Rupp Diagnosed With Hypothyroidism

sjm1368 wrote:

noname-

Next time I go in for an appointment, I'll ask my doctor some of the questions you posted. I'm pretty sure there are differences in how you treat it for a hard training athlete and a normal person. For example, last time I went in, the doctor slightly changed my dosage even though all of the blood work came back within what is suggested as the normal guidelines. He said that, a normal person would be fine with those results, but since I'm an athlete, we've got to fine tune it a little more and be more precise on a couple of markers than the normal person.

Basically, the suggested norms are "too broad" for an athlete. I'll ask him specifics next time and post it on the thread.

Thanks. I know that most people with hypothyroidism are treated by their primary care physicians who don't see alot of runners as patients so there is little chance of coming across a hypothyroid endurance athlete. Most of them tend to think there is very little difference in how you treat the disease. I think they would appreicate having some research to indicate guidelines for treatment based on activity levels. It would also give hypothyroid runners something they can show their docs to justify upping the dose besides subjective data.

Yes, I would be very interested to hear what Steve Magness' and Galen Rupp's Dr has to say about Thyroid levels and runners. Because I had Graves Disease (OVER-active thyroid/Hyperthyroidism) and then had my gland radioactively (R iodine) dissolved, and therefore I am now HypOthyroid like you, Rupp, Magness and others. So I take a SHITload of Thyroid Hormone (because what little gland I have left produces vitrually nil) and was wondering what he has to say about runners/thyroid issues, etc.

And by the way, you said that Runners should have a TSH of "1.0, and that makes sense." Why does it "make sense" ?? Just wondering. The normal range is what....... .5 - 5.5 ? (it's sad I don't know for sure after all this time). So 1.0 would mean a pretty high of amout of T3/T4 floating around, correct (reflected by low TSH)? In other words: 1.0 would be the very high end of normal for amount of Thryoid Hormone in the blood, correct? Why would this be a good thing for runners?

Thanks.

And Steve.......PLEASE get back to us thyroid sufferers on what your Dr has to say. THANKS!!

This is serious, cause rupp somethimes feels really tired when his just walking, imagined the how he felt when he drop out in the 5000 at the "pepsi" invitational.I just Hoped he gets healthy fast and break 28:00 for the 10.000 cause he does better in the 10,000 than 5000. And who knows maybe in a two or three year sub 27:30, his capable cause he is the junior national record holder for the 10,000.

Is this the same thing that Goucher had? A couple of years back when he ran that one 4:12

My thoughts on this are:

There is an inverse relationship between T3 and exercise time. Pick up "exercise physiology" by Brooks, Fahey, and white. There is a section in there on what happens to the thyroid hormones during exericse. T3 gradually decreases with increased exercise time but comes back up during recovery. my interpretation of this graph is that suppose you are hypothyroid and you run for 2 hrs on sunday, your T3 decreases slightly. for a normal person, this bounces back to normal, for a hypo person, this might rebound but probabaly not all the way to normal. No problem, you're still okay...now what if you do this every day for a week, 2-weeks, 3-weeks etc? you are starting in a slight T3 deficit every single day that gets further reduced after every run. You don't notice much on a daily basis but after a couple of months, your running stinks and you justify it away to standard training, stress, age etc.

now, TSH is supposed to be a good measure of T3. The usual normal range for TSH is .30-5.00 (varies depending on the lab). T3 should be directly related to TSHwhere the lower the TSH is the higher the T3 should be. Ultimately, you'd get a T3 test but you generally have to have some justification for asking.

Now, based on the scenario above, if your TSH is at 1.00 or slightly below, you should have some room for your T3 to drop without completely falling apart. If your TSH is at 3.5 and you start ramping up your mileage, that graph explains why you feel like crap in 6 weeks versus feeling stronger.

My second thought on this is that there are 2 conflicting articles that were published in either new england journal or JAMA on the benefits of adding T3 to standard synthoid treatment. one concluded that it was beneficial, the other concluded that it was not. however, exercise was never taken into account in either of these studies. could it be possible that the study that concluded that it was beneficial was done on people who exercised more so they noticed a difference?

So, there's my thoughts on why "this makes sense". The cavaet of my theory is that it is based on one graph and not on knowledge of how the endocrine system works. it's possible that the synthoid you take could keep that T3 at a steady level and in this case, i could be completely wrong. but it would sure explain the dramatic ups and downs in my ability to adapt to training. i hestitate to try and build up for a race 6 months down the road cause i really don't know whether the training is going to get me stronger or leave me thrashed.

