I went to the doctor a little over a week ago to have some blood work done (just a routine physical)- One of my new year's resolutions was to stop worrying so much about my health (haha hypochondria much?) and I'd been doing a pretty good job with that! I didn't think twice about the blood work and was anxious to see if my cholesterol had gone down from the high test result when I was on Effexor XR..Well my cholesterol did go down (back in the low/normal range!) BUT my thyroid test came back with the result of a hyperactive thyroid! :( Something that wouldn't have even crossed my mind as I've never had any "abnormal" test results besides the elevated cholesterol while taking Effexor XR. Unfortunately my doctor hasn't been in the office for 4 days now and won't return until Monday- SO I've had the pleasure of only dealing with the doctor's assistants, nurses and receptionists while trying to figure out what the heck is going on with my thyroid! They immediately scheduled me for an ultrasound and further blood testing (per my doctor) and all they can tell me is my TSH was 0.28 and should have been between 0.35-5.6, so the low TSH means hyperthyroidism. I'm afraid (worrying again!) that the ultrasound didn't look quite right, even though the technician would tell me absolutely NOTHING, but she sure was highlighting, measuring and tracing a bunch of lumps on her screen- All she could tell me was that she didn't know how to read the results and my doctor would get back to me! haha Which in my mind is "There is something going on with your thyroid and your doctor will discuss what she wants to do next after she gets the results!" For not knowing how to "read" the results she was sure doing a great job isolating, measuring and highlighting whatever she was looking at! ;) But I know she's not supposed to tell me the results and a doctor would have to look at it first haha so I'm definitely not blaming her.
So I'm not sure if I should be freaked out, or if this is just all normal as I've never dealt with thyroid issues? I'll tell you that google sure does have an abundance of information on all of the possible and not so possible, worst case scenarios, and really isn't helping much as far as calming my mind and nerves goes! I'm sure I'd feel better if I would have had a chance to talk to my doctor about the results, but that didn't happen so I'm putting the pieces together on my own (self-diagnosing!) which isn't good! So I'm going to try to relax and stop googling! I mean what control do I have over the outcome, or well what control does working myself up give me over the outcome, NOTHING! So I'm just going to try to relax and take things as they come. :) haha I'll let you know how I do with that!
The techinican usually takes 7 measurements which ends up in 14 clicks.I would come back to your blog to see what the findings are. Some lumps the patient can feel or see by doing neck check self examiantion.
ReplyDeleteBest!
Thank you for your reply! For some reason I feel like there were a lot more than 14 clicks :( Who knows though! I'm sure I'm just freaking myself out, you know? Luckily no lumps were felt in examination by my doctor so maybe that's a good thing?
DeleteMost lumps under 1 cm cannot be felt by the examiner.
ReplyDeletein some cases the inflamed areas on the thyroid may look like nodules on the ultrasound especially if testing frequency is shifted.
If large nodule was found, it also studied with power Doppler color flow to check the blood flow inside the nodule. With normal looking thyroid the Doppler image is used one time for the whole gland.
Okay :) Well no use worrying I suppose! Do you know anything about thyroid numbers? Is a THS of 0.28 that big of deal? I know my free range T4 was 1.09 (range 0.60-1.65) she ordered more tests so we'll see. :) I think I'm in denial that I have a problem! ;)
DeleteYour TSH is slightly below the lower limit but the T4 level is normal (almost in the middle) This phenomena is called subclinnical hyperthyroidism which means that perhaps the part of the thyroid is producing excess hormones and thyroid been “told” by pituitary gland to reduce T4 production, so another part is slowed down to keep T4 within the range. This is a very general explanation; for example during the mild thyroiditis the inflamed part of the thyroid released excess T4 to the blood stream causing elevated T4 level; as a result the TSH is suppressed to keep the T4 in balance as explained before.
ReplyDeleteThe type of thyroiditis is determined by checking the blood for elevated TPO antibodies and/or high ESR.
I can't tell you how nice it is to have someone who knows what they're talking about explain it to me! The receptionists at the doctors just weren't helping lol Guess I'll wait for the next blood work to come back- I'm guessing it will be TPO antibodies, I'll update! :) My ESR is pretty low only a 3 (says it can go to 20).. Thank you again for explaining all that- I even went as far as buying a book today (explaining all of this) and well that was just confusing me more!
DeleteA scientist can take a simple thing and make it more complicated!
ReplyDeleteLet see what the ultrasound will show.
Best wishes!