Thyroid blood test

[mummylove]

I just received a call from my medical practice saying my gp wants me to have a thyroid bloody. I dont know what is is and now im scared stiff cus was looking it up on net and u can get ill. I am so scared and someone explain to me what it is and if u have had one

 

[LoveCakes]

I've had one done as a fertility investigation but it came back normal.

BIL has had thyroid problems since childhood but he takes medication and his levels have come down to normal, he just goes for regular tests as he lost a lot of weight and they were able to reduce his medication.

 

[x Michelle x]

My daughter has Congenital Hypothyroidism, has had it since birth.
Basically, you can have Hyper or Hypo Thyroidism, Hyper means your Thyroid produces too much thyroxine, Hypo means not enough.

Basically you will recieve medication to help regulate it. It might take a few months to find the correct dosage but i promise it isn't life threatening and is easily managed

 

[kit10grl]

My daughter has Congenital Hypothyroidism, has had it since birth.
Basically, you can have Hyper or Hypo Thyroidism, Hyper means your Thyroid produces too much thyroxine, Hypo means not enough.

Basically you will recieve medication to help regulate it. It might take a few months to find the correct dosage but i promise it isn't life threatening and is easily managed

Not to scare anyone but it can be life threatening. Hypothyroid can lead to death if severely untreated( I've had it 15 years) And hyper thyroid can need operations to remove some of the thyroid gland. It can also lead to Graves disease and Hashimoto disease which can be lethal too.


The thyroid gland is involved in the body's process for producing energy. (It was a long time ago that it was explained to me so this is pretty rough ) The thyroid makes a chemical which tells the gland in your body which actually produces your energy hormone how much to make.

If there is too much of the hormone you get too much energy (Hyper thyroid). People I know who have this have reported heart palpitations, excess sweating, a feeling of 'not being able to stop' amongst other things.

If there is not enough hormone you get too little energy (Hypothyroid). It encompasses so many symptoms you don't initially associate with the tiredness which is the main symptom. Over the years I have found, tiredness, dry skin, weak hair, weak nails, weight gain, poor circulation, poor concentration and an inability to stay warm. It affects so much. It can affect fertility (took me 20 months to get pregnant), It can also run in families, and is affected by pregnancy too.

Its a horrible condition and I hope you don't have it I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

 

[Belle25]

I had mine checked earlier this year, as I wasn't too well.

They just want to check your thyroid isn't under or over active I should imagine.

Do you have any symptoms going on?

Try not to worry Hun. I know it's easier said than done.

Xx

 

[x Michelle x]

Its a horrible condition and I hope you don't have it I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

A bit of tact goes a long way sometimes. I don't need to read stuff like that when I have a 2.5 year old with the condition

 

[lau86]

I have hypothyroid I've never thought of it as a horrible condition tbh and I would be extremely shocked at somebody dying of it. In my opinion it is a very easily managed condition and shouldn't cause too many problems at all with the right monitoring and medication

 

[kit10grl]

Sorry if you find my personal opinion of my personal circumstances tactless. I didn't mean it to be that way. It is however honestly how I feel.

In most cases it is manageable but in my personal circumstances it isn't. I was diagnosed 15 years ago and for the first year my doctor refused to medicate me at all as 'it might remedy itself and you are still young' which being young I believed and wasn't till much later when I started researching myself found this to be very unlikely. I collapsed at work due to my condition being unmedicated before they would finally give me the meds. Now 15 years later my dose is still not suited, it has been up and down and up again then up stupidly high for pregnancy then down again and still they haven't found 'my dose'.

So despite being on the highest dose of anyone I know with the condition family and friends I still suffer from the symptoms everyday. I don't honestly remember a day when I didn't wake up still tired and I do everything 'right' according to the guidelines.

So again yes it is manageable in most cases but then there are the 1 in however many odds that it will be the way mine is. And I stand by I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and I have two children who could very easily develop the condition and that is on me and I will blame myself for that. I live in fear of it everyday.

So yes i'm sorry if you found what I said tactless but it is my experience of the problem, and surely the more you know about how the condition can be the better an advocate you can be for your child if god forbid her symptoms ever got worse. No one in my life understand how awful it is to be me. They complain if I ever sleep in or say i'm tired as they don't understand I really mean so exhausted I feel like im walking through a swimming pool. They don't get it, if I can help someone else's family understand how it feels surely that's a good thing

And yes its very unlikely it can kill people but it can. This was information no one told me, in the same way no one told me about taking the medicine an hour before eating so even once I was medicated it wasn't doing me any good as I wasn't taking it properly. The point of me saying it was to share information not scare anyone

 

[mummylove]

Some of my friends are telling me they could be testing me cus the way im feeling atm. Im suffering with depression and anxiety and tired more.

 

[kit10grl]

Yes depression and anxiety can in a lot of cases be caused or made worse by an underactive thyroid. I have also been treated foe depression and one of the first things they check when they discuss my meds for this with me is whether or not my thyroid blood tests are up to date so it could be just as simple as making sure its not that before they look at medication for depression or anxiety.

 

[mummylove]

I am already on citalopram for it.

 

[kit10grl]

I was on citalopram, it caused me terrible mood swings so it was changed. When I was diagnosed with PND with DS they attributed at least part of it to my thyroid meds being all over the place during the pregnancy. The dose was changed four times during the course of that pregnancy, then between the PND and normal FTMness I started forgetting to take my meds which in turn made my PND worse. It is all very linked. If your thyroid is out of whack then it can take longer for the meds to help so they probably just want to make sure you have the best chance at the fastest recovery

 

[mummylove]

Thank u all