A quick pubmed search shows that there\'s been very little research on running and hypothyroidism. This link has biologic plausibility but no data to prove or disprove an association.

Runners represent a small fraction of the population and they are considered to be healthy, meaning that for any given condition few events would be expected and therefore the chance of finding a statistically significant result would be low. Therefore they\'re one of the least attractive groups for epidemiologic research. Also because hypothyroidism is not fatal (like cancer, heart disease) the big research dollars are not there.

Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests a link; as noted quite a few of the best male high-school runners of recent years have been diagnosed, yet this is a condition that is really rather rare in young men. But for now, there\'s no systematic evidence really.

A thought.. wrote:

I don't know if anyone has really said this, but I want to look at something. Salazar got burnt out training too hard, had a lot of physiological problems, I don't know if they were thyroid related but maybe. Anyways, it is my understanding that either overtraining can lead to symptoms similar to hypothyroidism, or even cause it.

"It is also established that excessive exercise stress can cause imbalanced central nervous system control of certain physiological processes reflected in hypothyroidism, hypothalamic-rtuitary dysfunction and deranged immunity14-1."

From psychological and immunological correlates of acute

..

overtraining

R. W. Fry*t PhO, J. R. Grove t PhO, A. R. Morton t EdD, P. M. eronit BSc(Hons),

S. Gaudieri* BSc(Hons) and David Keast* PhD

*Department of Microbiology, The QEII Medical Centre, Nedlands, Western Australia; and tDepartment of

Human Movement, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia

Another thought... although Salazar NEVERED tested positive, there is a A LOT of speculation that he may have been involved with PEDs. From what some old timers have posted, there was definitely some smoke during those days, but the question is whether or not there was a fire!

That's why some of us wonder if Salazar-coached athletes are doing any PEDs. I hope I'm wrong, but I do wonder whether or not a guy like Goucher is clean. Is he capable of running very fast based on his high school and college resume? Absolutely, but when you associate with people with a questionable past, it's hard not to question.

Hypothyroidism is a genetic disorder, so it is plausible that people who have a predisposition towards the disorder can have an early onset (i.e. teens, twenties) due to the effects of hard training.

It doesn't make sense that you can "develop" the hyporthyroid condition just from training hard if you're not predisposed to it.

Look--shut up. Start another thread bashing Alberto and Rupp. You add nothing of substance to an otherwise intelligent conversation. You're a nine-year-old boy who won't stop interrupting the adults. You just come across as a petty punk with an axe to grind and no leg to stand on. Just shut up already. We heard you the first time and no one is interested. Get over it. K?

This thread reminds me of the other Rupp thread where posters who pretended to be educated swore that there was no performance enhancing benefit to taking prednisone. Well, I am here to say that I took prednisone to treat pneumonia, and I can safely say that it is definitely a performance enhancing drug...my stength and energy levels were never higher. That may not be what the drug was designed to do, but its effects were undeniable. Many other users concur with my assessment.

This will give Rupp a reason to use thyriod meds to boost his metabolism

you might be fat wrote:

Look--shut up. Start another thread bashing Alberto and Rupp. You add nothing of substance to an otherwise intelligent conversation. You're a nine-year-old boy who won't stop interrupting the adults. You just come across as a petty punk with an axe to grind and no leg to stand on. Just shut up already. We heard you the first time and no one is interested. Get over it. K?

you might be fat... well, since you like name calling, you sound a wee bit immature, insecure, and ignorant. Oh, I feel better now. "Petty punk with an axe to grind," c'mon, why don't you try re-reading my post and work on your comprehension some. Sorry, but some of us aren't blind to the idea that Americans might be using PEDs. I have my doubts about Salazar, as do others, and why shouldn't I be able to express them? So if someone has a different opinion than yours, name calling is your best response?

Do we know if PEDs can cause hypothyroidism? Can taking thyroid medicine help performance? There you go, I'm asking some real questions, can you answer them with complete confidence and accuracy? Or do you really not have a "leg to stand on" either?

