Thyroid Testing
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Targeting TSH? It’s not as specific or as sensitive as people claim.
Patients and doctors are often told there’s an ideal “target” for TSH levels. Some believe that in thyroid therapy, your TSH should be below the upper reference limit, some say it should be below 2.5, and a minority will even say it should be suppressed entirely whether or not you are a thyroid cancer patient.…
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What if TSH levels were like shoe sizes, thyroid meds like mobility aids
Seeing things visually might help clarify what thyroid therapy is like. Our thyroid hides in our neck and our hormones hide in every inch of our body. Nobody sees our thyroid gland distort, die, or shrivel. Nobody sees what fatigue feels like. Nobody sees organs suffering from lack of T3. Nobody sees how our pills…
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Several fallacies in the TSH-T4 paradigm of thyroid therapy
When you are steeped in a medical paradigm, its fallacies can be as comfortable and taken for granted as an old pair of sneakers. In this post, I’ll take apart several thyroid therapy fallacies, starting with the fallacy “description is not prescription.” I will investigate many of the ways in which patients on T4 monotherapy…
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The Abbott Free T3 test kit recall of 2018-2019
Recently I came across the information about the Free T3 lab test assay kit recall by Abbott Laboratories announced in late 2018. The recall was initiated in October 2018 and the FDA record was published in February 2019. The reason they list is the potential for a mistakenly lower Free T3 test result. “Samples tested…
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TSH “can be very misleading” during thyroid therapy, say researchers
How many treated hypothyroid patients’ TSH has fallen below range even when both their thyroid hormones are in normal range and when they have no symptoms or signs of hyperactivity or hypermetabolism? In my observation on thyroid patient forums, the answer is “too many.” It’s common among thyroid patients to resort to such forums for…