Well Shoot - I've Been Trying To Stay Out Of This, But . . .

[tex]

while I was shaving, I happened to glance at the reflection of my eyebrows, in the mirror, and noticed that they are in bad shape - the outer ends look like they were hit by a plague of locusts. IOW, they're virtually missing in action, which, as most of you probably know, is a classic sign of hypothyroidism. <sigh>

I don't know why I didn't notice this sooner, because I've been complaining about gaining weight way too easily, for about a year and a half now, (ever since my surgery), and I've noticed that my hair is getting coarser, thinner, and dryer, also, but I just figured that went along with aging. I guess I just don't pay much attention to my eyebrows, since they have never misbehaved before. LOL.

This raises the percentage of male members of this discussion board who have thyroid and/or adrenal issues, to a pretty high level, which makes me wonder if it might be inevitable for people, (men, at least), with multiple autoimmune issues.

The sad thing is, I just had a complete physical, 12 days ago, and the doctor never noticed, either, (naturally). I had asked the nurse to check for thyroid function while they were doing the CBC, and I specifically requested that they test for Free T3 and Free T4. She apparently failed to request the Free T3 test. <sigh>

This is all I got for the Thyroid Function part of the tests:

Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Result . . . . . . . . . Reference

T3 - Uptake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39.5 . . . . . . . . . . 32.0 - 48.4%

T4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.0 . . . . . . . . . . . 6.0 - 12.0 mcg/dL

TSH, 3rd Gen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.640 . . . . . . . . . 0.465 - 4.69 uIU/mL

Free T4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.75 . . . . . . . . . .0.78 - 2.19 ng/dL

Yep, I didn't like the looks of these numbers at the time, so I asked the doc about them. He assured me that they were nothing to worry about, (naturally). I like the looks of them a lot less, now. I reckon I'll be going back to talk about it in much more detail, next week.

Tex

[starfire]

Welcome to the club, Tex.

Love, Shirley

[Reggie]

If your doctor was able to ignore that free T4 level, I'd guess it's time for a new one.

(I learned to talk that way from stopthethyroidmadness and bobh, obviously).

I took my first quarter grain of thyroid this morning and I feel quite superior to all you untreated folk. I had best day in months. I've heard the brains of people with chronic fatigue are prone to overreact to placebos and I think I've just proved it.

[mle_ii]

Reggie is right that T4 is pretty damn low. And your TSH is within their range, but way above most ranges I've heard thrown around. 2.5 being the most conservative I remember. Would be very interesting to see the T3 Free (the one that we need for our bodies to be happy).

There's also a Reverse T3 (or was it T4) that's good to look at, and while they're sucking your blood again for a new test I'd have them look at thyroid antiboides just to be certain.

How's the body temp? Have you tried taking it at 3 hours after you wake up, 3 hours later again, and then later again in 3 hours. Average the temp and see what it does for a week or so.

Mike

[tex]

Reggie,

Yep, when you hang out with a "bad" crowd, the first thing that's affected is your language. LOL. That's impressive that the med made that much difference. Sounds like you're definitely on the right track.

I plan to give my doctor one more chance, because he has some redeeming values. I think he'll either go along with me, or send me to a specialist. The reason I think he's open minded enough to go along with me, is because when I mentioned stool testing, at Enterolab, he asked me for their URL, because he has a patient who shows signs of gluten intolerance, but she tests negative to celiac sprue, using the blood tests, and he wanted her to try a stool test. That has to make him one of the most open-minded doctors around here.

Mike,

I didn't even think about antibody tests on the first go-round, but I agree, we need to check that.

I never check my temp, so I guess I'd better get a thermometer, and start doing that.

Tex

[bobh]

Hi Tex, you are right on the need to check the Free T3. The eyebrows thing is a definite sympom, my brother noticed that, got labs 2 months ago, has low Ft3, high TSH, Hashi antibodies. Then we checked his adrenals and he had that too - with lots of symptoms clear up when it was adressed (anxiety, shakeyness, low blood sugar type symptoms too).

you likely know this, but T4 is the "storage" version of the thyroid hormone, and T3 is the "active" version. With a "storage" version of thyroid hormone that low, it is likely the Ft3 will also be low. the ranges are pretty broad, so for people to feel good, it should be in the upper 1/3 of the range on FT3.

As mike said, ask your Dr to add to the labs for antibodies - it is something like 80% of the hypothyroid people have antibodes. The labs are described here http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/hashimotos/

There's also a Reverse T3 (or was it T4) that's good to look at

Well, there are some people who really need to figure out if they have a problem in that area - but I don't suspect it for Tex. If you have plenty of T4 (he doesn't) and yet you can't get your T3 levels to the upper 1/3, there can be a situation where some people have trouble converting the T4 to T3, and get a screwed up T3 called "Reverse T3".

