help

July 15, 2007

Shirl,

First, how were you feeling before the decrease? That was a decrease of

almost 1/2. By the looks of the second set of labs you were about right.

Second, have you tried a natural desicated thyroid med like Armour?

Synthroid is known to have all sorts of side effects including hair

loss. Doesn't make any sence does it?

Third, are you of an age where menopause could be a factor. Lots of

hypo women are deficent in all hormones especially when they approach

meno.

I was on Synthroid or the like for 20 years. It was like I didn't take

any med at all. I am now on Armour and feel great.

Darla

>

> Hi Everyone I haven't been on here for quite a while. I have been

> having a very hard time. To much to explain right now. Anyone have

any

> ideas on my June and July labs? For June they didn't do my Ft's don't

> know why. T4 10.5 (4.5-12.0) T3 186 (85-205) TSH 0.041L (0.350-5.500)

> Thyroid Peroxidase (TPO) Ab >1000H (0-34) Antithyroglobulin Ab 2762H

(0-

> 40). Endo put me on 75mgs of snythroid . July Ft3 499H (230-420) Ft4

1.8

> (0.7-1.8) TSH L<0.03 (0.50-6.00) TSI 282H % baseline <=125 He

reduced

> my snythroid to 37.5 My hair is falling out my eyes are still very

> swollen, I'm depressed and tired but don't know if it's my levels or

> stress. Can anyone help? Shirl

>

July 15, 2007

Shirl,

HOLY COW WOMAN! (pun intended!) Your antibodies are very high and

from the sounds of it you are hyper. I say that in a very careful,

walking on egg shells, kind of way because your blood work shows hyper

and with your eyes being swollen my guess is you have Graves Disease.

Forgive me if you have already posted that but you either have that

or Hashimoto's or both. I think you are hyper, hyper, hyper with

antibodies running amok! I wouldn't have you on Synthoid, I would

have you on the ant-Graves disease medications which I know nothing

about. I believe you have TOO much thyroid hormones and you need to

have less. The only way for that to happen is to take the

anti-thyroid medicines they give Graves's people.

Now, with that said...I spent months listening to people tell me where

my labs should be and that I was hypothyroid and I should take this

medication or that medication and one was poison and one was the

miracle cure. I just happen to be one of the odd ducks where my TSH

is suppressed (almost all the time now) and my Free T3 and Free T4 are

on the lower end of the normal scale. I actually had people screaming

at me that I HAD to have my Free's in upper part of the range,

believed it, tried to get it there and went totally hyper. I think I

am a tiny bit hypo now but I feel a lot better than when I was hyper.

Do you have the shakes or tremors? Heart palpitations, little hot

flashes or inability to stand the heat? Are you gaining weight and

hungry like crazy? Bone tired where every cell in your body just

wants to sleep? This is how I felt when I went hyper. Oh, my hair

was falling out then and now it is falling out like crazy. Pretty

soon I am going to be bald if it doesn't stop! Dead serious because

so much is coming out I have to go around my hair 4 times with a pony

tail holder and I only use to go around twice. I am going to cut

about 4 " off next week and hope it gets better or helps it some. I

have pretty long brown hair but thin, thin, thin.

Anyway, I ramble...do your research and I know it is very difficult to

do when you feel like crap. Don't believe anyone or everything. Take

it all and do what feels right for you. I know I need a tiny bit more

thyroid medicine but not much and definetly not enough to get me to

the high end of normal for my labs. I thought I was going to die

there! That is where you are by the way. Each of us is different and

there are some people who are very serious about their opinions of

what works for them. It sure didn't work for me even if it worked for

90% of the thyroid people out there.

It worries me that your doctor only ran regular T3 and T4 instead of

Free T's. That is a sign that he may not know what he is doing

because the Free T's are what is available to your cells and that is

the truer picture. The TSH? Well, I don't put a lot of stock into TSH

BUT it has value and yours screams hyper. Mine does too but I am NOT

hyper at this point. I don't have any antibodies left because they

have destroyed all they can and they are gone. If you have

Hashimoto's then you could be doing the see-saw that the last few

posts talked about where your thyroid sputters and works too well then

doesn't work much then kicks in and over works then stops. It can be

pure hell when that happens. If you are taking Synthroid or another

Thyroid hormone then when your own thyroid kicks in you are getting

too much. There isn't a lot you can do except get through it. I have

read that the Synthroid can help calm the antibodies down so they

don't do as much damage so quickly but then I have heard the opposite.

If you have Graves then you don't need any extra thyroid medicine.

You need a good doctor who knows what is going on. Do you know if you

have Graves or Hashis?

I hope I didn't confuse you. I get passionate about this because some

pretty bad advise from a whole lot of folks (from what seemed like the

best thyroid forums around) messed me up and I lost most of a year

being sick and almost unable to function because I followed their

advise. Don't follow mine, just listen and follow your own. Beware

of your doctor too. Most of us have seen many, many doctors who don't

have a clue and I have one of those right now. Long story. BJ knows,

she had him for a doctor too.

