1.69 TSH but feeling lousy....?

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone - a belated happy New Year to you all.

Just wondering if anyone knows or can suggest reading material about the

relationship between TSH and wellbeing. I have been on 75mcg levothyroxine for a

couple of months, and my TSH has come back today as being 1.69 (0.5 - 5.5).

Pretty good, but I am wondering why I am not feeling anywhere near as well as I

did 2 months ago when my TSH was around 15. I am very tired, emotional,

irritable (really selling myself well here!) and my period is quite late which

is unusual (pregnancy test negative although the GP has recommended a retest in

3 weeks).

I have never been debilitated by my Hashimoto's as I know some of you are but

there never seems to be a logical relationship between my TSH reading and how I

feel, like there seems to be for most other people.

Any ideas would be gratefully received!

Thanks

adele x

[Guest guest]

Just wondering if anyone knows or can suggest reading material about therelationship between TSH and wellbeing. I have been on 75mcg levothyroxine for acouple of months, and my TSH has come back today as being 1.69 (0.5 - 5.5).Pretty good, but I am wondering why I am not feeling anywhere near as well as Idid 2 months ago when my TSH was around 15.

Hello Adele,

Contrary to common belief (at least within the medical establishment) or what your doctor might have told you, your TSH will not give you an indication of how you feel on thyroid medication. A TSH is a useful diagnostic tool, and it has its uses in monitoring to a limited degree once you receive thyroid medication, but you will not automatically feel better once your TSH is within the so-called ref range.

Your TSH at 1.69 is an improvement to previously 15, but it is by no means a `good' reading. By the time most people feel better, their TSH lies between 0 and 1, but that does not mean that a TSH between 0 and 1 guarantees wellbeing. Your doctor needs to check your FT4 and FT3 as well as a TSH – this will give a better indication of what is going on. The TSH alone is useless as a monitoring tool for a medicated patient.

Bottom line - you can't expect to feel 100% after only 2 months on thyroid medication, but you should feel at least better. - If you are not improving, then in all likelihood this particular medication is not working for you. This could have several reasons, but the first step to finding out what is going on is to do a full thyroid panel, which includes the FT4 and FT3 - make sure your doctor orders the FT3 as well, as they are often refused to be done by the lab, so please ask your doctor to specifically request that parameter.

Best wishes,

[Guest guest]

Hi Adele

Hi Adele, I am sorry you are feeling so rotten. Read what Ray

Peat (attached) what Dr Derry (below) have to say about the TSH test:

http://thyroid.about.com/library/derry/bl3a.htm

As the TSH test is not related to the signs and symptoms of low

thyroid (4), treatment using this type of monitoring ends up treating the lab

tests (to make them normal) and not the patient. This does not fit with the

first principle of medical ethics established in Geneva in 1945 " Consider first

the well-being of the patient " . The doses a patient gets when monitored by

the TSH is currently two thirds or less of the well established clinically

effective doses established from 83 years of clinical experience before the TSH

arrived. (5-6)

ff and LoPresti (7) discussed this problem in their conclusions:

" It may be that the critical events controlling thyroid hormone action in

non-thyroidal illness (all illness not related to thyroid) are largely

regulated at the cellular level and that we are naive to believe that we can

make interpretations from circulating thyroid hormones values. " (7)

So the human body can operate at all the different levels of thyroid hormone.

But at the low levels function is poor. At the correct levels the patient copes

well and does well. So the well being of the patient thus depends on the

effective thyroid hormone level not the laboratory thyroid hormone level. So if

a patient has chronic fatigue and cannot function we should use thyroid hormone

to make these people return to normal. If patients are clinically low thyroid

-- they do not die-- they just function at a progressively lower levels. In the

extreme they would be comatose, but this rarely happens now. At the other end

of the scale a person might have a well functioning thyroid and be putting out

enough thyroid hormone to cope with all the stresses of their lives. This means

this normal thyroid person can get on with their life without worrying about

mentally and physically breaking down from the normal hustle and bustle of

today's world. Of course in Graves's disease the thyroid is pumping out too

much thyroid and this has to be treated differently.

(7. ff, J.T., Lopresti, J.S. Nonthyroidal illness.in Werner

and Ingbar's The Thyroid eds Braverman, LE, and Utiger R.D. J.P Lippincott

Company 6th edition, Philadelphia 1991 page 365 and page 36) "

There is obviously something else going on which should be

checked out. Read the attached and see if any of these could be causing you to

feel as you do Adele and ask your GP to check your levels of ferritin, B12, D3,

magnesium, folate, copper and zinc. Should any of these be low in the range,

your thyroid hormone will be unable to get properly absorbed at the cellular

level.

Luv - Sheila

Just wondering if anyone knows or can suggest reading material about the

relationship between TSH and wellbeing. I have been on 75mcg levothyroxine for

a couple of months, and my TSH has come back today as being 1.69 (0.5 - 5.5).

Pretty good, but I am wondering why I am not feeling anywhere near as well as I

did 2 months ago when my TSH was around 15. I am very tired, emotional,

irritable (really selling myself well here!) and my period is quite late which

is unusual (pregnancy test negative although the GP has recommended a retest in

3 weeks).

