I'm needing some guidance and understanding as far as my thyroid and understanding what my lab results show, as well as a little bit of wisdom on what this whole thyroid antibody number means -- does any presence of antithyroid antibody mean that you have an autoimmune issue or is there an actual range to consider? Does this automatically lead me to Hashimoto's disease?
Okay -- so, last year I had some lab work done because I was feeling like something was off and it I was wondering if it could have been my thyroid. The doctor ordered only the T4 and the TSH. They were 0.85 (T4) and 4.349 (TSH) and she responded by saying my numbers were fine and sometimes life is just difficult with three little ones and that I should make time to relax and free my life of some stress. What I heard was, "You are overweight and stressed and you have three kids, of course you're tired... and the rest is in your brain." I left there feeling like maybe she was right.
Fast forward to now -- my symptoms have become increasingly difficult to deal with:
- significant hair loss (I used to have really thick hair, it's now about 1/3 of what it was). It's also particularly dry and difficult to deal with. I even have one small bald patch.
- exhausted (even after getting a full nights sleep, getting up in the morning is so hard -- I have begun taking naps anytime during the day that I can, and often "just have to lay down for 10 minutes" before tackling something like making dinner
- weight that wouldn't budge for a long time, then sudden weight loss without effort (although my diet is very different than it used to be and I live in a hot climate now too). I am significantly overweight and happy to lose.
- feeling like nothing interests me -- things that I used to enjoy just seem "blah" to me now
- I feel like my body just feels really weak, and I often feel dizzy
- I feel like I just can't focus -- my brain feels really fuzzy, it's not at all like what it used to be
- I had a year of mid-cycle spotting after having perfect 28-day cycles for my entire menstruating life, then a couple months of regular periods again, now this month af came four days early
- I feel really irritable -- maybe this is just associated with culture shock as I adjust to living in a new place, etc.
- in November, out of the blue, I lost my voice. For about three days I couldn't talk at all.
- two weeks ago, I lost my voice again-- seemingly suddenly, just like last time. It lasted for a couple days.
- since losing my voice two weeks ago, I have felt like I have a lump in my throat... like there is food stuck in there or something. There has been varying degrees of how much it has bothered me, but it is definitely still there (at least to me... you can't see or feel it from the outside). At times I have felt a little panicked about it, feeling like it made it more difficult to breathe, etc.
- I have also been coughing for two weeks (since loosing my voice), but I don't have any other cold symptoms.
- for the past week or two, I just don't have any appetite. There's nothing that sounds good, and a small amount of food seems to be plenty.
- it feels like there is something funny going on in my lungs or something when I breath... like I can't get enough air or something. I don't that all of those will have anything to do with this, but I thought I'd just throw out what came to mind.
Anyhow, here are my labs. I know that some of them are not the ideal ones to test, but I had a difficult time getting these ones done and I'm not sure about the accessibility of all the recommended ones. I live in India and am still learning the language, etc and I don't know what I'll be able to find as far as an endocrinologist goes, but I want to be prepared with some info before I go back in to go over these results with the OBGYN who ordered the tests on my request (even though she told me that "it was unnecessary to order so much lab work, a simple TSH test would do"). I've also included some of the listed reference ranges (that were listed on the paperwork that my labs came back on) since it seems like the numbers are different on these than on a lot of the tests run in the States and Europe.
Labs: Free T3: 3.18 pg/ml
Free T4: 1.3 pg/ml
TSH: 7.0 micro IU/ml
Vitamin B-12: 450.00
Ferritin, serum by CLIA: 55.5
Cortisol, serum by CLIA: 16.74
1,25 Dihydroxy Vitamin D, serum by RIA: 16.00
Microsomal (TPO) Antibody Titre, serum by CMIA: 0.14 (on a listed scale of "up to 5.61 IU/mL")
Thyroglobulin Antibody (ATG), serum by CMIA: 6.10 (on a listed scale of "up to 4.11 IU/mL)
I'm feeling kind of lost and pretty overwhelmed.
