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Have you been told that your thyroid blood results look "normal"?
I have personally been told time and time again that my blood test results for my thyroid were normal. Yet I felt horrible and kept chasing for more answers.
I was gaining weight, was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, had every thyroid symptom that women can get, yet I kept being told that my thyroid test results looked normal after only a few months of being put on thyroid medication.
Guess what? I was miserable! I felt terrible! I knew that something wasn't right!
So I began to finally see that not every single thing that I was being told about my thyroid and test results were exactly true.
I knew that the weight gain in my situation was NOT normal but that it was normal when you have hypothyroidism. So then why was this still happening even though all the doctors kept telling me that I was "normal"?
Well, it turns out that my doctors were not being completely clear about what or why they were testing. After a painstakingly long cycle of testing, medications and little symptom relief, I was finally able to figure out what I wasn’t being told about my thyroid test results, and I wanted to share these learnings with you.
When a conventional doctor orders a thyroid test, they usually only measure TSH. This is your thyroid stimulating hormone, which is released from the pituitary gland in the brain and tells the thyroid gland to release more active T3 hormones, or convert inactive T4 to active T3. It is just one hormone involved in proper thyroid function. Now, it is important to understand where your TSH levels are at, but if that’s the only thing that is being tested, it likely won’t give you the entire picture.
They also may test T4 levels, as that is typically what is supplemented in thyroid medication. But again, just looking at TSH and T4 is not giving the full picture of how the thyroid is actually functioning.
If you’re
put on a thyroid medication but still don’t feel good on it, it’s likely that your T4 levels are okay, but it was T3 that you’re missing. This is exactly what was happening to me. I was only being tested for and supplemented with T4, but it was T3 that I mostly lacked. This is why my early
thyroid medications never made me feel better.
This is why you also have to test for free T3, free T4, reverse T3 and thyroid antibodies. Only by having a
complete thyroid panel done will you be able to get to the root cause of your symptoms.
Here’s the thing. I don’t like lab reference ranges. They’re basic generalizations that may not be what’s right for you.
For example, if your doctor sees that your TSH level is at a 5, they might say “yep, that’s within the reference range so this looks normal,” yet I’ve never actually met anyone who feels good at a 5.
For me personally, I know that my TSH level needs to be below 1. If it’s any higher, I will not feel good. So that’s my normal, but it falls outside the typical lab reference range. Again, I only learned this by asking a lot of questions, asking to review results myself, and doing my own research.
It is well within your right to
ask your doctor questions about these two items so you can have a better understanding of how your treatment will go.
If you are interested in a guide with all of this information laid out in a simple form, then
click here for my free guide to the secret to reading your thyroid blood test results.
If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I believe there is no one cookie-cutter solution for women living with hypothyroidism. So make sure that your doctor is giving you the testing and treatment that you actually need!
Phone: (314) 226-3137