I have never been debilitated by my Hashimoto's as I know some of you are but

there never seems to be a logical relationship between my TSH reading and how I

feel, like there seems to be for most other people.

Any ideas would be gratefully received!

Thanks

adele x

2 of 2 File(s)

Why thyroid hormone stops working (2).doc

RAY PEAT TSH ARTICLE.doc

[Guest guest]

Could members write using a larger font size please as I read so

much and am finding it difficult when using such a small sized font. It puts a

real strain on my eyes.

Many thanks

Luv - Sheila

Contrary to common belief (at least within the medical

establishment) or what your doctor might have told you, your TSH will not give

you an indication of how you feel on thyroid medication. A TSH is a useful

diagnostic tool, and it has its uses in monitoring to a limited degree

once you receive thyroid medication, but you will not automatically feel better

once your TSH is within the so-called ref range.

Your TSH at 1.69 is an improvement to previously 15,

but it is by no means a `good' reading. By the time most people feel better,

their TSH lies between 0 and 1, but that does not mean that a TSH between 0 and

1 guarantees wellbeing. Your doctor needs to check your FT4 and FT3 as well as

a TSH – this will give a better indication of what is going on. The TSH

alone is useless as a monitoring tool for a medicated patient.

Bottom line - you can't expect to feel 100% after only

2 months on thyroid medication, but you should feel at least better. - If you

are not improving, then in all likelihood this particular medication is not

working for you. This could have several reasons, but the first step to finding

out what is going on is to do a full thyroid panel, which includes the FT4 and

FT3 - make sure your doctor orders the FT3 as well, as they are often refused

to be done by the lab, so please ask your doctor to specifically request that

parameter.

Best wishes,

[Guest guest]

Hi Adele,

Unfortunately it can take 4 months for the TSH to catch up after a change in meds, so this will not help you now! This is what my endo told me. You could of course not be converting & have those problems – I would get the full panel inc RT3 in your position, but as I have said the TSH will still be iffy. How long since you last changed meds?

Val

I have been on 75mcg levothyroxine for a couple of months, and my TSH has come back today as being 1.69 (0.5 - 5.5). Pretty good, but I am wondering why I am not feeling anywhere near as well as I did 2 months ago when my TSH was around 15. I am very tired, emotional, irritable

[Guest guest]

Are you using Windows, and have you got a mouse with a little wheel in the

centre? If so, you can hold down the Control key (Ctrl) and roll the mouse

wheel to make the font bigger or smaller yourself.

Miriam

>

> Could members write using a larger font size please as I read so much and am

> finding it difficult when using such a small sized font. It puts a real

> strain on my eyes.

>

> Many thanks

>

> Luv - Sheila

[Guest guest]

Well - I never did! Honestly, I never knew that before Miriam.

So thanks.

Luv - Sheila

From: thyroid treatment

[mailto:thyroid treatment ] On Behalf Of miriam_hinch

Sent: 21 January 2011 08:06

thyroid treatment

Subject: Re: 1.69 TSH but feeling lousy....?

Are you using Windows, and have you got a mouse with a little wheel in the

centre? If so, you can hold down the Control key (Ctrl) and roll the mouse

wheel to make the font bigger or smaller yourself.

Miriam

>

> Could members write using a larger font size please as I read so much and

am

> finding it difficult when using such a small sized font. It puts a real

> strain on my eyes.

>

> Many thanks

>

> Luv - Sheila

[Guest guest]

>> Well - I never did! Honestly, I never knew that before Miriam. So thanks.

LIKEWISE me - Many thanks, Miriam, that's a great help

[Guest guest]

You're welcome. :-) The size of writing depends on many factors, such as how

your own screen is set up, so it isn't always possible for people posting to

make sure things look a reasonable size at your end.

Miriam

> >

> > Well - I never did! Honestly, I never knew that before Miriam. So

> thanks.

> LIKEWISE me - Many thanks, Miriam, that's a great help []

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

You can also press Ctrl and the + sign which increases text size.However, sometimes it doesn't when email come into Outlook Express, even if OE is configured to receive larger type, as it often reflects the type which has been sent.

LilianOn 21 January 2011 08:06, miriam_hinch <miriam_hinch@...> wrote:

Are you using Windows, and have you got a mouse with a little wheel in the centre?  If so, you can hold down the Control key (Ctrl) and roll the mouse wheel to make the font bigger or smaller yourself.

Miriam

[Guest guest]

Hi Val,

I've been 75mcg for 2 months now and only really slumped in the past couple of

weeks so maybe there are other factors as other people have suggested so yes, I

think more tests are needed.

I've had so much blood taken over the past year I'm surprised I'm still

standing!

Thanks Judith - I'll take a look at that file.

have a great weekend everyone

Adele x

>

> Hi Adele,

>

> Unfortunately it can take 4 months for the TSH to catch up after a change in

meds, so this will not help you now! This is what my endo told me. You could

of course not be converting & have those problems †" I would get the full panel

inc RT3 in your position, but as I have said the TSH will still be iffy. How

long since you last changed meds?

>

> Val

>

>