Please please could someone help me. I'm new and scared.

[Rite760]

I already posted a question this morning and I'm devasted because I'm the only one without an answer and I so desperately want help, so I'm asking again. I have been suffering with thyroid symptoms for 9 mths now. When it first started my GP was sure I was hyperthyroid. I was suffering from palpitations, hot and cold flushes, burning skin that turns itchy, terrible anxiety and panic attacks, and a sort of inner trembling which is hard to describe with hand tremors also and weight loss. But now he says it could be just stress but I just know it isn't. I've been through stress before and never felt like this. The last 2 results for TSH were 3.0 and 3.3. The one I've just had done this week is now 4.5. Here in the UK the range is 0.5 to 6.0, and I believe in the USA it's 0.5 to 3.0. My total T4 is 15.1 and the range here in the UK is 10 to 26. The sensations get worse late afternoon and evening and I'm so fed up with it all. My mother and 3 sisters are all hypothyroid and my mum swung from hyper to hypo for a year before settling hypo. And I feel like this is what is happening to me, but why doesn't it show up in my tests. Please could someone with experience answer this time and help me. I'm desperate.

[stella5349]

See -- you can get the answers. Even though most of us a US and the UK has different ways  - we can still help.

Sorry no one saw your post before. and Thanks for the IM - It made my day.

Stay on those meds and learn about your illness . Never not understand what is going on with you.

TAke care and post again

[debj52]

i was dx 7 years ago with hyper and graves disease and it would bounce between hyper and hypo so much that they decided to do rai and now i am hypo with my level at 57.49 2 mnths ago ....now it is 21.635  and boy im telling you i feel like i have no energy and dont sleep well at all...now i have found out that my grandson by marraige may have it ....does anyone know if levels in kids are different that adults?....thanks and for all that are having a hard time hang in there and god bless....deb

[Rite760]

That's amazing to hear. That's just how I feel too. It's so much worse before my period. Severe anxiety and panic. But it's even worse now I've started a premature menopause because my period all over the place. Sometimes I feel like I've got permanent PMT! What I can't understand is how I've got a some symptoms of hyperactive thyroid and some of hypo! And why they won't recognise it here in the UK when my TSH is 4.6. You see I've lost a lot of weight, and they say that only happens with hyper thyroid not hypothyroid. Do you have any idea why that could be?

[ChitChatNine]

At 3.0 I had constipation, dry skin, anxiety during monthly PMS that was really really bad and needed tranquilizer for it and all that IS GONE now that my TSH is 1.5!!!!  3.0 was considered normal at the time with 5.0 uppermost limit for TSH in US ...... they say I was subclinical .. I was on laxative for 2yrs!!!!  and off it completely .. go figure .. and no tranquilizer unless add'l stress is on me .. then I go hyper anxious but goes away when cause goes away, too.  

C~

[Rite760]

Oh Stella, you've just made me cry with relief and happiness that I'm not alone. No one answered for ages so I gave up looking until today. Thank you so much for finding me and for saying "Don't worry we've got you now". That did more for me than anything! And everyone else that has taken time to send all those answers are amazing, I just can't thank them enough too.
Basically, I'm not on any thyroid meds. This business all started last June out of the blue. I was on HRT for a premature menopause at 41 and they stopped it to see if I'd finished the meno. Then everything went wild! Had raging symptoms of Hyperactive, my doc was so sure I had it until my TSH came back at 2.0 and T4 at 16.1. (That's the only things they check in the UK). Since then, things have got steadily worse, although the panic has mostly gone. But I get the banging heart, inner trembling, tenseness and anxiety, everyday, accompanied by feeling freezing cold, with awful kind of cold flushes. My TSH is now 4.5 and T4 is 15.1. The T4 range in the UK is 10 - 25. The doc kept saying it was just stress all these months and has made me go on antidepressants even though I don't feel depressed. I just feel worked up because I know myself and these symptoms are not stress. My doc has now referred me to a great endocrinologist to check thryoid further and to check for ?pheochromocytoma. (benign adrenal tumour). But I really don't think I have that. You usually have a v high BP, whereas mine is quite low. I think it's my thyroid, but I don't understand why my results are in the normal range if that's the case.

[ChrisGisch]

Hello...after reading your post, I just had to write to you.  I am new here also, but have found myself spending more and more time here, just reading and learning and reveling in the comfort of knowing I am not alone.  Stella, who has replied to you, also replied to my initial post...we are all lucky to have her...I have found that I have learned more on this site than I have learned from my Doc in years.  I suffer from the same syptoms you do.  My came on so sudden, I thought I was dying.....and they have persisted now for 41 days.  I am in the process of having several tests done, but my TSH was initially at 25.07.  My Doc has me on BetaBlockers and anxiety meds which do seem to help some....although syptoms are always there.  I wish you so much luck in finding the right doctor....I am currenlty seeing a PA who seems to be more willing to work with me than the so called "experts".  Sometimes the doctors think they have all the answers....but as someone stated above.....only you know YOU.....and we ALL know they do not always have the answers we NEED!!  Keep searching....you will find someone who is more willing to look at your symptoms rather than what the results on a piece of paper say.  I will pray for you and watch for future posts from you.  Good luck and God Bless!! XOXO