TSH 6.95 & Ferritin 244. Any other ideas to treat this beyond taking a pill?

[Abk55]

Hashimoto's

[flyingfool]

I agree completely with Gimel.

you have probably been feeling terrible for no other reason than your Dr doesn't know how to adequately treat thyroid issues in my opinion.

[gimel]

The fact that your doctor is dosing your NP Thyroid 30 mg for 5 days and 60 mg for 2 days confirms that he doesn't understand much about thyroid med.  The NP Thyroid contains both T4 and T3, which are thyroid hormones.  T4 goes into your blood fairly slowly, and takes about 4-5 weeks to reach full effect on serum levels.  So it is okay to use different dosages each day.  NP Thyroid also contains T3 which reaches full effect on serum levels in only about 4 hours and then diminishes over the next 4 hours or so.  Thus T3 meds should always be prescribed consistently each day.  

Even more important is that a good thyroid doctor will treat a hypothyroid patient clinically, by testing and adjusting Free T4 and Free T3 levels as needed to relieve symptoms, without being influenced by resultant TSH levels.  Symptom relief should be all important, not just test results, and especially not TSH.  Your thyroid med dosage should never by adjusted based on TSH.  Many of us have found that we needed Free T4 aroudn the middle of its range, and Free T3 in the upper third of its range, and then adjusted from there as needed to relieve symptoms.

Taking a starting dose of thyroid med is not additive to your prior thyroid levels.  When you start on thyroid med, our body responds by reducing the output of TSH from the pituitary.  This causes the thyroid gland to produce less natural thyroid hormone.   The net effect is basically no change until the dose is high enough that TSH becomes essentially suppressed.  Only after that, will additional dose increases  start to raise your Free T4 and Free T3 levels.   I am sure that you being on the same low dose of thyroid med for many years meant that you were never adequately medicated.  Even now you are having symptoms that are frequently due to being hypothyroid.  

So, you need to get tested for Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, cortisol, Vitamin D, B12 and a full iron test panel, as mentioned above.   Do you think you can get this testing done?

You are also going to need further increases in med dosage, as required to relieve symptoms.   If you want to confirm what I have said, please read at least the first two pages of the following link, and more, if you want to get into the discussion and scientific evidence for all that is recommended.  

http://www.thyroiduk.org/tuk/TUK_PDFs/The%20Diagnosis%20and%20Treatment%20of%20Hypothyroidism%20%20August%202017%20%20Update.pdf

You are also going to have to find out if the doctor is willing to treat clinically, as described.  If not, then you can try to get him to reconsider by giving him a copy of the paper and asking him to read and consider clinical treatment.  If that doesn't work, then you will need to find a good thyroid doctor that will do so.  

[gimel]

A tentative diagnosis should be based first on symptoms, confirmed by biochemical tests such as TSH, Free T4, Free T3, sometimes Reverse T3, cortisol, Vitamin D, B12 and ferritin.  Your TSH is above range and to test for the possibility of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, requires tests for Thyroid Peroxidase antibodies, and if negative, then Thyroglobulin antibodies.  With your ferritin result you also need a full iron test panel done, including serum iron, TIBC, and % saturation.  So please tell us about any symptoms you have, and also any other test results from the above list.  

[Abk55]

I have had a confirmed diagnosis of Hashimoto's for 10+ years and my dosage has been relatively constant over the last 3 years (NP Thyroid 30mg/day). I recognize that adjustments to meds are common.  In the last 8 months I have lost 24 lbs on weight watchers and my latest blood work  revealed a TSH of 6.95 and Ferritin at 244.  My doctor adjusted the NP Thyroid to 30 mg/day for 5 days and 60mg/day for 2 days. Symptoms include hair loss, cold intolerance and memory loss. Any other ideas what I can do to treat this beyond taking pills? Thanks in advance for ideas.