Thyroid / TSH level of 6.45

can you elaborate about synthroid? what does it do, does it make u lose weight? did it make you feel betteR?

Doctor reckons i do not have hypothyroidism because my gland function is within the normal range. is this correct?

how is this likely to effect training and recovery ?

Also have this problem wrote:

Anything above 1.0 is not normal. You have hypothyroidism. Ask for Synthroid.

wrong.

.5-5.5 is considered "normal".

Also have this problem wrote:

Anything above 1.0 is not normal. You have hypothyroidism. Ask for Synthroid.

quest labs reference range THS .40-5.50 mIU/L

If all your other results were normal, and this one was a little high (well, actually...a high # in this case reflects a low level of thyroid hormone) it means you are probably border-line hypothyroid.

If you feel great, and your other results are good, don't worry about it but KEEP getting tested to make sure there are no changes. OR....find another dr and see what he/she thinks.

to the other poster: synthroid is just synthetic thyroid hormone. If you are producing too little, this will get you back towards a normal level. If you had been feeling sluggish and gaining weight, then yes, it would likely make you feel better and lose some weight. But one would only take it if they had low levels to begin with. (having too much thyroid hormone would screw up royally).

"Anything above 1.0 is not normal. You have hypothyroidism. Ask for Synthroid."

-the bullcrap that gets posted on this board astonishes me. seriously. if you haven't alreay got them, you should get a full thyroid panel- i.e. repeat tsh, t3, t4, thyroglobulin, anti thyroid antibodies, calcium, and calcitonin. if on exam your thyroid feels enlarged or there are any nodules, you'll need an ultrasound of your neck. pleeeease don't come here asking for advice from these people!

athlete wrote:

Doctor reckons i do not have hypothyroidism because my gland function is within the normal range. is this correct?

how is this likely to effect training and recovery ?

Thyroid hormones regulate your metabolism. TSH is the hormone that is the marker for how much circulating thyroid hormone you have. A high TSH says "I need more hormone".

Normal depends on the lab but usually normal is somewhere between .30 and 5.50. The poster who says anything above 1.0 means hypothyroism is not correct. however, it seems as if the hypothyroid runners on the board who have posted on this before have noticed that they are able to train and recover better if they are close to 1.0.

i actually talked to a family practice doc the other day about this. he said some of his thyroid patients who run feel better in the .70 range and he's willing to treat them to this level.

but the question is whether or not you are truly hypothyroid. while the lab test says you probably are, it's possible that if you've been hammering runs all week then went for the test, it might just be a sign that you are trashed. the reason...T3 decreases with increasing exercise -check out the exercise phys book by brooks, fahey and white. a decreased T3 would cause the TSH to increase. a followup test when you are more rested might give different results.

while you might think heck, if i can train harder and recover better, then why not get the drugs? because once you are on them, you can never go off of them and you always have to keep on top of the numbers.

bottom line...if you feel okay and can train and recover fine, then just make sure you get another test in a year. if you take more time to recover from a hard run than the other guys you are running with, you get injured all the time, you get worse with training, and you are cold when it's below 70, then go back to the doc with some information from webMD.com.

very helpful advice from no fuel... many thanks

Get Free T3 and T4 levels tested. I recently flew to Houston just to get diagnosed after feeling way o for 5 months. Reg Doc thought I was in the normal range, runners are not normal. Good luck!

Spike Grant wrote:

Get Free T3 and T4 levels tested. I recently flew to Houston just to get diagnosed after feeling way o for 5 months. Reg Doc thought I was in the normal range, runners are not normal. Good luck!

what were your numbers? when you say reg doc thought you were in the normal rangen and runners aren't normal, do you mean that the specialist thought that a lower TSH should be used for treatment in runners?

I did not read all of the other posts but I thought I could be of some help. Many docs will not treat a slight deviation from normal such as 6.5 (since 5.5 is the high range of normal).

I have hypothyroidism and when my results came back my TSH was 43.85. My running did suffer, but what really suffered more was everything else. I ran the same efforts everyday and that basically drained the rest of my life and I did very little else. When I finally got it taken care of my running did improve. More than that though, i was able to actually feel good in my everyday activities and not constantly tired.

cdavis- what did you do to to get it taken care of? meds? which type?

standard treatment is synthetic thyroid horome which is called either synthoid or levoxl.

the dosing takes a while to get. you take a dose then test TSH after 6 weeks, if that brings you to normal, you stay on that dose.

if you are hypo and running, i'd shoot to get that TSH to the 1.00 ish range. i can maintain more consistency than when i was in the 3-5 range.

it's hard to actually figure out when you are really hypo for runners. all the symptoms can be attributed to running. if i hadn't had a couple of other things happen, i probably wouldn't have gone in and asked to be tested.

Exactly what was said. When I started out 125 micrograms of Synthroid daily was my magic number. As of now I am at 175 mcg after 4 years of treatment. My TSH still sits around 5 or so but I feel pretty good. It might not be optimal but I feel good so I don't push my doc for lower TSH levels.

I have thought about going to an endocrinologist but I have not yet.

I have been on thyroid meds for 20 years and run 60 miles a week. For the last year, I have been tired all the time yet my T4 was "normal" with my meds. I went to a different doctor and he took a T3 test- my T3 was way off and I am on an additional T3 med and am feeling like a different person! My old running times are back and I now have energy to do the workouts I used to do as well as get on with my life. Many doctors do not believe in giving T3 meds-look for someone who is more open-minded if your doctor is one of them.

i'm also on T3 with my levoxyl. it showed up in a pubmed search where it was given in a study to decrease symptoms of raynauds (frigid, white, fingers when it's not that cold). since i was already on levoxyl, i took it to my doc and asked him if i could add T3. since there are 2 NEJM articles (that actually contradict each other) looking at the benefits of T3 in addition to synthoid, he was fine with it. i went off of it for a while (wasn't helping my raynauds so didn't want to take anything i really didn't need) and i fell apart. went back on and about 6 months later i was back to normal.

however, i'm not so sure that taking a higher dose of levoxyl or synthoid wouldn't achieve the same thing as taking straight t3. they both have some t3 in them so if you uppped the dose, you'd get a proportionally increased amount.

but, i'm not going off of it again =:0.

it really depends on HOW YOU FEEL...normal levels vary. But a majority of people lie within those normal ranges. I say if you get an adequate amount of sleep (7+ hours a day) and you still feel "exausted" and you have a slow thyriod then it may very well be that you need to go on synthriod. Do some research online, its the best way to figure out what you have. Search "hypothyriodism"

I'd like to clarify one point. According to "The Thyroid Book" by Martin Surks, M.D., Synthroid is a form of synthetic L-Thyroxine, or T4. Apparently, most T3 in the body is produced in the liver by removal of an iodide atom from T4. The theory of administering synthetic T4 is that a normal thyroid gland secretes mainly T4, from which the body can generate the T3 it needs. But I wouldn't discount those who feel addition of T3 makes them feel better. Everyone's different.

Mycroft Holmes wrote:

I'd like to clarify one point. According to "The Thyroid Book" by Martin Surks, M.D., Synthroid is a form of synthetic L-Thyroxine, or T4. Apparently, most T3 in the body is produced in the liver by removal of an iodide atom from T4. The theory of administering synthetic T4 is that a normal thyroid gland secretes mainly T4, from which the body can generate the T3 it needs. But I wouldn't discount those who feel addition of T3 makes them feel better. Everyone's different.

I have recently found myself in a similar boat with "high thyroid" levels. Is it really true I'll need to be on the meds permanently?