OK, went to the doctor a few weeks ago and had a T4 test done...he says it came back low, but just BARELY low (i didn't see the exact numbers), so he reordered another test for me. I said to him, Isn't thyroid disease something that can get WORSE over time? He says, Yes. So I say, well don't we want to try to nip it in the bud? He says, well, before I give you medication you will be on all your life, I want to make sure.

I am just afraid it will come back low normal and he will say, oh you're all right! I have been having a lot of the symptoms of hypothyroid for a while, massive weight gain, dry skin, hair falling out, fatigue, low sex drive, and on and on. He gave me Celexa and said i was clinically depressed. I have been taking it for about 2 weeks and don't feel much better yet. I hope the test comes back with answers and maybe I can get treatment .
Anyone else have problems like this with thier docs?

Hi Sizzle,

The first thing I want to ask? Did he not check your level of TSH AS well as the T4? This is very important in making a diagnosis of any kind. Also my doctor says that many physicians are stuck in a warp and will not treat a person's symptoms unless they have test results. I am fortunate that I have an open-minded doc!

I went to the doc after starting low-carbing march 28,2002 and not losing 1 ounce. I also had many symptoms ....... he ran a TSH and mine came back 18.03. The normal is 0.5-6.0.....WOW.

Did you know the tsh is higher because its telling the thyroid---come on make more thyroxine?! Also my T4 WAS off. I would recommend you ask about your level of TSH and, ALSO TELL him of your symptoms. I literally felt like driving my car through a brick road.! Whew.

Did you know soy products,walnuts are an absolute NO-NO for hypos??????

Anyway I have all kind of great hypothyroid places on the web. You can email me at jricciotti~charter.net for the list if you would like.

Keep me posted! Good Luck!

Some doctors are slower to prescribe than others because too much thyroid can kill you...give you heart palpatations, etc. You can do things for yourself like exercise, if you aren't already, watch the foods you are eating, lose excess weight. Also, watch out for the carbs...hypos usually can't handle them and are often insuling resistant. Unfortunately we do not really gain massive amounts of weight with hypo - about 30 pounds can be attributed to it. The rest is from eating to medicate ourselves since we feel so bad, not exercising, eating the wrong things, or other causes.

I have never ever eaten to medicate myself, and in all actuality was not a yo-yo dieter. Whats actually very bizarre is my legs and arms a very trim and muscular. I quite literally have 20lbs of fat hanging in front of my abdominal area. And I've started lifting free weights and my good areas are even better. However I have not lost one teeny weeny ounce.

Eck your doctor sounds like another typical moron when it comes to thyroid conditions! They always blame something else..like "depression" lol My doctor told me I'm depressed, have OCD, an anxiety disorder, and a disorted body image.. LOL I'm far from all of those. All of the above because I went to her saying I've tried over and over to lose weight and nothing is working. And I have a disorted body image because my doctor just had a baby and is now like 170lbs, and I'm 130.. so of course I'm not "overweight" in HER eyes.


I know alot of depression meds make ppl gain weight and have a low sex drive..its probably that..Maybe not all of the weight gain but deffinetly the lowsex drive..thats very common with depression meds.. And I've never even heard of it as a hypo symptom...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you can't be hypo.. I'm just saying you're probably having side effects from that which is making things worse for ya.

Eck been there done that Except I literally have 20lbs of fat on my thighs and but! Workout daily and don't lose an ounce.

Thanks for all the replies guys I am still waiting on results on that last test. And I guess I can get another docs opinion, but since they are all military doctors, I think all their opinions will be along the same lines. It IS like running into a brick wall around here heh. I just woke up from a nap. I went to sleep around 10:30 last night, woke up around 4:45 AM and felt exhausted when I got home. Went to sleep around 2 o'clock and didn't wake up til almost 7. EGADS!! I feel like that regardless of whether I get 8 hours of sleep a night or not. It really cut my afternoons away when I sleep through them all the time. ARG!

