[artisticmind]

For those who have officially been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, what do your TSH levels normally run when you have a blood test done? Are they way under the range for normal or close to the lower end of normal or off the charts?

A little backstory. I'm 28, gave birth to my son in March 2009. growing up I was a small child weight wise, puberty hit and I ballooned in weight. From probably 6th grade til my senior year i gained on average 20lbs a year, even with required phys. ed. every other day and pushing myself to do all the activites during class. I know when i graduated I was around 180 weight wise. I took a year off before school and towards the end of my freshman year of college started BC pills and my weight leveled out near 200. over 7 years i gained around 10lbs because when hubby and i started working out 9 months before our wedding in 2007 i weighed like 208/209. I didn't start seriously watching my diet and working out until a few months before our wedding and managed to drop 18lbs and was down to 192 by our wedding. directly after we moved and no longer had a gym membership. It took me nearly 6 months to gain it back with no gym membership and working in a fast food restuarant. I stopped taking BC pills in January 2008
In June of 08 I found out i was pregnant with DS. by our first OB appointment i was at 210.Weight gain was slow during pregnancy and total i only gained 10lbs by the time i delivered in March 09.
I breastfeed and dropped weight pretty quickly and was down to 187 a few months after birth. we started solids about 5 months old and i started gaining weight back after not breastfeeding nearly as much. We completely stopped breastfeeding after 18 months in Sept. 2010 and around then i weighed between 208-210. since then i have gained, depending on the time of the month between 10-15lbs. My eating habits have not changed since 2008 when i was pregnant or even when i was breastfeeding. If anything we eat out less often than we did when it was just DH and I. We workout regularly. After nearly 2 months of working out constantly at the beginning of the year all i managed to lose was 3lbs. that's it. and since then i have yo-yo'd up and down with the same 5lbs or so.

What got me thinking about this is i have been trying to workout and lose weight along with some diet changes for 7 months now and have seen hardly any change. I know that thyroid problems can cause weight gain and halt weight loss because it affects your metabolism. I've also heard that in some women it affects their menstral cycles. Periods for the most part are normal, no BC pills or anything, just condoms, so no hormones are being put into my body. my cycles shift every month between 25 days and 29 days. usually on the lower end of that range, flow and everything is "normal" for me. I track my cycles with my temps so I know i'm ovulating and when my period will be coming. And because I'm "seeing" ovulation and a temp drop at the end of my cycles each month i know i'm not pregnant so that doesn't account for the weight gain.

I finally dug out my old lab work(I like to get physical copies of them to keep in a medical records book so i have them, lesson learned from my mom's health issues but that's another story) to see what my TSH levels were, they are as follows:
3/8/08- 2.08, normal between 0.47-4.68
10/9/09- 1.88, normal between 0.47-4.68
3/27/11- 1.10, normal between 0.40-4.50

My TSH levels have steadily dropped while my weight has more than steadily increased.

The last results in March I had done through a community health fair, i still need to drop those results off at my dr's office so they have a copy of them. I currently don't haven insurance so i can't just run to the doctor and have them test everything under the sun as i need money to pay for it. I also dont' want to get caught up in the "pre-existing condition" crap for future insurance and the higher rates that come with it.

So with that information am i just or do i need to request my dr. run a thyroid panel when i drop of my results along with a letter explaining my issues and why i think something may be wrong? TIA!!!

[artisticmind]

NM, got my numbers mixed up. Low number equals hyperthyroidism and high numbers equal hypothyroidism. i was thinking the other way around..

[4 Butterflies]

Mine always stay "in range", but I feel the best when it floats around 1. In more important news, what are your free T3 and free T4 numbers? You can't simply go by TSH. That really doesn't tell much. If they've never run FT3 and FT4, I'd get it done with your next lab work.

[LisaB]

Those numbers aren't terrible, but they're not great, IF you have thyroid disease. Were you tested for antibodies? If you don't have antibodies, then you're right where you should be. If they are present, you could have Hashimoto's, but that you said your weight gain started in puberty says to me that says to me you don't have them. Also, your falling TSH levels over time say that too. Do you have any other symptoms other than weight issues, such as hair loss, fatigue, feeling cold all the time, unusually forgetful, constipation etc?

My endo says that if you do have thyroid disease, then your TSH with medication should be between 0.2 - 1.0. If you don't have thyroid disease, she says those numbers should be between 0.2 - 2.0. The American Thyroid Association says between 0.2 - 3.0 I believe. I know some doctors believe anything under 5.0 is normal, because that was the old official yardstick, but I was feeling symptoms of hypothyroidism at 3.0 myself. My levels are usually around 1.0.

Maybe you're not losing as much weight as you like because with the workouts, you're gaining muscle, which weighs a lot more than fat? Anyway, good luck, I hope that your thyroid is healthy, but if not, shop around for an endo that you really like! It makes a HUGE difference!

[*Cyndee*]

I've found weight loss/gain has little to do with tsh, more to do with Free t4 and t3. My tsh varied wildly between tests due to hashimotos and immune system attacking my thyoid into a toxic state, but I do lose weight when on a hyper climb (rather than peak and decline) or when my T4 is on the high number side of the scale. I have no 'normal' yet since I just had my thryoid out last week. I am hoping to get t3 added to my dose so that I can get some true equilibirium. I've never had all 3 come back within normal range in the same test.