Value of TSH was: Normal body temperature.98.2

[Guest guest]

> I can't afford to order my own tests and meds. It is all I can do to

> get a few of the most important supplements.

Well even this may be too expensive an option for you, but

www.healthcheckusa offers a Thyroid Panel II (Free T3, Free T4, and TSH) for

$85, and I think there's a discount code you can use to get it even cheaper.

That price includes the cost of the blood draw. Their anti-thyroid

antibodies test is $70. There's also saliva testing through canary club for

thyroid and adrenal hormones for less than $200.

> I figure I will just let

> them do the tests and do my own interpretation of the results. Just

> for amusement I will badger them with occasional opinions of my own.

> Not that anything I say is worthwhile if they won't look at the

> evidence and available research papers.

Hope that works for you. You can also monitor your temperatures as a

guideline. But if they won't prescribe you high enough doses of thyroid,

what will you do then?

> Actually I found out my last TSH was 1.9. Just goes to show you it

> doesn't matter how much thyroid hormone I have. If all it has to work

> with is fluoride, chloride and bromide it won't help me much.

And maybe you have thyroid antibodies.

> Anyway, I am hoping you guys will steer me in the right direction if I

> get off track. I am doing 4 drops Lugol's twice a day with a generous

> 1/4 tsp sea salt, Mg, Se. I have to give up on splitting the thyroid

> pill as 1/2 didn't get me halfway through the morning. I have still

> have some synthroid. I suppose I could augment with that, but my

> better judgement says wait and see if the thyroid won't recover.

> I also am taking 100mg B2 and 400mg B3, 1000mg Vit C three times a day

> with meals, B complex and ALA once. Some of the adrenal support

> formulas look good, but I am out of money for awhile.

If you have any silver amalgam fillings in your teeth, once a day ALA dosing

will exacerbate the mercury toxicity from your fillings.

>

> About the TSH test, I was just saying that if the participants in the

> study that they use to set the norms are not screened for

> hypothyroidism the range is skewed way high, if the iodine-savvy drs

> are right and at least half the population is hypothyroid. It is not

> the test that is bad, but the way it is interpreted. Which is pretty

> much what you said.

> Dorothy

The TSH test is a sensitive measure of the amount of TSH in your blood. But

using TSH as a measure of thyroid levels is bad, it's not just the way it is

interpreted, it's not just that the ranges are skewed high, although those

factors are also relevant. Looking at my TSH result of 0.01, none of those

factors above enter into it, any doctor would say I was unequivocably

hyperthyroid if all they considered was my TSH, yet I was definitely

hypothyroid, both by FT3/4 results and by clinical symptoms.

Moving beyond my own personal example, according to research that can be

accessed here http://www.thyroidinstitute.org/research.html,

" Brachioradialis reflexometry (BR)correlates the best with resting metabolic

rate (RMR) and ... seems to be the best parameter to titrate thyroid

dose...RMR must increase approximately 383 kcalories above baseline values

to achieve thyroid adequacy and resolution of symptoms. However, TSH values

fall below 0.3mU/L when RMR is increased only about 139 kcalories above

baseline values. "

In the conclusion section, " volunteers became functionally normal and

thyroid symptoms resolved when their medication doses were titrated using

RMR and BR as the primary endpoints. Only 14 of over 800 (1.7%) patient

interactions noted symptoms of nervousness, tachycardia, palpitations or

insomnia although TSH levels became < 0.01mU/L. ACTH and prolactin levels

remained normal in patients with no TSH, indicating no suppression of

pituitary function. "

According to that research, TSH was falling into hyperthyroid ranges when

the resting metabolic rate was still less than a third of what it should be

to be optimal. Seems to me this indicates that TSH is a really lousy tool.

Lynn