For 4 years, I was given just about every type of anti-depression medication, diet pills (prescription too!), weight watchers (gained weight with them!)

My T4 and TSH were within normal TSH was 2.1 not sure what T4 was anymore, BUT, one day when I was in for a follow up, my body temp was 94.7!!! Well an alarm finally went off and I was send to an endocrinologist.

My readings were normal, BUT, I was also given a sonogram of my thyroid, showed a nodule on it and it was ever so slightly enlarged. which meant to my dr. that it is working hard to keep up to the normal levels!!!

I am now on 150mcg of synthroid, and have to be very careful of what I eat, or I don't lose, I even gain "overnight" or at least it seems that way. (Don't look at my journal today I was a bad girl yesterday :lol

Well, that was over a year ago, and I no longer take anti drepressants, thyroid troubles mimic depression!!!! Weight gain and depression should definitly be looked at with other means than just taking prozac or zoloft!! I haven't been on any other med other than my synthroid for over a year and a half!!!

There are some areas that are higher with they thyroid troubles than others, it has becom an epidemic... some are relating it to water, something to do with the high levels of chlorine and it destroys the iodine in your system that your thyroid needs. Most salt it iodized, but I dont' use it so I am not getting the supplement that it has... iodine is a big factor in thyroid health. I don't know all the details but get a referral to another doc.

SlimShady

I don't know enough to give you a really informed opinion but. First a lot of people who have been heavy have stretched their skin and it will not shrink. At my fitest, in college playing footbal, I could literally do a thousand situps several times aweek and my gut still looked fat. It looks like extra weight but its not.

Secondly working out especialy resisitance training adds weight, muscle is much heavy than fat. You need to look at the tape as well as the scale. Everyone should measure themselves before starting the diet. This way when pounds don't fall maybe the inches will.

ok, called and managed to get back my thyroid test results today, yet have not gotten ahold of the doc. I was told the result was 1.17 with a range of.48 to 7 or something like that. I am not sure which test they ran, I think I saw something about a T4 test. Free T4 possibly? Does this sound normal? I know you guys are not docs, but you have a little more experience than I do, and I can't seem to get my doc to call m,e back yet

Thyroid problems affect up to 60% of women - obviously, the majority of affected women are completely unaware of the problem. For this reason, most doctors do not properly test for thyroid problems.

First, the most important test to get diagnosed is a simple temperature! Body temperature is the best indicator for hypothyroidism - the lower it is, the more likely you've got it.

Second, there is no one simple blood test to determine if you have an underactive thyroid. This is because there are different things that can be going wrong with your body impacting how your body absorbs the hormones that the thyroid gland produces. For instance, if your thyroid gland does not produce enough of its hormones [T3 & T4] then you have a slow thyroid. If your thyroid does produce enough hormones, but you have a high content of binding proteins in your body, it effectively nullifies the T3 and T4, and puts you in the same position as someone whose thyroid gland isn't secreting enough hormones.

For these reasons, you need to get, at minimum, the following blood tests done: TSH, T3, Free T3, T4, Free T4, Reverse T3, Reverse T4.

The TSH tests your pituitary gland to see if it is stimulating your thyroid gland. The more it is stimulating the gland, the less the gland is working on its own.

T3 and T4 test your body for the hormones that your thyroid gland produces.

Free T3 and Free T4 test your body to see how much of the T3 and T4 present in your body is useful? That is, of the present T3 and T4, how much is free from the binding proteins making it useless?

Reverse T3 and Reverse T4 have to do with the body attacking T3 and T4, also nullifying its effectiveness.

Just one of these sort of problems makes you hypothyroid. Testing just one area, though, may miss the problem, which is why you need to get it all checked!

