Hyperthyroidism - are blood tests accurate in diagnosing?

My elderly mother had a blood test done a while ago and hyperthyroidism was ruled out. Her weight has now dropped to under 6 stone. Many years ago she was diagnosed hyperthyroid but this apparently 'sorted itself out'.

I obviously don't know anything about hyper but can a blood test show a meaningless or misleading result as per hypo?

Many thanks.

[helvella Administrator]

Well one possibility if is the pituitary is pushing out too much TSH. Not vast quantities, modest amounts but nonetheless inappropriate. So a TSH test shows, say, 2, an FT4 test shows 20 (in range 12 - 22), so she looks OK. But *** for her *** that FT4 is too high and TSH *** should be *** 0.02 or something. (If they do not do an FT4 test at all, then the TSH alone would be regarded as fine!)

And another thing that is an issue is reduced absorption from gut when thyroid hormone is wrong - high or low.

Rod

[Hidden]

Thanks Rod. I'm really not too sure what to do now, apart from asking exactly what the blood tests results are. May phone her GP. Added complication is that she's unable to swallow pills so anything given would need to be liquid.

Struggling a bit with situation, she doesn't want to live any more and everything I suggest is dismissed.

[helvella Administrator in reply to Hidden]

Sorry - didn't get an alert to your response.

What a very difficult situation. Getting results seems to be the only obvious thing to do - but that only stands a chance of helping of the appropriate tests were done - e.g. FT4.