Replies

I'm also going to check my thyroid. I frequently feel cold, and have found losing the last several pounds very very difficult, even with a low-carb regimen. At this point I suspect a hypoactive thyroid. I'm doing testing through the mail.

Go to an endicrinologist.

There is no substitute. Graves disease runs in my mom's paternal family. Several aunts, my great grandfather, my mom and my little brother and I have had it.

It can play havoc on unknowing doctors. You need someone who knows thyroid disorders. They can run the gamut from Graves (hyper) to parathyroid to myxedema (hypo) and a lot of other lesser known disorders like Hashimotos etc.

Hypothyroid is potentially more dangerous than hyperthyroid.

It's all part of a circular feedback between thyroid-thymus-hypathalamus(sic) and the big daddy Pituitary. Best to check it out with the best....it's rarely life threatening but nearly always is life quality threatening and takes a while to adjust or cure.

Just my 2 cents...if I forget to take my synthroid for a few days...I get real sluggish....not fun.

I'm just getting back to this thread, to follow-up.

An interesting board to check for changes in thyroid numbers is the About.com thyroid board. Mary Shomon, an almost-neighbor in Maryland, runs it, has written a book and just published the changes - on the board - about the broadening of TSH levels, meaning that twice as many people as before are considered hypo-thryoid. This is tremendously important information.

I also wonder why it's taken so long for doctors to check the T4 and T3 numbers. It's clear that I haven't been able to convert T4 from Synthoid, into the needed T3. Now that I take the combination of Synthroid and Cytomel (the latter is hideously expensive, BTW), I finally have a normal body temperature. Mine has been 97.2 for years. Try staying warm in the Winter with a sub-normal body temp! For years, they told me I had "Raynaud's Phenomenon", which I still do but it didn't explain all of the coldness I felt.

Sometimes, even I have trouble getting to the right article, so I went off and found it. Here it is:-
http://thyroid.about.com/library/weekly/aanewTSHrange.htm

Good luck.