I have had a thyroid problem for five known years, only one of which I have been diagnosed. I have felt wonderful since starting meds - and was on the cover of the Woman's World thyroid article this past April. I would be more than happy to answer any questions anyone might have regarding this area. Drop me a line at thyroid~justice.com

Margaret

Hi Margaret.....U Sound Like A Very Educated Person.....I Tried Visiting Ur Web Site But It Didnt Work.....i Would Like 2 Ask U some Q?'s I Gained More then 50 Pounds With My Hypo Problem.....and Im really struggling with Weight Loss.....so I wanted 2 get ur opinion.....u seem 2 be a good weight, Im Currently on Atkins.....and Im Starting 2 Intake Coconut oil they say its good 4 the thyroid and stuff.....Im confused about they caloric intake....Thank You..Ill Be Looking 4ward 2 Ur Reply

Thanks, Margaret, for all the info. I've been through all that and diagnosed and am on medication. I would like to know what you ate to lose weight.

Sweet Loren & Quilter,

Once I was appropriately medicated, my weight came off rather easily. Appropriate medication includes both a T4 AND a T3 replacement . . . most women on thyroid medication only receive a T4 supplement, which misses the T3 that controls weight loss and energy level. My mother was on T4 for 20 years - after I found my doctor [Dr. Kent Holtorf, out of California] I flew my mom in to see him - he's amazing. He put her on a T3 replacement, and she has lost 11 pounds in two months.

So - that shows how much medication makes a difference in weight loss. The medication alone won't do it, though, if you don't follow a diet plan that works for you. I tried to eliminate my carbohydrates entirely, but since I am a vegetarian that was really hard for me and wasn't working. [note: I was a vegetarian before I developed thyroid problems, and started to gain weight]. Some friends from my office were on Weight Watchers, and I decided to try it with them. The points plan really worked for me.

NOTE: one of the women on Weight Watchers has a thyroid problem, and before chatting with me was only on Synthroid, a T4 replacement. I got her to see my doctor, and she started a new medication including T3. In three weeks on her new medication, she lost more weight than she had lost on Weight Watchers in an entire year!!

I've heard a lot of talk about coconut oil, but I've never personally tried it. I shy away from coconut and palm ANYTHING, because they are the bad fats [saturated] and they clog up your arteries.

I tried to write my e-mail address on this site, but the "at" sign came up as a squiggly line "~" sooooooo my e-mail address is THYRIODatJUSTICE.COM . . . it's not a web page, although with the mess up it comes across as one. If you would like to drop me an e-mail, I wouldn't mind sharing my research on thyroid problems and weight loss with either one of you!

Margaret

hi Margaret,

First I want to say thanks for your very informative posts about thyroid hormone replacement and effects.

About the email addresses ... our database automatically changes the "at" symbol to "~" ... This is done to protect YOU from professional spammers who use "robot" programs to scan bulletin boards for email addresses. Our forum is VERY popular so you can bet we get a lot of these spam-bots.

I would also like to comment on this:Saturated fat is only linked with high blood lipids and heart disease when it's consumed as part of a diet that's also high in CARBOHYDRATES.

As for the tropical oils -- palm kernel, coconut, shea -- the studies done on these particular fats used refined, processed forms, as they are used in the food industry to make nice flaky pastries, crispy biscuits and non-dairy cream substitutes such as coffee whitener and whipped topping. Pure, unprocessed coconut oil contains a number of beneficial fatty acids which are proving to have positive health benefits. Medium chain triglycerides (MCT's) have positive effects on thyroid function and thermogenesis. You can read more about it here.

(note - in the linked article, it's stated that MCT's are derived from the hydrolysis of coconut oil. This is NOT the same thing as hydrogenation, which turns it into harmful TRANSfat.)

You're wise to avoid products from the grocery that have coconut or other tropical fats in them, as it's sure to be hydrogenated and refined. However, pure, unprocessed coconut oil is now available in many health food stores. If you choose to use coconut oil, this is the product to buy.

Happy Low-carbing!

Doreen