RT3: Reflects the level of Reverse T3. I used to measure this often but found little need for it once I realized the approximate value can be estimated from knowing T4 and T3 values since we know that T4 will become either T3 or RT3. For example, if the T4 is elevated and the T3 is low, we know that RT3 (what the rest of the T4 becomes) will be relatively elevated.

http://www.drrind.com/thyroidscale.asp#tests That is the same site Mike was talking about on takng your temps, and that would be good to do before you start any meds, to see what kind of patterns you have been having before making changes. review this one http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp As it says, if your temps are erratic, it may be a good idea to test the adrenals (saliva test, Diagnostech's) http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/re ... d-labwork/

Another good overview on lab tests for thyoid is this one http://www.thyroid-info.com/articles/woliner.htm

Yep, when you hang out with a "bad" crowd, the first thing that's affected is your language. LOL.

Hey - I had a nickname at my last job "Potty Mouth".

When I signed up with the Potty People, I had to toss a coin. Would I put my name as Bob H, or Potty Mouth?

Still don't know if I made the right choice.

[tex]

Bob,

I aim to do a lot more studying, and some more testing, ASAP.

Many thanks for all the insight and information,

Tex

[tex]

Well, I went by my doctor's office this morning, to get another blood test, but the nurse suggested that I talk with the doc first, so after about a three minute wait, he popped in, and I pleaded my case. He glanced at my eyebrows, and then looked at my test results again, and commented that, according to the numbers, he's not supposed to prescribe any thyroid hormone in a case such as this. (I'm thinking, "Crap, I struck out".)

Then he continued, and said that we have a choice of either getting some more tests done, (including the FT3 and antibody tests that I had requested), or he could just prescribe a thyroid hormone treatment, and I could try it for a couple of months, to see if it helped, and then we could check the TSH level again, to see if the treatment brings it down, and decide where to go from there. (I'm thinking, "This doc rocks". LOL).

Reggie,

Now you see why I thought he should get another chance.

Tex

P S I've already got a 30-day supply of 25 MCG pills on hand. I guess I'll start tomorrow morning.

[moremuscle]

I am sorry to hear this, Wayne - but sometimes it is better to know than not to; at least now you have an explanation for the weight gain issue and perhaps also a solution in the form of medication to control the problem.

I wonder if it is a male issue in particular - my mother is a another example to contradict this; her problems were initially related to the thyroid only - later in life the food intolerances and diarrhea appeared for her.

Let us know if you notice an improvement in your condition after having started the thyroid medication.

Love,
Karen

[tex]

Hi Karen,

Thanks for asking. Yes, I definitely have more energy now, and I find myself eagerly tackling projects that I would have hated to do, a few days ago. It's probably just my imagination, but already by the second day, after I combed my hair in the morning, my comb didn't have a bunch of hair hanging on it, for the first time in a long time. I'm optimistic.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that a lot of us have thyroid and/or adrenal issues, especially those of us who had MC or celiac symptoms for years, before figuring it out and starting treatment.

How is your mother doing, since she changed her attitude about food intolerances? Has she been able to continue to keep dairy products out of her diet, and if she has, is she feeling better?

Love,
Wayne

[bobh]

I wonder if it is a male issue in particular - my mother is a another example to contradict this; her problems were initially related to the thyroid only - later in life the food intolerances and diarrhea appeared for her.

What I am about to say may not apply to anyone here - but let me make a comment about "thyroid only" and how this "might" relate to the colitis we all suffer from. The metabolism is largely controlled by the thyroid, AND the adrenals. If the thyroid isn't doing its part, the adrenals have to work overtime and will become fatigued. Here's a published Dr:

So now you see why thyroid and adrenal hypo-function have to be considered together. Here’s a precept for you. Anyone with undiagnosed or unsatisfactorily treated hypothyroidism will sooner or later inevitably slip into adrenal exhaustion. May take months or years, but it will happen. Symptoms of adrenal exhaustion exaggerate pre-existing thyroid symptoms. There will be ongoing and endless fatigue, even less tolerance to cold, depression, dizziness (postural hypotension), body hair loss, pigmentation (especially in skin folds), poor response to treatments generally and an obviously weak immune system. Most particularly, if there is an adrenal malfunction – I still prefer to call this low adrenal reserve – the patient responds poorly to thyroid hormone, or rapidly gets ill and toxic on even quite small doses of thyroxine.