HGH wrote:

This thread reminds me of the other Rupp thread where posters who pretended to be educated swore that there was no performance enhancing benefit to taking prednisone. Well, I am here to say that I took prednisone to treat pneumonia, and I can safely say that it is definitely a performance enhancing drug...my stength and energy levels were never higher. That may not be what the drug was designed to do, but its effects were undeniable. Many other users concur with my assessment.

And your point is WHAT?!?

Let me rehash for you the "logic" of you post. This is the basic meaing of what you wrote:

1) There was another thread where people claimed a certain prescription drug used to treat a medical condition did not enhance performance at all, but in my experience it did enahnce performance

2) Therefore, any time people make that same claim (there are no performance ehancing benefits) about any other drug (like synthetic thyroid hormone), they are probably wrong.

Isn't that what you are suggesting?? If you can't see how weak your logic is with such points, then you are really sad.

All drugs are different, don't try and make leaps in judgment comparing two different drugs. I will repeat what others have said FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME:

EXTRA (beyond what is considered "normal", which is a pretty small window. The body has a fine-tuned equilibrium) THYROID HORMONE CAN ENHANCE PERFORMANCE IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM

Comprende??? I had an overactive thyroid gland (thus had too much hormone produced in my system ) and I lost 15 lbs (off of a waaay skinny runner's physique) and had a resting HR of around 100 (my normal one is low '50's). I went from 4th in the All-State 1000 as a soph to dead last (3 heats of 12 runners, so 36th) as a junior, and then back to having the fastest time in the state as a Sr (after being treated). Treatment was taking a drug that slowed down/inhibited the gland and got hormone levels normal again. But this is usally a temporary fix, and eventually, if taking said drug does not shock one's gland back into normalcy, it is considered better to remove gland and take synthetic hormone. So I went off drug in college to see what would happen and.....bang, my thyroid hormone levels shot back up. My resting pulse was over 100, I was jittery, and weak, and couldn't run much at all. (I remember one morning after some partying, which yes, was dumb, I woke up and my heart was beating through my chest. My morning pulse was like 120. Pretty sick. I quickly got that thryoid gland removed after that morning and strated thyroid hormone supplements)

In short, having "extra" thyroid hormone in your system is ABSOLUTELY a detriment to performance and your health. So some drugs might enhance performance, but not this one.

Ok, got it, but can PEDs lead to thyroid problems?

Can underwater treadmills lead to thyroid problems?

who else? wrote:

Ok, got it, but can PEDs lead to thyroid problems?

who knows. Actually Dr's simply state that they DON'T KNOW the root causes of it. Some say possibly hereditary influences (but not that I know of in my case), and some say possibly stress mechanisms could cause it. But those are guesses, there is no definitive proof on what causes one's thyroid to go bonkers.

(underwater treadmills..........I like that one. Could be, could be.......)

Ok, so too much thyroid hormone will screw up your running. How much is too much? Can just a little bit over normal improve your performance? Can just a little bit over mask other PEDs? I have to doubt that they can, because synthetic thyroid is on the WADA-approved list. But, because you're an authority on the subject I'd like to hear your take on if just a wee-little small bit of thyroid hormone could help a normal runner.

Silverback wrote:

Ok, so too much thyroid hormone will screw up your running. How much is too much? Can just a little bit over normal improve your performance? Can just a little bit over mask other PEDs? I have to doubt that they can, because synthetic thyroid is on the WADA-approved list. But, because you're an authority on the subject I'd like to hear your take on if just a wee-little small bit of thyroid hormone could help a normal runner.

I have no idea if thyroid medication can be a PED masking agent, but the trouble with trying to use it in its own right as a PED is that everyone has a different optimum level of thyroid hormone in their body. When doctors say that the normal range for a TSH test is 0.5-4.0, that means that the average person has an optimum level that falls within that range. For some people, it's 1.2, for others its 0.6, for others it's 3.8. You will run your best when you are at your optimum level, and for most people, their body naturally puts them there. Taking synthroid (thyroid hormone) that is not needed from a medical standpoint can only push you away from your individual optimum level. So, I doubt even taking a small amount of thyroid hormone would help someone who has normal thyroid function.

Well there we go! An intelligent person using scientific facts and proper reasoning! Finally, maybe we can get away from this "I've used hyperthyroid medication and I was messed up so it's impossible that any hyperthyroid medication could have PED qualities" crowd. It's like diabetics getting on here and blathering about how bad it is to be diabetic and they've used insulin so they know that insulin could never be a PED. (it can)