Guest guest Posted April 7, 2010 Report Share Posted April 7, 2010 Patti, I so sympathize with you. Please let me say, do not self medicate! Make that your very last option. The first thing I would do is to get into another endo that specializes in GED. It sounds to me like you are close to Graves with the TSH being that low. Some endos have narrowed the 'normal range' for TSH to 0.3-3.0 which would put you out of normal range. Different labs have different ranges. I am going thru a swing right now...it is crazy. Jan 6, 2010 my TSH was 2.52, March 11, 2010 TSH was 0.45, March 25, 2010 TSH was 4.91. In two weeks it went up over 4 points! I know this is way too complicated for me to attempt to control on my own. That is my advice, get another opinion. You might also need an ultrasound of your thyroid. Mine is enlarged as well.I hope things go better for you!To: Thyroiditis Sent: Wed, April 7, 2010 7:57:48 PMSubject: T3, T4 free and TSH I am frustrated and need some help. About 3 months ago I had TMJ surgery. During this surgery my doctor noticed my thyroid was swollen and my eyes looked like someone who had thyroid problems. I need to add that I have fibromyalgia as well as a few other conditions. I decided to check out what may be causing a swollen thyroid. So as I always do, I went to webmd and learned about thyroid disorders. I was told that you could have an irregular thyroid level or an autoimmune thyroid problem such as graves disease or hashimotos. When I was reading about hashimotos and got to the symptoms I about fell over. I had all but one of the symptoms. Armed with this information I decided to go to my GP and ask him. He ran some blood work and my thyroid levels were: T3= 77 normal levels for my lab are (76-181) only 1 point above normal T4 Free= 1.0 (.8 to 1.8) only .2 above normal TSH= .91 (.34 to 4.82) According to him my levels were fine and he did not see a problem, but refered me to an endocronologist. I went to see the endocronologist. She told me based on her exam and my symptoms alone she would have diagnosed me with hashimotos. However since my thyroid levels were normal (very, very low normal) she wanted to wait 6 weeks and run the levels again. If they were still low she would go ahead and put me on a low dose of thyroid in an effort to help control some of my symptoms. 6 weeks later the lab tests were ran again. T3= 104 T4 Free= .9 TSH= .47 So I called her to see what we were going to do, and she had a secretary call me back and tell me everything was normal and we would do nothing. Needless to say this has me upset because all the symptoms are still there. Yes my T3 slightly increased, but my T4Free and TSH went down. They both are barely in the normal catagory. The other thing that alarms me is that in January of 2009 or a year ago my TSH was at 1.473. Now it is .47. So my question is what should I do? Should I get a second opinion, or take natural supplements? With my fibromyalgia I am more sensitive to everything. I have found that normal for others is not normal for me. It is not like I want another illness, but if I do have hashimotos and medicine could make me feel better, than I want to find that out. Please help me. If someone can put in plain language exactly what the difference between T3, T4free and TSH is, I would also appreciate this. Desperate in Kansas Patti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 8, 2010 Report Share Posted April 8, 2010 Have you had your antibodies tested? You really need them tested. Have you had an ultrasound done to make sure you have no nodules in your thyroid causing it to be enlarged? Hashimoto is an autoimmune disease you know you have it if your antibodies Thyroglobulin and or thyroid peroxidase levels are very elevated it is not good to say by symptoms alone you have hashi because that may not be the case it could be another underlying problem. I would suggest you have you have your antibodies tested and have a full blood screening done to check for other problems to that could be causing your problems and symptoms. When you get your blood screening done post the results (along with the ranges because every lab range is different) the TSH levels however are suggested to be between .3-3.0 and once diagnosed and being treated for hashi it is suggested the be at or below 1.0. TSH should be low the lower the better for a hashi patient. when you have labs done you should have t3 t4 free t4 free t3 and TSH all done. I also wanted to say when and if doctors do determine you need thyroid meds I personally would NEVER suggest synthroid or any synthetic thyroid hormone I was on synthroid for 2 years and it made me worse and made me GAIN weight (just what we do not want) and I am not alone many others have the same experience. If you can find Armour you can try that but I use and recommend a compounded thyroid! If I can help more let me know... Good luck > > I am frustrated and need some help. > > About 3 months ago I had TMJ surgery. During this surgery my doctor noticed my thyroid was swollen and my eyes looked like someone who had thyroid problems. I need to add that I have fibromyalgia as well as a few other conditions. > > I decided to check out what may be causing a swollen thyroid. So as I always do, I went to webmd and learned about thyroid disorders. I was