My lovely fertility doctor, the late Dr. Alan Beer, was TOTALLY ahead of his time, and people in the medical community gave him SO much grief for it. For one thing, he advocated a preconception TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone--common test of thyroid function) of less that 2 (5 is considered "normal"). I usually feel best a 1.5 or below, so this was great news. But I remember one of my HARVARD endocrinologists yelling at me, saying I was going to have heart problems, etc, and refusing to let my TSH get lower than 5...while trying to get me to take Clomid!
I found a new endo and now feel pretty good, because he follows Dr. Beer's theories. Interestingly, I worked in a clinic for pregnant women and saw all sortsr of charts of women who DIDN'T have thyroid disease, a LOTS of them, in fact most, had TSH of around 0.5. So there you go.
Anyway, now a study tracking women with so-called "subclinical hyperthyroidism" had the same pregnancy outcomes as people without disease. So don't be afraid to push your endo to get your levels down to where YOU feel better. And also, consider taking "natural" (e.g., Armour) thyroid rather than synthetic. The Harvard endo and I battled about this, too. Glad I'm not with her anymore. Also, the natural thyroid doesn't have dyes in it...yay.
Read the study here.
4 comments:
i wonder what other keywords can help us identify this
OK, you or someone does not understand the issue. LOW thyroid-stimulating hormone is what you WANT. When your body is NOT producing ENOUGH thyroxine, it tries to stimulate your thyroid gland and so the level of TSH RISES. A level of 5 meand not enough thyroxine in your system (your unborn baby may be damaged). A level of 2 means all's right with the world. I was reading your story about MM and came here. But now I have seen this post, I seriously doubt your capacity to understand what you are writing about.
Umm... habace, I think you need to re-read the post. You're both on the same page. You BOTH agree that at TSH level of 5 is too high, and a TSH level of 2 is better.
Maybe it is you who "don't have the capacity to understand what you are writing about"
I have had hypothyroidism for about 5 awful years. For many years I was just taking cytomel, but then even when my levels were in range, I still had hypo symptoms, so I was referred to an endocrinologist. She said I was on too much cytomel and my t3 was receiving nothing, so my cytomel dose was reduced and porcine thyroid supplements was added. After about 2 weeks I started feeling normal and alive again. I take one of tablets in the morning and then wait 1 hour to eat or drink.
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