Re: Re: one step forward, one step back to Kiki

[Guest guest]

Good for you kiki. What you are doing is what caused me to realize that there

was a problem with myself. Something about having all those labs sitting in

front of you and comparing how you felt and how well you were doing at these

specific testing times shows a 'real picture' of our health issues with thyroid

problems. I was never more surprised when I first had to change to my Endo #2.

After a year of mismanagement on meds, I realized that those dr's who think #'s

reflect " hyper " are just so wrong. It's never just about the #'s. Symptoms

have to be included into the mix. I think the single most important part of

this disease and finding out what works for us is to actually make sure we have

those tests in hand at our appts, which sure helped me tremendously.

I've been hyperT/Graves and medicated to suppress the thyroid overaction, so I

know full well what hyper is. I've been overmedicated which made me hypoT, with

a dr who only tested T3, T4, and TSH. I have no clue how he thought he could

get me feeling better when he couldn't even test the unbound hormones as FreeT3

and FreeT4 would have shown him. I'm begining to think that any dr who is going

to treat hypothyroidism needs to have that in his background of actually being

hypo. lol. Maybe they could figure it out then? Labs tend to confuse dr's who

are only going by 'textbook' symptoms and those of us who feel the effects of

this disease sure can figure it out, so what problem they have with it is beyond

me. lol. To this day, my TSH under 1., and my FreeT3 and FreeT4 have to be in

the upper ranges, which is what first got my diagnosis of hyperT/Graves. But

without symptoms, I still have to keep my numbers in that same framework or I am

hypo.

I'm now on 3 1/2 grains of armour, and suspect that I'll have to up it another

1/4 or 1/2 grain soon.

SandyE~Houston

Re: one step forward, one step back to Kiki

Hi Margreet - Most recent lab work (on 2.5 gr) indicates hyper. I

claim I'm anything but, so here goes:

TSH <.0001

FT4 1.38 (.8 - 1.8)

FT3 443 (240 - 420)

About 6 months ago I wrote a form letter and sent it out to all of my

former physicians requesting my records. I used the information to do

some data analysis (I have 6 years worth of lab tests). I found out

several interesting things from my records:

- TSH is in no way correlated with the free hormone levels

- TSH is in no way correlated with how well I feel (Duh)

- My blood pressure has been steadily climbing with my weight gain,

so I'm assuming there's a connection (Again, duh)

Also, my endocrinologist had been lying to me regarding free hormone

levels to justify reducing my meds. I've come to expect negligent

health care from physicians, but for some reason blatantly lying to a

patient seems to have crossed a line.

Of course, these are all conclusions regarding my own personal

thyroid history. So I can't generalize them to the entire population

of Hashimoto's sufferers (much like current medicine uses their

limited knowledge to treat us and keep us miserable) or physicians

(though I haven't personally met one who didn't fit the negligent

model yet).

I have been going slow with the increases and using the

Overstimulation Questionnaire at www.drlowe.com to make sure I'm not

overdoing it. So far, so good. Also, my BBT remains low (96.8 to 97.2

most days).

I'm convinced I'm one of those lucky people who may respond to

supraphysiologic doses of thyroid hormones, and nothing less. It will

be interesting to find out, as long as I go about it carefully and

continue monitoring my clinical presentation.

> to add extra T3. (I would feel extremely hyper with that!). Do you

> have any recent labwork?

>

> Margreet.