower. Now that your thyroid is struggling, both your T4 and T3 will be low and as you have less T3 available, consequently cholesterol levels will increase. This is NOT a dietary problem, it is a metabolic problem and should be addressed through thyroid medication.

If your TSH is elevated and both your T4 and T3 low, can you not ask your GP to get a trial of levothyroxine? Especially since you are now very symptomatic, this would be the best course of action.

I would dial down on your Vitamin D a bit, between 100 and 150nmol/l is okay. So I would take maybe around 3000IU max per day (you can do 5000IU every other day if you still have some left). Are you taking Vitamin K2 with your vitamin D as well? This is important, as high doses of Vitamin D can lead to elevated calcium levels and the Vit K2 directs your dietary calcium to your bones.