LOW TSH!

Has anyone ever been as low with TSH as 0.089? I went yesterday and that was my results. I just had a baby in July 8th 2009 and I have been sick the last almost 3 months, getting anxiety back again, heart pounding, numbness on my left side, my arm foot, cheek & lip at times, my doctors said this is all thyroid. I'm so upset because my thyroid doctor didn't test me until now after I had the baby!!! I was on 100 mcg and he lowered it to 88 mcg. Does anyone get these symptoms? It's scary as heck!!!!! I hate , I just want to get back to normal...!!!!!! All my other's were normal my T4-T3. Please share

[stella5349]

When I was first Graves - I had a TSH of 0.004 and my symptoms were out of control - like you say.

7 years later after they took my thyroid with RAI and being left so ill for many years I now take my labs and guess what???

I am right now a 0.004 again - but happier than I have ever been with my disease. No symptoms at all

Just in my own experience with the TSH - for me - and want to say for many - is absolutely useless if they are not testing the other (more important )thyroid hormones. Monitoring  of the TSH only is only guess work and wrong.


Free T3 and Free T4 tests have put me back on track on what appropriate med dosages I need to keep me feeling good.

[Hol739]

Yeah my T3 & T4 were normal...!!!!! It's just terrible...!! I hate feeling the way I do..!!!! Could this also mean I could be Hyper now?

[gimel]

What were the actual numbers from your thyroid tests, along with reference ranges?

[stella5349]

Normal isn't necessarily normal. Go ahead and post those exact levels and let's see if other suggestions could be given.

If you are soley looking at the TSH you have and want an opinion - If I was to look at that lab as the only thing - then yes - you could be hyper. As you read above though - my labs are much lower than yours and I am far from hyper now - so again, dont look directly at the TSH as the tell all.

[Hol739]

T4 Thyroxine Free direct 1.34   Normal Range should be 0.93-1.71
TSH  0.089    Normal Range should be 0.450-4.500
Triiodothyronine (T3) 92     Normal Range should be 83-200


I'm having alot of Anxiety, Headaches, numbness on my left side on my arm & leg, sometimes my cheek feels like it's a little numb as well as my lip. Heart palpations

[stella5349]

The T3 is probably not the active T3 test. That usually is labeled as a Free T3 or FT3. Looking at the T3 though - that for me. is to low. When I was that low I was also having terrible anxiety and palps.

My headaches only were present when I had increases in my T3/T3 combo medication - those were very mild but lingered for a couple of weeks.

Now that I am topping the FT3 level in my labs - I have no symptoms.

[magpieannie]

Your t3 is too low. My daughter had PVC's when her t3 was this low (on t4 med at time and was not converting well) Now she is on dessicated hormone which has t3 and t4 in it and guess what??? No more PVC's and other hypo. symptoms happening. Her body was out of balance! Now that she has enouhgh of the active hormone t3 available in her body for her cells, brain and organs to utilize, she is feeling like a normal, healthy happy kid should!

[Barb135]

I agree with Stella and magpieannie --- look at the "frees" to determine where you are with your treatment.  *My* TSH is running between 0.01 and 0.03 for over a year now.  At first, my pcp kept reducing my dosage based on that and I was severely under medicated.  I began going to an endo in Jan of this year and he started running FT3 and FT4 tests and that's what we look at BEFORE we even consider the TSH.  

[Smilerdeb]

Funny how the FT3 causes the symptoms.
If I am too low, I get aches like I'm gonna die (just how I feel) and when its too high for me, I get palps and anxiety bad plus mouth ulcers.
Either way.......I try and keep it around the 4.4 mark. Even 4.7 is too high for me...anxiety sets in.

[magpieannie]

Mouth ulcers? My daughter has had these on occasion. I never considered that it could possibly be caused by her thyroid hormone levels being slightly too high. I never even thought of that one! I wonder how that would cause a mouth ulcer? Just one more crazy thing to chalk up to this terrible affliction! errrrrr!!!

[Barb135]

Deb -- I just went through a bout with some mouth ulcers -- I kept thinking it was because my denture might be rubbing or something, but could never find anything uneven or not right.  Rinsing my mouth out with listerine a couple of times/day, gets rid of them..............could this be what you are referring to?

But my FT3 is not high -- or at least wasn't at last blood work.  Next labs will be on the 12th.  

[Hol739]

So my question is.. With my TSH being low and he moved me from 100 down to 88mcg will that help bring my T3 back up? I'm just ready to start feeling better!! It's terrible.

[dpleiman]

I just had a baby on July 11th.. and it has been pure HE!! getting back on track... I was diagnosed with hashimotos 3 years ago, I had been on levoxyl with small increased dosages throughout the years, even tho i had symptoms off and on my levels were always "in range" but i've just been hangin in there until now.. After i had my son i felt horrible i was on 112 mcg during pregnancy then dropped to 100mcg after delivery.. i felt horrible horrible, i was bouncing around hyper to hypo and sideways. my bp/hr was thru the roof one day and almost non-existent the next. I had my levels checked 6 weeks postpartum and my TSH was .009 with high freeT's.. my doc diagnosed me with postpartum thyroiditis and yanked me off my meds altogether with instruction to re-evaluate in a month, i only made it 3 weeks off meds until i started feeling severely UNDERactive. I went back to docs and had a TSH of 102 with very low FreeT's... My doc put me back on my meds and i had issues adjusting so they switched me to synthroid instead of levoxyl to see if i can tolerate the high dosage better because they wanted my levels fixed quickly.. So far, i dunno.. I feel like total **** still, i'm hoping that in 5 weeks i'll feel better and have my labs done but who knows... I said all that to say that maybe you have what i do, maybe your thyroid is all out of whack and irritated and secreting hormones one minute and none the next.. If i would have known then what i know now i would have never allowed my doc to yank me off my meds... either way i think we have to suffer thru the ups and downs until our body gets somewhat normalized again.. I'm sorry you are dealing with this too, we seem to have something in common tho but i hope yours goes smoother since your doc only dropped your dosage rather than yanking you off like mine did..

[dpleiman]

Oh and dropping your dosage in theory SHOULD increase your freeT's which is what my stupid doc should have done. however, to my understanding, it can take awhile AND it may need further adjusting and tweaking up and down if you're in the thyroiditis state like me, it could be all over the place for awhile..