Hello everyone, I stumbled her by chance and wanted to get you opinion?

I (female) have been feeling like crap for a few months now. Cold chills, shaking, mental exaustion, "feel as if I could pass out at times", trouble sleeping, weight gain (20+lbs), Horseness, chocking feeling, headaches, numbness in hands and feet at times, and just plain run down. Went to the doc. they took some blood. Results are back and they are now treating me for "severe depression with anxiety".

My labs came back as follows
calcium serum 10.5 H
T3 Uptake 31
T4 (thyroxine) 7.0
Free Thyroxine Index 2.2
TSH (high sensitivity) 1.82

Dr says these are all normal and he feels i got a "really good work-up" and sent me home "depressed" on 30 mg cymbalta. It's been almost 2 weeks of giving this a shot thinking ok maybe I am and just don't realize it. I still do not "feel" better, other than the fact I am a little more tolerable of feeling sick. Do you think it's time to flush the doc and find one who will give me a better second look or should I ride it out and hope the "depression" goes away?

Thanks

Hello welcome, My first week here too.

I just wanted to say It could very well be true. all of your symptoms are the same as mine, except for headaches.....the doc told me the same thing....

I am telling you this...........I have felt better since cutting out the carbs, and I am not taking meds.

try this and see if it helps, it could be that you needed to control your weight and blood sugar levels and all that junk food can give you mood swings, insomnia and headaches.....

write soon, I will write more later, but I am so tired. Gina

Your symptoms certain sound hypot, chardae. Here's a list of typical symptoms, have a read and see if anything else applies to you ok?


Unfortunately very typical - The doctor didn't do the right tests so now he's fallen back on "depression".


Do you have the lab ranges for the T4 and FTI ? The T3 Uptake and TSH are pretty meaningless - what you want are your FT4 and FT3 tested. Do you have access to a lab near you where you could get this done? Healthcheckusa.com will do a comprehensive thyroid panel for 75$ (Thyroid Panel II, NOT I)


It's definitely time to find another doctor - before you rule out thyroid you should have the RIGHT tests done. If you cannot find a doctor to do it for you, maybe you could get them done with the online service I posted above?

Did they check your iron/ferritin levels? Did they palpitate your thyroid gland? Difficulty swallowing is definitely a symptom of thyroid enlargement.

It does sound like hypothyroid, very much. There are other conditions that have the same symptoms. The tests they give to identify it aren't good ones. You need to get a FT3 and FT4 test done. Doctors seem to be using anti-depressents like sugar pills these days. For some reason I think of Foghorn Leghorn saying, "Go away, kid, you're bothering me", and writing a prescription for anti-depressents.

I know most people who get their thyroid corrected feel better with their TSH at or below 1.0 but doctors use an enormous range and even if you have hypoT symptoms and fall into that range they'll chalk it up to something else. This is silly because people don't feel good at every point in that range.

So you need to get FT3/FT4 test done and read up on thyroid and find a doctor willing to treat your symptoms, not a archaic, inaccurate lab test. I always wonder why doctors are so reluctant to treat thyroid symptoms. There's absolutely nothing worse than getting more thyroid hormone than you need. You'll get a rapid, pounding heart-beat, sweaty, nervous, insomnia; it is absolutely the worst feeling. Its pretty easy for the patient to say, "Whoa! This makes me feel horrible, I must not need this." I just don't understand.

Here's two good places to start:

www.altsupportthyroid.org
thyroid.about.com (You can look for doctors there on a link they provide).

And if you want to order your own T3/T4 blood test:
www.healthcheckusa.com

Last bit of advise, you'll have to be a hound-dog to get this treated properly. MD's don't want to spend any time with their patients any more and treating something based on symptoms takes more than the 10 minutes you're allotted, whereas they can write a script for an anti-depressent in 10 seconds. So you might have to look outside the managed medical system to get the proper care.

I wouldn't use thyroid.about.com - it's hard to navigate. Try www.thyroid-info.com it's Mary's sister site with all the same information but no annoying popup ads.

Ah, good suggestion. I did find thyroid.about.com very hard to navigate, but I set up my browser to suppress all the adds.

Good Morning everyone.

This morning I wake up and here I go again voice crackling, head spliting, Throat tight. Take a "cure all" pill (cymbalta) and I am off and running kids to school. I decided to try calling my husbands Dr. to see if maybe they will test me the proper way. She hears how I sound but cannot get me in untill March 8th. She is going to call me right away though if anyone cancels and get me in there sooner. I cannot wait. I am so tired of feeling like crap. I did read through the symtoms list and I can honestly check almost every one of them. I do know that my aunt(moms side) had hers removed and my grandmother and mom suffered from symtoms of the disease.

