Thyroid results

[Cat80]

I saw my Dr today who said my thyroid is borderline underactive. She said normal results are 11-23 and mine was 11. I am being retested again in 2 weeks (will have been 6 weeks since my last blood test) and she said if no better she will start me on thyroxine as I am already having symptoms (fatigue, moods low, nausea, weight gain etc). She's also written on the bloods form that she wants my thyroid antibodies testing. Do you know why that would be? Just a bit worried, always am when a new health problem arises.

[Morrow]

I have an underactive thyroid(hypothyroidism) and her checking your thyroid antibodies will just give her a clearer picture of what is going on with your thyroid. Don't worry.:) I know that's easy to say, but it will be ok. If your next blood test comes in low again, you will take thyroxine, once a day, every day, and probably have your levels tested every 6 months. I have had hypothyroidism for the past 15 yrs.
Labs I recently had to check my levels:
*Free T4
*TSH
*TOTAL T3

[lelespears]

All normal for dr to request that, seems to be on the ball. It usually explains if it's autoimmune or not,

Morrow what's your t4 & tsh when u feel at your best??

Lele x

[Cat80]

Thank you for the replies, reassuring.

Do the tablets really make you feel better? Anything to help the fatigue and lose some weight

[countrygirl]

I am ex thyroid advice charity advisor.

In a nutshell the thyroxine medication should make you feel alot better but it might not make you feel completely better.

The reason for this is that synthetic thyroxine replaces the most important hormones your thyroid naturally produces but it does not replace all of them.
Some people find that all their symptoms disappear after a few months on the tablets but a large majority find that symptoms remain - the most common is that they cannot lose weight and have very dry skin. Some Drs believe that once your thyroid has become underactive then the effect on lowering your metabolic rate stays to some degree but some people find that they do lose weight.

What I was taught was to tell new patients that hopefully after taking the meds for some months and their levels stablising then they might find that they slowly lose weight and other symptoms improve hugely but not to expect this to happen completely as alot of people are left with some degree of their orginal symptoms even if their blood results are in normal range.
The problem with normal range is that this range is very wide and no one knows what your personal normal is within this range, alot of guess work together with symptoms and blood results for your Dr!

It is normal for Dr to test for antibodies to determine what is the cause of your underactive thyroid but whatever the cause the treatment is same.
It is predominantly a female disorder and hardly affects men at all and it does run through the female side of families. Every single femal in my family has thyroid problems!