Thyroid lab results for input please

[SlimmerMe]

TSH 0.183 reference .450-4.500

T4, free direct 1.05 reference 0.82-1.77

TPO 57 reference 0-34

Thyrotropin receptor ab 0.74 reference 0.00-1.75

Reverse T3 176 reference 90-350

T3 2.6 reference 2.0-4.4

[funkymonk]

Is it just me or is everything in range except TPO?

[SlimmerMe]

TSH is off......and this is what puzzles me.....
usually it is low ( meaning a high number) and now it is a low number which means my thyroid is not low....so this is why I want input

[funkymonk]

TSH is in the range you posted, unless you meant .450-4.500

[SlimmerMe]

OOPS! you are correct....I need to change that! thanks

[BigMatt]

Are you taking ANY Thyroid Meds(Cytomel ,Levo,Armour) At the moment and what dosage if your on meds

[SlimmerMe]

taking synthroid 112 mcg
cytomel 10 mcgs
and starting to up the t3

[Termin8r27]

Interesting Slimmer...some info/questions for you....

First off, I would think your TSH would be low because you are on Thyroid meds and your feedback loop is cutting back on your TSH...?

Secondly, my wife has seen my total transformation after getting on HRT. She's battled with some depression, anxiety, libido and fatigue issues, but they have gotten worse after having two kids now.

We decided it might be hormonal and to get checked out...she went to an Endo and they didn't do a full workup like we wanted (we're working on that with my AA clinic) but did test her Thyroid and Cortisol along with some other things such as RBC and WBC.

Her Thryoid numbers all came back normal, except her TPO. She measured 47. Keep in mind that she's had those symptoms above for years and they've gotten worse over the past year. The Endo immediately says she has Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and there's nothing to be done other than to check up on her every 3 months until her thryoid starts to fail and at that point to get on Thyroid meds. The Endo also says she should have no symptoms even though Hashimoto's is an AutoImmune Disease that just happens to attack the Thyroid.

Now my questions/comments to you if you can help... =)

Were you diagnosed with Hashi's?
Everything I've read says she shouldn't be having symptoms until the thryoid starts failing and that there can be some TPO present and it doesn't necessarily mean Hashi's. Also it seems that most of the people that actually have Hashi's have REALLY high TPO #'s - like in the multiple hundreds or multiple thousands and their Thyroid started failing in their 20's or 30's (my wife is 32). We've been plowing through all the information that's out there and are looking to meet with another Endo for a second test/opinion and my AA Clinic.

I still think she has an Estrogen and/or Testosterone problem, but we're waiting to get the full blood test done with my AA Clinic and don't know for sure yet...

[SlimmerMe]

Interesting Slimmer...some info/questions for you....

First off, I would think your TSH would be low because you are on Thyroid meds and your feedback loop is cutting back on your TSH...?

could you please elaborate here...maybe I am getting sleepy!


Secondly, my wife has seen my total transformation after getting on HRT. She's battled with some depression, anxiety, libido and fatigue issues, but they have gotten worse after having two kids now.

I did BHRT for 9 months and felt great but went cold turkey since I was on hgh too and wanted to clean out and start the bhrt by itself since I was packing on the pounds with the combination yet the 'feel good" feeling kept me in denial...but thanks for thinking of this

We decided it might be hormonal and to get checked out...she went to an Endo and they didn't do a full workup like we wanted (we're working on that with my AA clinic) but did test her Thyroid and Cortisol along with some other things such as RBC and WBC.

Her Thryoid numbers all came back normal, except her TPO. She measured 47. Keep in mind that she's had those symptoms above for years and they've gotten worse over the past year. The Endo immediately says she has Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and there's nothing to be done other than to check up on her every 3 months until her thryoid starts to fail and at that point to get on Thyroid meds. The Endo also says she should have no symptoms even though Hashimoto's is an AutoImmune Disease that just happens to attack the Thyroid.

Now my questions/comments to you if you can help... =)

Were you diagnosed with Hashi's? no
Everything I've read says she shouldn't be having symptoms until the thryoid starts failing and that there can be some TPO present and it doesn't necessarily mean Hashi's. Also it seems that most of the people that actually have Hashi's have REALLY high TPO #'s - like in the multiple hundreds or multiple thousands and their Thyroid started failing in their 20's or 30's (my wife is 32). We've been plowing through all the information that's out there and are looking to meet with another Endo for a second test/opinion and my AA Clinic.

I still think she has an Estrogen and/or Testosterone problem, but we're waiting to get the full blood test done with my AA Clinic and don't know for sure yet...

make sure to get a lot of info on test first.... I think the test is what blew me up too

THANKS so much for your detailed response. I appreciate it. I am plowing thru all of this too and I have heard it takes up to a year sometimes to get the hormones sorted out. Well.....maybe longer.....I started last January!

As I mentioned I went cold turkey so I could start all over and do one thing at a time. I was on E2,E3, Progesterone, Test and Dhea and hgh and thyroid.....now I am just on the thyroid and want to get that balanced plus the adrenals and cortisol and then go from there. I think so much of it has to do with the adrenals is my hunch.

[Termin8r27]

make sure to get a lot of info on test first.... I think the test is what blew me up too

THANKS so much for your detailed response. I appreciate it. I am plowing thru all of this too and I have heard it takes up to a year sometimes to get the hormones sorted out. Well.....maybe longer.....I started last January!

As I mentioned I went cold turkey so I could start all over and do one thing at a time. I was on E2,E3, Progesterone, Test and Dhea and hgh and thyroid.....now I am just on the thyroid and want to get that balanced plus the adrenals and cortisol and then go from there. I think so much of it has to do with the adrenals is my hunch.

