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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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The Q & A with Elaine Moore

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7/15/2010 3:27 PM

yorkylass

Joined: 3/26/2009

Posts: 16

Your help please.

Hi Elaine, I hope you can help me, I'll give you a quick recap.

Diagnosed with Graves disease Oct 08, on meds for 18 months.

3 weeks after stopping PTU my labs were TSH 0.52 (0.38-5.5) Free T4 11.8 (11.5-22.7) Free T3 5.0 (3.5-6.5)

I was very tired, lethargic, had major hairloss, constipation, the runs and hypoglycimic symptoms.

My gp started me on 50mg levo and I had an immediate improvement.

4 weeks later my endo told me to stop the levo as my results were TSH 0.06 Free T4 14.7 Free T3 5.2

I told my endo of the tiredness and lethargy and was finding it increasingly hard to cope with it, he did more tests.

Today I've seen him again, it's been 5 weeks med free and my results are TSH 0.5 Free T4 11.7 (new range 10.0-18.7) Free T3 4.4 (3.5-6.5)

He says I'm fine. Apart from my ferritin which came back 5 weeks ago at 14 (22-322) he's writing to my gp to prescribe me iron pills which will take another week.

My queries are, are my labs really ok?

Will treating my low ferritin improve my well being?

Or is he treating a symptoms of my thyroid problems and not the cause of my very ill health?

Thank You Elaine

Diane

7/16/2010 2:01 AM

Elaine

Joined: 8/1/2008

Posts: 3174

Re: Your help please.

Hi Diane,

It's unfortunate that your doctor became concerned about your low TSH. The problem is that TSH receptor antibodies (particularly blocking ones) are falsely lowering this result. Even if this wasn't the case, a very large study from the UK (16,426 patients) recently published showed that TSH levels on the low side (between .04 and 0.4) do no cause an increased risk of symptoms associated with hyperthyroidism. These results were presented in March at the Society for Endocrinology BES conference in Manchester, UK.

Mary Shomon wrote an article about this in a recent newsletter and the American Association of Autoimmune and Related Diseases also included an article on this in their last newsletter, www.aarda.org and it may already be available online.

I'd show your doctor the article if you can find it. It's main author is Dr. Graham Leese of the University of Dunde, Tayside UK. Let him know that you feel that your levels, which are clearly on the low side, are too low for your body's needs and are causing symptoms of hypothryoidism. It's also true that the low ferritin is related to the hypothyroidism. Best to you, Elaine

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