need direction for low t4 - Question and Answer Forum - Elaine Moore Graves' Disease and Autoimmune Disease Education

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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

..:: Q & A ::..

THE Q & A

Welcome to The Q&A with Elaine Moore. Registered members are invited to ask any question of Elaine Moore on autoimmune diseases, Graves' disease, other thyroid diseases and subconditions, laboratory work, traditional and complementary medicine, triggers and environmental influences, thyroid and immune disorders in pets and animals, and other relevant areas of inquiry.

Each thread represents one question with one answer and will only appear at the time it is answered. Once answered, further replies cannot be made to the same thread since each thread represents only one question. A new thread will need to be started for additional questions.

Questions are answered solely by Elaine Moore, a medical writer and clinical laboratory scientist, MT, CLS, with more than 30 years of experience in immunology. Moore has also authored and edited over a dozen books in the area of health sciences and is an editor for McFarland Publisher's Health Topics Series.

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need direction for low t4

7/21/2010 9:59 PM

dina

Joined: 7/21/2010

Posts: 2

need direction for low t4

Hi, I just discovered your site and I'm so happy there's help available for people like me.

About two years ago,I had a free t4 of .78 (It was in that range for a few years). My tsh was 1.980 at that time. Another blood test a few months after showed thyroxine free at .58, a t3 of 1.20 and a tsh of 2.54 I was put on 100 mg of synthroid for a couple of years with my free t4 at 1.2, my total t3 at 132, and my tsh at .07 on the last blood test I had on that dose.

I switched endocrinologists and this new one is reducing my synthroid every time I come to him, (now it's at 68 mg because he doesn't like my tsh at 0). But now my free t4 is back to .8 like it was before I started medication, my free t3 is 289, my tsh is .15 and I feel really lousy. For some reason, I think I felt best at either the 100 mg of synthroid or on nothing at all.

Which endocrinologist is correct? What do you recommend?

Is it safe to get pregnant at this time?

Thanks a lot.

7/21/2010 10:37 PM

Elaine

Joined: 8/1/2008

Posts: 3174

Re: need direction for low t

Hi Dina,

The first endo was right. One large new study, which I described here last week, showed that a TSH as low as .04 causes no problems in people on replacement hormone. Sometimes, TSH can even be lower, for instance in patients with blocking TSH receptor antibodies. These antibodies are seen in autoimmune atrophic thyroiditis and they falsely lower the TSH level. You might find this article on autoimmune hypothyroidism helpful.

Best, elaine

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need direction for low t4

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