Oh yeah - I've hear this often.
You recently stopped the BC pills. Well - hate to say it - but your body will be in for a long haul.
All of our hormones can be said as a signal and when one is off - many respond to the change. Whether stress, diet sex, warm/cold climate, and a host of other things our bodies will respond and our endocrine hormones will indicate the response.
My belief is you are strongly estrogen dominant - and that will push your thyroid into problems. Most often it will increase hypothyroidism and nothing on your recent labs tell me differently,.
Cortisol drawn at around 3:00pm, not ACTH. I'm not ovulating, no period at all since June and only irregular spotting for the past year+ (that's actually what got me to go to the doctor). I stopped taking my birth control about two months ago after I realized I had not even spotted in three months... I wanted to figure out what is going on and was hoping everything would return to normal after I quit taking my pills. I realize now that stopping birth control can actually cause amenorrhea but given that my periods stopped several months earlier that is not the reason here. My doctor gave me a 10-day course of progestin pills in hopes of inspiring a period, I'm about 5-days into that test right now, but I can't understand why my FSH would fluctuate so much so quickly if I'm not even ovulating right now, I don't even know what "phase" to compare my results to since I'm not having any phases at all. Same thing with the LH, estrodiol, all of the female labs.
As for my TSH, my doctor said having a high Free T3 and TSH at the same time was virtually impossible (whether that means "rare" or actually impossible I do not know), which is why those labs were redrawn. Why would my TSH drop from 5.57 to 3.3 in a week with no medication, no lifestyle modifications... Why would my Free T3 drop so quickly as well? I'm so confused about what could possibly be going on with my hormones! Have you ever come across anything like this before?
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. Really helps to hear input from people who are familiar with this stuff because it is all so new to me.
anything in the + factor on TPOab would be positive - you're negative and not autoimmune
I know this is overwhelming to start with but those other labs are very hard to read without specific information.
Cortisol? - what time was this test done? where's the lab reference? ws it ACTH?
On the FSH and female labs the ovulation dates are important to know to see where you are at.
Are you on Birth control?
Your thyroid labs are low functioning. I couldn't feel well on those numbers at all. Most find a high FT3 is best with a mid/high FT4 and a TSH near 1.0 or maybe lower makes a difference.
A second doc ran the tests again and got the following results:
TSH 3.3 (above AACE normal but "normal" according to their lab)
Free T3 2.7 pg/mL [2.3-4.2]
Free T4 1.15 ng/dL [0.75-2.00]
Essentially, in one week, they all became "normal" - no medical or lifestyle changes or changes in my symptoms.
Still not menstruating.
Drew Cortisol = 8
Estradiol = 49
FSH redrawn = 16 (was 9.8)
LH = 10
Thyroid Peroxidase Antibody
<10 IU/mL [0-35] (Doc said this is normal but how do I read this?)
Thyroglobulin Ab <20 IU/mL [0-40] (Normal, but how can I tell?)
Do any of you have any idea what might be going on here?
Have your doctor run the thyroid labs said above and also the estrogen/estrodiol - progesterone and testosterone labs TOGETHER - with the thyroid labs. A vit D lab also.
My Doctor told me that my Free T3 is 4.7 pg/ml (high) range is 2.3-4.2 and that my Free T4 is 1.71 ng/dl (normal) range is .75-2. In light of my high TSH 5.57, what do those results indicate?
can anyone tell me if these levels are normal...TSH 1.20...Free T4 .93
I have never been tested for the free T3
Your TSH, at 5.57, is above range (0.3-3.0 according to AACE). This would indicate that you might be slightly hypO. TSH is counterintuitive...as it goes down, you move toward hyper, and as it rises, you move toward hypo. However, TSH is a very poor diagnostic of thyroid disease. If you really want to know what your thyroid is doing, your doctor has to order free T3 and free T4. These are the actual thyroid hormones (TSH is pituitary). Be sure to request FREE T3 and FREE T4. If "free" is not specified, you will get total T3 and T4, which are considered obsolete tests of limited usefulness.
I don't know enough about your other hormone questions to comment further, except to say that the whole endocrine system is interrelated, and imbalances in one part can affect others.
Your FT4 looks like it's probably also in range, but it's much too low in the range. Many of us don't find our symptoms relieved until FT4 is midrange or a bit higher.
Are you on meds?