Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cammy Ortiz on February 18, 2012 at 9:33am

oops I meant TSH, not TSJ lol sorry

Permalink Reply by Regina on February 18, 2012 at 10:57am

I was initially diagnosed with Graves' Disease (hyperthyroidism) and now am hypothyroid.

Anyway, I lived abroad when that all went down, so I had block and replace therapy (google it). I had the standard thyroid level hormone tests though. ENT doctors are not the doctors that are trained to treat these disordered. It actually should be your endocrinologist. I've been to two other doctors since moving back to the States and they're running the same tests. Good for me, now my hormones seem to be in a standard range. I'm still more lethargic than I'd like, but, unlike you, I'm not working out regularly. Until I bring my habits back in line, I'm not going to stress my doctor about my current synthyroid dose.

Anyway, the tests you named should be fine: TSH, T3, T4, etc.

There are tons of forums specifically geared towards thyroid disorders and those communities were amazing for me when I was trying to figure out what was what. I know there is a hyperthyroid one on Yahoo! and a couple that you can find just with a web search. Anyway, good luck. I don't have much more to add but that maybe you should be seeing a specialist, an endo, who specifically deals with thyroid disorders. Being off balance when it comes to your hormones is just horrible. I'm glad mine is under control now and being treated.

Permalink Reply by Cammy Ortiz on February 18, 2012 at 11:10am

Thank you so much for getting back to me. I do see an endo, and they tell me to stay away from my holistic doctor, but to be honest he is the only one who listens to me. I've switched my endos 2x the first one says maybe I'm depressed, or maybe my age is cathing up with my weight (harder to lose weight) or its all in my head, so I went to another endo to see and she was just as bad as the other. ugh. I can't seem to find a good endo who is gonna listen to me on my symptoms, I like how they help me with my diabetes but the thyroid they go by the book. I have an apt. for my holistic internist next week, and I'm gonna bring up some test maybe he can take and see why I get the way I ge with armour, I just wasn't sure on what test to run by him. Maybe something is off and that is affecting why I can't take the armour? or do I need just T4 only meds? or just T3? ugh its so complicated this thyroid thing. lol thank you for your help!

Permalink Reply by Robert Miles on February 18, 2012 at 11:50am

The T3 and T4 tests give useful results if you have a normal level of a certain protein that binds most of the T3 and T4, and therefore work well for most people. But if you don't, the main symptom of this is that treatments based on those tests don't work very well, and you need the FT3 and FT4 tests instead to measure only what isn't bound.

There are now a few medicines other than dessicated thyroid for treating low levels of T3 and FT3. Are your doctors aware of those? Sometimes one of the possible choices works better than the others. Therefore, you could try one of them to test if you're getting a bad reaction to some part of the dessicated thyroid other than the T3 and T4 it contains.

I believe I was able to include the names of those newer medicines in a earlier post I made to a thyroid group on TuDiabetes, so you may want to look through earlier messages if you need those names.

Getting the FT3 level right has the strongest effect on you. I've seen little on whether you also need to get the FT4 level right once the FT3 level is right, except that many endos try to do it anyway.

Permalink Reply by Cammy Ortiz on February 19, 2012 at 7:42am

Thank you Robert. So I need the FT3 and FT4 Checked? this is all so confusing. what other meds are out there? Is it the Cymtomel? or something like that? I have heard of that.. are they on your page so I check them out? so i just might need my T3 upped? and no T4 med? I did read something on that. but will doctors do that? ugh. Thank you!

Permalink Reply by Robert Miles on February 18, 2012 at 12:14pm

For the ferritin, you might check 49 of what units.

I found this information about normal levels:

Adult females: 10-200 ng/mL (10-200 mcg/L)

Adult males: 30-300 ng/mL (30-300 mcg/L)

Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on February 18, 2012 at 1:54pm

What I am concerned about is that you DO have some symptoms which might indicate hypOthyroid, but you reacted with hypERthyroid-like symptoms when you were on medications. Between a rock and a hard place?

I'm not sure what the answer is, because it seems that thyroid function is more complex than the medical profession yet knows about, but it does seem clear that simply taking thyroid replacement medication is not the way to go for you. Maybe you need to be more assertive with your endo about figuring out just what is going wrong?

Permalink Reply by Cammy Ortiz on February 18, 2012 at 3:14pm

Thank you all for getting back to me. I do have some kidney damage, my creatine is at a 1.49, so I'm sure my iron is low because of that,egfr is at 44, my potassium is normal but one number away from the cut off and bun also. I think. I do have antibodies 1000, I think the number was. and they said I hashimotos. My grandmother did have graves disease from my mom side. My fathers side we have hypo, and my 2 sisters have hashimitos also. ugh its so annoying. When I did take the thyroid medicine I felt great! no longer taking naps, cleaned my house my skin cleared up, but then I started getting tightness in the chest and a high heart rate over 100.