…Thyroid and adrenal dysfunction usually come together but in varying degrees of emphasis. They cause a down-regulation of all metabolic processes, hence these clients/patients are all hypometabolic. Metabolism, as I need not remind you, may be defined as the rate at which energy is produced and consumed by the tissues…

Adrenal hypo-function is a different kettle of fish entirely. The diagnosis is missed more decisively even than hypothyroidism because most clinicians only seem to think of it in terms of Addison’s disease. In fact, the adrenals can malfunction in degrees.

…Extremely valuable is the adrenal glandular concentrate…
If this proves unsatisfactory, which is uncommon and usually because the adrenals have been really badly damaged over a period of time, the use of the adrenal hormone, cortisol (hydrocortisone), 2.5 mg up to 25 mg, may be considered by the practitioner

http://www.i-c-m.org.uk/Journal/2006/feb/a02.htm

The adrenals make cortisol. And then you get the idea of weak adrenals, often overlooked, and what effect that could have on the body's ability to deal with inflammation:

Anti-inflammation Response - Cortisol is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. When we have a minor injury or a muscle strain, our body's inflammatory cascade is initiated, leading to swelling and redness commonly seen when a ankle is sprained or an insect bite. Cortisol is secreted as part of the anti-inflammatory response. It's objective is to remove and prevent swelling and redness of nearly all tissues. These anti-inflammatory responses prevent mosquito bites from enlarging, bronchial tress and eyes from swelling shut from allergies, and swelling from being too intense.

This is from a great article that Mike posted on an earlier thread when we were talking about the adrenals: http://www.drlam.com/A3R_brief_in_doc_f ... atigue.cfm

I believe that MC is an autoimmune problem, which relates to this:

Anyone who is especially susceptible to infections probably has weakened adrenals, thyroid gland, or both — therefore, a weakened immune system. The incidence of autoimmune disease also goes up in the presence of weak adrenals. It may be that the adrenal glands regulate the immune system in such a way that autoimmune disease is not allowed to develop. When the adrenals become fatigued, this regulation may be relaxed and the immune system allowed to attack certain cells of the body as if they were foreign invaders. At any rate, it is well-known that certain hormones of the adrenal gland are useful in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and scleroderma.

http://www.med-library.net/content/view/269/41/

Polly asked me to put some sort of article together on this stuff, and I will do that. My job is really busy right now, and I am working on a tax extension... but I will get to it.

[moremuscle]

Hi Wayne,

Glad that you are getting better so soon; it doesn't matter if it is placebo or "real" effect as long as it works, right?!

Thanks for asking about my mother. I wish I had a completely positive answer to the question but I don't see her often enough to know the details and she is not one to share unless directly asked. From what I understand she is doing better and she is for all practical purposes dairy free now - WOW, it took a long time for her to admit this problem to herself - she has been back and forth; she keeps coming up with new reasons to try a little milk or try a little cheese or a very special yoghurt that her digestive system really likes, etc....... but I heard her say recently that she has finally acknowledged that she really doesn't tolerate dairy. I think this is a BIG step forward for her.

I have been a huge eye opener for her. She didn't know anything about the other food intolerances until I came along with my disease - she had been convinced that she was celiac and that her only problem was gluten despite continuos relatively severe symptoms. Seeing what I eat and how well I do has had a huge impact on her. I think she began to shake herself out of the little box she had created for herself - a box of resignation and toughness: "If it doesn't get any worse I can live with this". I actually think that a little ray of hope started to shine through the walls of her box and she has made some real attempts to take control of her situation. As we know, it is not easy; but in many ways she has an iron will and a healthy amount of self dicipline. She makes all her food at home and thus is in control of what goes on.

All of this reflects directly back on the members of this board that have been instrumental in my own journey to remission.

Love,
Karen

[tex]

Bob,

Thanks for all the information. We definitely appreciate your insight, especially since you've acquired such a vast knowledgebase about this issue.

Don't worry about posting a summary article. That can wait until you've got some time to spare. Tax returns, and work, definitely have to receive priority, when time is limited.

Thanks,
Tex

[tex]

Karen,

That's good news, that your mother has finally accepted the reality of the situation. It's easy to see why you are such an inspiration to her. You've been a huge inspiration for many, with the way that you turned your own health around. You went from being practically chained to the bathroom, to a super healthy marathon runner, and you did it simply by changing your diet.

It wasn't easy, because you had some tricky food intolerances that you had to track down, but you stuck with it, and you completely succeeded. It doesn't get any more inspirational than that.

Do you have any long-distance events coming up anytime soon?

Love,
Wayne

[harvest_table]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that a lot of us have thyroid and/or adrenal issues, especially those of us who had MC or celiac symptoms for years, before figuring it out and starting treatment.

How are you feeling Tex? Better still, after starting this medication?

Love,
Joanna