Please let us know how you are and more information if you have it and

I apologize if you have posted it already but I can't seem to view the

latest post.

a

>

> Hi Everyone I haven't been on here for quite a while. I have been

> having a very hard time. To much to explain right now. Anyone have any

> ideas on my June and July labs? For June they didn't do my Ft's don't

> know why. T4 10.5 (4.5-12.0) T3 186 (85-205) TSH 0.041L (0.350-5.500)

> Thyroid Peroxidase (TPO) Ab >1000H (0-34) Antithyroglobulin Ab 2762H (0-

> 40). Endo put me on 75mgs of snythroid . July Ft3 499H (230-420) Ft4 1.8

> (0.7-1.8) TSH L<0.03 (0.50-6.00) TSI 282H % baseline <=125 He reduced

> my snythroid to 37.5 My hair is falling out my eyes are still very

> swollen, I'm depressed and tired but don't know if it's my levels or

> stress. Can anyone help? Shirl

>

July 15, 2007

Shirl,

I went back and read your old posts. I do have a life but it is

Sunday afternoon and way too hot to do a darn thing. Honestly, I

think there is a high likelihood you have Graves too. You have had a

mess on your hands and I personally, as I said in the last post, don't

think Free T3 and Free T4 should be as high as most people say they

should be and it can be dangerous.

For me, the best way to determine if you are hypo or hyper is your

symptoms. Since you are on a beta-blocker that means you may be

having heart palpitations and they are probably better because of the

medicine. Are you shakey? My pulse and blood pressure were low but I

shook like a wet dog and my heart was having several palpitations a

minute. I didn't have many clues I was hyper and I will say it again,

my Free T's were low normal. My TSH was .02 but this is my normal.

Most folks said I couldn't have low Free T's and a suppressed TSH at

the same time but my labs for the last 6 months have been the same

over and over. I couldn't go by the lab results at all. My doctor

(whom I loved and retired in April) asked me to consider the fact that

possibly I was hyper. I nearly fell off the chair in disbelieve but I

trusted her. I KNEW I was hypo. Shows me what I know. She asked me

to stop my thyroid medicine for 7 days and see what happens. In 7

days I was substantially better. I was extremely skeptical but I did

it and it worked. The one thing I learned in all of that, back in

April, was I am not like most of the others on the thyroid groups and

I want others to know that they may not be like all of the others on

the thyroid groups.

When I became sick (long story) my TSH was >75 and I had myxadema so

badly I couldn't go up stairs or hold a pencil. I was 33 years old

and thought I was dying. I could barely function and had made a

suicide plan with my husband. He agreed to help me kill myself

because the idiot doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

I was so depressed and so tired of trying to live my life. It was

very sad. Instead of taking me out into the dessert like my husband

said he was doing he drove me to the emergency room but I didn't know

because I was asleep. The emergency room doctor figured it out right

away. I spent a few days in the hospital and then they sent me home.

It took 9 months for my body to get my thyroid levels back to normal.

I don't believe my body has ever gotten back to where it use to be.

My point is that it takes a long time to get back from hypo (at least

at that level) and it doesn't take long to get back from hyper. I am

not talking about the being on the far ends of the spectrum, just a

little high or a little low, enough to feel crappy and have your hair

falling out but able to more or less function. Usually, for me, I can

skip one or two doses of medicine and I notice that I feel better in a

couple of days. What I am trying to say is that if you think you are

hyper then you can skip your medication for a few days and see if

there is a difference. If you are hypo you won't notice it much

right away but hyper, you should notice in a few days. I can't

imagine why your doctors took you off medicine for an entire month and

that happened to me too. I was a disaster in 30 short days. A few

days of experementing won't hurt much. A month can set you back a

long time!

I may not be very popular voicing my opinion here but that is all that

it is, my opinion. I think you are hyper and the folks that are

saying you are right were you should be are not right. But then, they

are probably saying I am wrong so we have freedom of speech working

right here and now. If I had labs like yours I would be a total

disaster hyper mess. Do you feel like you are right where you should

be? I agree with Darla in wondering how you felt during your June

labs before they lowered your dose? From what I gathered your eyes

have been an issue for several months. My eyes never got swollen but

they were so sore and dry and I felt as if I was loosing my vision to

a slight degree. My ears weren't working right either.

Below I posted a few things I found on the web about your antibody

tests. Read them carefully. The last sentence in the last paragraph

says statistically you probably have Graves as well as Hashi's.

Again, forgive me if you have already established this with us. I

didn't see anything in your old posts except that you said they tested

you for Graves but no results and that you do have Hashi's.

Antithyroglobulin Antibodies (Anti-TG Ab) " The prevalence of Anti-TG

Abs in thyroid autoimmune disease is significant (85 percent and 30

percent in Hashimito's thyroiditis and Graves' disease, respectively)

but it is much lower than the prevalence of the Anti-TPO Abs. The

diagnostic information provided by Anti-TPO assays is rarely improved

upon by the addition of an Anti-TG determination. The growing trend is

to adopt the anti-TPO Ab test as the front-line test for autoimmune

disease and no longer to routinely use the anti-TG assay routinely for

this purpose. "

Antithyroid Peroxidase Antibody (Anti-TPO) " Anti-TPO Abs mediate

antibody-dependent thyroid cell destruction; levels correlate with the

active phase of the disease. Measurement of this autoantibody is

useful for resolving the diagnostic dilemma presented by the apparent

inconsistency between elevated TSH and normal free T4 results. Given

abnormally elevated TSH and euthyroid T4 results, a positive anti-TPO

Ab test provides strong evidence for early, subclinical autoimmune

disease. This assay is also used to monitor response to immunotherapy,

to identify at-risk individuals (with family history of thyroid

disease), and as a predictor of postpartum thyroiditis. Elevated

levels are found in virtually all cases of Hashimoto's thyroiditis and

in approximately 85 percent of Graves' disease cases. "

Hope that gives you more food for thought. Once again, only my humble

opinion from my small nightmare. Rather, plural, nightmares...

I wear a lot of " Life is Good " T-shirts by the way.