low TSH reading

[ennaye]

My husband has been taking meds for hypothyroid. His TSH reading has come down from 90 to 0.8. Do you know if at this point the doc will reduce the dosage of the medicine?
We have to see the doc on wednesday.

[Barb135]

Your doctor needs to be testing Free T3 and Free T4 (not the same as total T3 and total T4) with every blood test in order to keep tabs on where your husband's levels really are.  Any doctor trying to manage a thyroid condition, based solely on TSH is going to do more harm than good.  My TSH went from 55+ to < 0.01 in the first 6 weeks after starting thyroid medication, and has stayed there for the past 4 yrs.

It's not likely that your doctor would give an increase, but neither is it customary to start decreasing medication, just because the TSH is "normal".

Be aware that many doctors don't do FT3 and FT4; therefore, you may have to ask for them, as they are so much more important than TSH.

[ennaye]

Thanks for your reply. It has taken over an year  for TSH to come down to this level.
Initial starting dose of medicine was low and was increased steadily. Its possible that the doc may ask for T3 and T4 at our next visit.

I wanted to know if generally at this point the dose is decreased?

[LazyMoose]

Not much info here.

TSH dropped from 90 (very high) to .8 in what time frame?  That would normally take several months to accomplish, with several lab tests in order to make sure the patient did not go hypEr thyroid from to much thyroid medicine to soon.

Most Drs would not administer any more thyroid med with a TSH of .8, however at that point it is crucial to look at Free T4 and free T3 levels which are the actual consumable thyroid hormones, not TSH. The current TSH range from 2002 is .3 to 3.0.

The Dr should also be testing T3, T4.