told that you could have an irregular thyroid level or an autoimmune thyroid problem such as graves disease or hashimotos. When I was reading about hashimotos and got to the symptoms I about fell over. I had all but one of the symptoms. > > Armed with this information I decided to go to my GP and ask him. > He ran some blood work and my thyroid levels were: > T3= 77 normal levels for my lab are (76-181) only 1 point above normal > T4 Free= 1.0 (.8 to 1.8) only .2 above normal > TSH= .91 (.34 to 4.82) > > According to him my levels were fine and he did not see a problem, but refered me to an endocronologist. > > I went to see the endocronologist. She told me based on her exam and my symptoms alone she would have diagnosed me with hashimotos. However since my thyroid levels were normal (very, very low normal) she wanted to wait 6 weeks and run the levels again. If they were still low she would go ahead and put me on a low dose of thyroid in an effort to help control some of my symptoms. > > 6 weeks later the lab tests were ran again. > T3= 104 > T4 Free= .9 > TSH= .47 > > So I called her to see what we were going to do, and she had a secretary call me back and tell me everything was normal and we would do nothing. Needless to say this has me upset because all the symptoms are still there. Yes my T3 slightly increased, but my T4Free and TSH went down. They both are barely in the normal catagory. The other thing that alarms me is that in January of 2009 or a year ago my TSH was at 1.473. Now it is .47. > > So my question is what should I do? Should I get a second opinion, or take natural supplements? With my fibromyalgia I am more sensitive to everything. I have found that normal for others is not normal for me. It is not like I want another illness, but if I do have hashimotos and medicine could make me feel better, than I want to find that out. > > Please help me. If someone can put in plain language exactly what the difference between T3, T4free and TSH is, I would also appreciate this. > > Desperate in Kansas > Patti > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 8, 2010 Report Share Posted April 8, 2010 I also wanted to post this link up for you so you can better understand testing. http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/tsh/test.html I really like the chart they have that explains the levels and what they would mean it helped me at first because I used to get really confused. for example my last levels where TSH 30.8 (yes really 30.8 and range .3-3.0) so it is very high then my t4 and free t4 were far below normal and my t3 was normal so when you look at the chart for high tsh, low t4 and normal t3 it is Hypothyroidism. Hashi is hypo but occasionally hashi patients can go hyper. > > I am frustrated and need some help. > > About 3 months ago I had TMJ surgery. During this surgery my doctor noticed my thyroid was swollen and my eyes looked like someone who had thyroid problems. I need to add that I have fibromyalgia as well as a few other conditions. > > I decided to check out what may be causing a swollen thyroid. So as I always do, I went to webmd and learned about thyroid disorders. I was told that you could have an irregular thyroid level or an autoimmune thyroid problem such as graves disease or hashimotos. When I was reading about hashimotos and got to the symptoms I about fell over. I had all but one of the symptoms. > > Armed with this information I decided to go to my GP and ask him. > He ran some blood work and my thyroid levels were: > T3= 77 normal levels for my lab are (76-181) only 1 point above normal > T4 Free= 1.0 (.8 to 1.8) only .2 above normal > TSH= .91 (.34 to 4.82) > > According to him my levels were fine and he did not see a problem, but refered me to an endocronologist. > > I went to see the endocronologist. She told me based on her exam and my symptoms alone she would have diagnosed me with hashimotos. However since my thyroid levels were normal (very, very low normal) she wanted to wait 6 weeks and run the levels again. If they were still low she would go ahead and put me on a low dose of thyroid in an effort to help control some of my symptoms. > > 6 weeks later the lab tests were ran again. > T3= 104 > T4 Free= .9 > TSH= .47 > > So I called her to see what we were going to do, and she had a secretary call me back and tell me everything was normal and we would do nothing. Needless to say this has me upset because all the symptoms are still there. Yes my T3 slightly increased, but my T4Free and TSH went down. They both are barely in the normal catagory. The other thing that alarms me is that in January of 2009 or a year ago my TSH was at 1.473. Now it is .47. > > So my question is what should I do? Should I get a second opinion, or take natural supplements? With my fibromyalgia I am more sensitive to everything. I have found that normal for others is not normal for me. It is not like I want another illness, but if I do have hashimotos and medicine could make me feel better, than I want to find that out. > > Please help me. If someone can put in plain language exactly what the difference between T3, T4free and TSH is, I would also appreciate this. > > Desperate in Kansas > Patti > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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