RyanCarey comments on A Medical Mystery: Thyroid Hormones, Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia - Less Wrong

23 Post author: johnlawrenceaspden 14 February 2016 01:14PM

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Comment author: RyanCarey 20 May 2016 02:51:02PM 1 point [-]

Aren't you just taking thyroid hormones analogues (not T3/T4) that are - as expected - suppressing the pituitary production of TSH?

Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 20 May 2016 10:13:01PM *  0 points [-]

That's what I was expecting, but 2.5 isn't suppressed, it's actually quite high compared to the average for healthy people, (or at least normal, depending on what you think normal is). And roughly the same as it was at the start of all this. And both the free hormones look low. You'd think adding a fair bit of thyroid to a healthy system would have bumped up the free hormones and maybe lowered TSH to somewhere like the hyperthyroid range.

What's really weird is that I've tripled the dose of NDT since the last time I had blood drawn, and my TSH has gone up slightly in response. I thought I'd be seriously suppressing my own system by now.

It's possible that I've just developed a primary gland failure, but that's weird because there was no sign of it when I first showed severe symptoms.

Comment author: RyanCarey 21 May 2016 08:45:06AM 0 points [-]

Ok so your TSH is normal and your T3/T4 are low in the normal range because you've replaced them with some T1/T2. Every value is in the normal range. Problem?

It makes no sense at all to call it pituitary failure (central hypothyroidism) - that would imply low TSH. You could argue that it's successfully medicated peripheral hypothyroidism if anything, though that's a stretch.