Here is the lab results with ranges my dr took in full.
TEST RESULT Range
sodium, serum 146 135-146
potassium, serum 4.4 3.5-5.3
chloride, serum 106 98-110
Carbon dioxide 20 16-26
urea nitrogen, blood 7 7-25
creatine, serum 0.8 0.5-1.2
glucose 92 65-99

calcium serum 10.5H 8.5-10.4

t3 uptake 31 22-35%
t4 thyroxine 7.0 4.5-12.5
free throxine index 2.2 1.4-3.8
tsh high sensitivity 1.82 0.4-5.5

WBC 6.7 4.1-11.3
RBC 4.38 3.90-5.10
hemoglobin 14.6 12.0-16.0
hematocrit 43.0 36.0-48.2
mcv 98 80.0-103.0
mch 33.3 27.0-34.0
mchc 33.9 31.0-36.0
red cell dist width 12.4 10.8-14.8

neutrophils 60 45-75
lymphocytes 33 20-45
monocytes 5 1-13
eosinophils 1 0-6
basophils 0 0-2
neutrophils abs 4.05 1.50-8.00
lymphocytes abs 2.22 0.80-3.20
monocytes abs 0.36 0.0-1.1
eosinophils abs 0.079 0.0-0.50
basophils abs 0.000 0.000-0.200
platelet count 173 150-400

Thanks for the replys. I am going to do some more research on all this so I am prepared when I go to the new Dr.

Charlotte (chardae)

These blood tests were taken around 5:00pm at a late appointment.

Thanks Again.

Charlotte, good luck with a cancellation - be sure to have a back up plan if necessary. The Armour website is often a good place to find a doctor; these doctors use Armour which makes them more enlightened - they know which tests to order and they know how to interpret symptoms.

Your test results other than the low T4 and FTI look 'ok' - but they're just the basics (although your sodium looks a tad high). Ferritin was not checked, it's one you'd want done as well as the FTs.

Oh, just thought I'd mention this on the outside chance... very, very outside chance. I recently read something where a guy had symptoms of hypoT and it was actually chronic carbon monoxide poisoning. He sat with his car idyling for 10 minutes each day, with the garage door up but inside the garage. He was getting exposed to enough carbon monoxide it was a problem.

Hi, Charlotte.

You know, your symptoms sound a lot like adrenal fatigue and/or the beginnings of CFS. But it could all be manifestation of a sleep problem.

These headaches, do you wake up with them?

Have you been feeling this way just since Oct/Nov?

I have had SAD/fibro for years, that manifests itself also with physical symptoms similar to yours. What I have learned most about this, is that there is a huge improvement if I can get adequate sleep. Yes, doctors will put you on anti-d's in a heartbeat!

See if you can get the dr. to give you some Ambien so you can rest well at night. Take some extra Vit D and see if those two things perk you up. If your problem is seasonal, you will know for sure because in about 4 weeks you will perk up on your own.

Is you skin/hair dry and damaged?

It may well be thyroid, but while your waiting on the dr. appointment, see if you can find a way to sleep all night.

is $$$.

My GP's office told me that they insurance wouldn't pay for the "extra" thyroid tests unless I actually had a thyroid problem and they will not pay for the meds unless the tests show I have it...won't pay on symptoms alone.

(So i paid for my own "extra" tests...they were fine.)

A TSH od 1.8 at 5 pm is quite high. TSH is highest in the early morning and then falls through out the day. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that a recheck of TSH, plus the Free T3 and Free T4 done at 8 am would show something vastly different.

I second (ro third or fourth) the idea of getting a new - and correct - set of tests.

Cheers,

Friday

Chardae,
I'm not at all familiar with what your doctor has you on. (30 mg cymbalta) But I am currently on antidepressants for fibromyalgia and wanted to let you know that it takes longer for some meds. to actually work on you than others. It might take a couple more weeks for yours to kick in. I hate meds myself and I believe you aren't wanting to be on any either. That I understand! But please check with your doctor or the pharmacy to see how long it should take for the meds to work before giving up. Also the only way doctors know to change what they prescribe is by our feedback. Not saying you aren't or will not, just concerned. One thing I have noticed is I do feel better on low carbs. I'm back on them for 11 days now and soon I should feel better. At first I feel like yuck. So I guess maybe the diet change also takes a while for some of us to reap the "feeling better" benefits. Low carb works well for me and my depression, but I'm not ready to try it cold turkey without my meds.

Best wishes to you.

Cissie

BTW, antidepressants tend not to work or work very poorly unless yout Free T3 is in the top third or so of the range. T3 is needed to make things like serotonin. If your T3 is low, there's no serotonin for the anti-depressants to work ON.

Before the advent of Big Pharma, T3 was sometimes given as an anti-depressant by itself.

Just one more reason to get Free T3 tested.

Cheers,

Friday