The antibody tests run here are "CMIA" tests (Chemiluminescent Microparticle Immunoassay) and apparently this has a very different reference range usually run in the States (apparently the "ELISA" test is usually run in the States). I'm going to post this question elsewhere, but does anyone happen to know how the ranges for these two tests correlate to each other?
Okay -- so, last year I had some lab work done because I was feeling like something was off and it I was wondering if it could have been my thyroid. The doctor ordered only the T4 and the TSH. They were 0.85 (T4) and 4.349 (TSH) and she responded by saying my numbers were fine and sometimes life is just difficult with three little ones and that I should make time to relax and free my life of some stress. What I heard was, "You are overweight and stressed and you have three kids, of course you're tired... and the rest is in your brain." I left there feeling like maybe she was right.
Fast forward to now -- my symptoms have become increasingly difficult to deal with:
- significant hair loss (I used to have really thick hair, it's now about 1/3 of what it was). It's also particularly dry and difficult to deal with. I even have one small bald patch.
- exhausted (even after getting a full nights sleep, getting up in the morning is so hard -- I have begun taking naps anytime during the day that I can, and often "just have to lay down for 10 minutes" before tackling something like making dinner
- weight that wouldn't budge for a long time, then sudden weight loss without effort (although my diet is very different than it used to be and I live in a hot climate now too). I am significantly overweight and happy to lose.
- feeling like nothing interests me -- things that I used to enjoy just seem "blah" to me now
- I feel like my body just feels really weak, and I often feel dizzy
- I feel like I just can't focus -- my brain feels really fuzzy, it's not at all like what it used to be
- I had a year of mid-cycle spotting after having perfect 28-day cycles for my entire menstruating life, then a couple months of regular periods again, now this month af came four days early
- I feel really irritable -- maybe this is just associated with culture shock as I adjust to living in a new place, etc.
- in November, out of the blue, I lost my voice. For about three days I couldn't talk at all.
- two weeks ago, I lost my voice again-- seemingly suddenly, just like last time. It lasted for a couple days.
- since losing my voice two weeks ago, I have felt like I have a lump in my throat... like there is food stuck in there or something. There has been varying degrees of how much it has bothered me, but it is definitely still there (at least to me... you can't see or feel it from the outside). At times I have felt a little panicked about it, feeling like it made it more difficult to breathe, etc.
- I have also been coughing for two weeks (since loosing my voice), but I don't have any other cold symptoms.
- for the past week or two, I just don't have any appetite. There's nothing that sounds good, and a small amount of food seems to be plenty.
- it feels like there is something funny going on in my lungs or something when I breath... like I can't get enough air or something. I don't that all of those will have anything to do with this, but I thought I'd just throw out what came to mind.
Anyhow, here are my labs. I know that some of them are not the ideal ones to test, but I had a difficult time getting these ones done and I'm not sure about the accessibility of all the recommended ones. I live in India and am still learning the language, etc and I don't know what I'll be able to find as far as an endocrinologist goes, but I want to be prepared with some info before I go back in to go over these results with the OBGYN who ordered the tests on my request (even though she told me that "it was unnecessary to order so much lab work, a simple TSH test would do"). I've also included some of the listed reference ranges (that were listed on the paperwork that my labs came back on) since it seems like the numbers are different on these than on a lot of the tests run in the States and Europe.
Labs: Free T3: 3.18 pg/ml
Free T4: 1.3 pg/ml
TSH: 7.0 micro IU/ml
Vitamin B-12: 450.00
Ferritin, serum by CLIA: 55.5
Cortisol, serum by CLIA: 16.74
1,25 Dihydroxy Vitamin D, serum by RIA: 16.00
Microsomal (TPO) Antibody Titre, serum by CMIA: 0.14 (on a listed scale of "up to 5.61 IU/mL")
Thyroglobulin Antibody (ATG), serum by CMIA: 6.10 (on a listed scale of "up to 4.11 IU/mL)
I'm feeling kind of lost and pretty overwhelmed.
The antibody tests run here are "CMIA" tests (Chemiluminescent Microparticle Immunoassay) and apparently this has a very different reference range usually run in the States (apparently the "ELISA" test is usually run in the States). I'm going to post this question elsewhere, but does anyone happen to know how the ranges for these two tests correlate to each other?