I bellieve your TSH is low because our body has a negative feedback loop to manage its hormone production and conversion. Since it detects adequate levels of Thyroid hormones, it's cutting back on TSH since TSH is what stimulates your Thyroid to produce more Thyroid hormones. I'm not %100 here on this, so please wait for some others to chime in or double check as I haven't dealt with the Thyroid much up until now, but am still pretty sure this is the case.

When you say the Testosterone blew you up, do you mean added muscle and/or fat?

Do you mind me asking how old you are too?

What symptoms and reasoning did you get on HRT? Curious if you were having the same symptoms as my wife. What were your blood test results before you got on HRT - did you have any specific problems/abnormally low hormones outside of Thyroid?

Thank YOU as well for your response...really hard to find other women on HRT and so I'm kind of peppering you with this stuff and hope you don't mind. =)

[SlimmerMe]

Thanks....the reason I ask about the "low" TSH is because I want to make sure we are speaking the same language. To me the TSH does not look low since low means high and vice versa as the numbers are to be read in a "inverse" way. This is why I am confused. Maybe I am reading this wrong. This is why I posted this to get help. So thanks for sticking with me. I was thinking that the low TSH number actually means that my thyroid is not so low anymore yet I still have the TPO positive which makes no sense. Am I making sense?

The testosterone blew me up as in getting bigger but remember I had a huge cocktail of things especially the hgh. The combo of test and hgh is what BB's want.....so....I became a good contestant! LOL! ( not really LOL )

My symptoms for going on bhrt were many but mainly for simply improved quality of life.
I went to an AA doc and he put me on E2,E3, Progesterone, Test and Dhea plus the HGH and all though I felt better than ever in my life, I just kept packing the pounds on; even though I was cardio obsessively and working out and had a personal trainer and walking my dog and even cut out sugar entirely. So something was off. So after realizing that after 9 months of becoming someone I just could not continue to be, I went cold turkey to clean out so I could study more about this and potentially start over.

I have read so many books on this. It is because of all of this that brought me to this site. I wanted to know more and more. And after researching, my take is: since we females have so many hormones at play here there has to be so much more fine tuning. Like Suzanne Somers says in her latest book "Breakthrough," she says something like this: throw a little testosterone at a man and he is happy! She also says it takes a lot of tweaking. And she is also on the Wiley/cycling protocol which I was not. And she adheres to the fact that women will gain weight on the "continual" dosing which I did. Yet what she and Wiley do are very controversial and some doctors refuse to prescribe this with the extremely high dosage. I have a friend out in LA who is on it and loves it. We are all so different which is why we ALL have to be proactive to get it right. Hence why we have each other here to talk it out I suppose.

Just for a note: while I was typing this I got a call back from a top doctor BHRT doctor, Dr Daved Rosensweet. He is very cutting edge with hormones. We spoke a week or so ago and this was our second chat. He wants for me to start from scratch. But there is a catch....I will have to go to Florida before he will prescribe anything. And as a funny note: he said to me and I kid you not, "You sound like you want to be a doctor!"........I laughed and asked him if he was psychic!

[Termin8r27]

Yeah, if there is an inverse relationship with TSH that I was not aware of then my previous statement could be wrong. I'll do some more reading/research.

What's interesting to me again is the TPO - as the one Endo we met with, that specializes in Thyroid problems says that any TPO over 35 is an indicator of Hashimoto's...but after all the research we've done it seems that that is not consistently true. Some people (more times females - 20:1 female to male ratio) have slightly elevated TPO numbers but don't have Hashi's and it's genetic either way.

Thanks for all of the above insight as well. I might PM you sometime in the future to bounce some ideas off of you as we move forward with trying to figure out my Wife's issues. =)

No surprise as well and just as you say, I think most of us (especially in the HRT section) are people that won't just take what's given to us or thrown at us, but take our wellness and total well being in our own hands and must act as a Dr for us and our families in many ways. =D

[BigMatt]

You should try to lay off any of those meds.

Try LEGIT Armour thyroid 3Grain per day split in 2 dose.

[SlimmerMe]

You should try to lay off any of those meds.

Try LEGIT Armour thyroid 3Grain per day split in 2 dose.

you are saying 180 mcgs of Armour?
I was on Armour but only 90 mcgs.....for about 4 months....just switched to the synthetics a couple months ago and my levels are better than before

[SlimmerMe]

Bump....where o where are PPC and Vetteman and ForrestTrees?.........and anyone else who is interested in thyroid.....

[SlimmerMe]

bump!

[PPC]

Hey...I don't know where Vetteman is....he is missed as is Forrest.

But my take...and I am not a thyroid expert is that your TSH is doing what it is supposed to with the meds you are on. From my limited knowldege, TSH should sit at around .5 while on meds (either T3, T4 or a combo). So...you may be a little more suprressed than is optimum.

But...your T3 is still quite low at 2.6. So your T4 is not converting into T3 very well I would say. It must be pooling. Like you mentioned, that has eveything to do with your adrenals and out put of cortisol since it is cortisol which allows this conversion to take place. Also, one must have adequate ferritin levels and B12.

I don't know....how you feel is the question.

I'm not sure the hashimotos antibodies ever go away. Some have had success with low dose naltrexone for that condition but that is anecdotal.

Have you ever tried a compounded pregnenolone cream to help your cortisol line production? That may help raise T3 some. Either that or going straight to HC...but that is it's own kettle of worms.

I wish I could give you better direction.

[SlimmerMe]

Thanks PPC~