Why is it always something wrong! :( Advise please..

[MariaIsabella]

Ok, so finally I am clear from my hyperplasia after 6 months of treatment!!! About to start IVF as soon as my cycle return to normal.

Had a blood test yesterday and it came back with a TSH value of 3.5!

It says normal is between 0.27-4.2 but also heard that anything over 2 is too high . Will meet the doctor Friday but so scared they will delay my IVF now.. I have had a high TSH before where I took levothyroxine and it brought it down but stopped when I was on Provera.

What is your experience of this? Can I still start IVF but be on Thyroxine at the same time?

Thanks

 

[Vonn]

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. I'm sure you just want to get the IVF cycle started already! But thyroid troubles can definitely make conceiving more difficult & increase the rate of miscarriage so you certainly don't want to ignore that. For first trimester they want the TSH to be 2.5 or under. Some will say it should be that low when TTC so it's at an appropriate rate when pg is achieved. I did have a dr tell me with a TSH of over 5 that she would wait to treat it until I got pg. (I never went back to her...) So there's a range of what your dr's response will be. They will likely want to get it down. It could mean postponing by a cycle, maybe even two if it's tricky to get your levels/symptoms evened out. I know it's a pain to wait, but it is better to have everything optimal!

If you start out with a thyroid problem that requires meds, you will almost certainly require that med all throughout your pregnancy, and it will almost certainly need to be increased. If your body is already performing sluggishly, when you get pg that's just even more work for your body to do, so it needs even more thyroid hormone. It is fine to be on thyroid meds during pregnancy.

In my opinion, the larger issue (above and beyond the TSH test result) is how do you feel? Do you have a lot of low thyroid/hypothyroid symptoms? If so, have you had your T3 and T4 tested? It sounds like you've had this problem in the past. When you went on levothyroxine (a T4 med) previously, were you having a lot of symptoms & were they all resolved with the T4 med? I hope so. If not, things get a more complicated. I won't get into all that, but I could. It gets real complicated, real fast...that's what I've been dealing with.

Good luck to you! It's my mission to help TTCers with thyroid issues!

 

[MariaIsabella]

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. I'm sure you just want to get the IVF cycle started already! But thyroid troubles can definitely make conceiving more difficult & increase the rate of miscarriage so you certainly don't want to ignore that. For first trimester they want the TSH to be 2.5 or under. Some will say it should be that low when TTC so it's at an appropriate rate when pg is achieved. I did have a dr tell me with a TSH of over 5 that she would wait to treat it until I got pg. (I never went back to her...) So there's a range of what your dr's response will be. They will likely want to get it down. It could mean postponing by a cycle, maybe even two if it's tricky to get your levels/symptoms evened out. I know it's a pain to wait, but it is better to have everything optimal!

If you start out with a thyroid problem that requires meds, you will almost certainly require that med all throughout your pregnancy, and it will almost certainly need to be increased. If your body is already performing sluggishly, when you get pg that's just even more work for your body to do, so it needs even more thyroid hormone. It is fine to be on thyroid meds during pregnancy.

In my opinion, the larger issue (above and beyond the TSH test result) is how do you feel? Do you have a lot of low thyroid/hypothyroid symptoms? If so, have you had your T3 and T4 tested? It sounds like you've had this problem in the past. When you went on levothyroxine (a T4 med) previously, were you having a lot of symptoms & were they all resolved with the T4 med? I hope so. If not, things get a more complicated. I won't get into all that, but I could. It gets real complicated, real fast...that's what I've been dealing with.

Good luck to you! It's my mission to help TTCers with thyroid issues!

Thanks a lot for your reply, really appreciated. It is soo frustrating because my TSH was down to 0.5 or something before I stopped Thyroxine in March/April when I went on taking the Provera for my hyperplasia ( doc said I could stop Thyroxine and start again once the hyperplasia was clear ).

To answer your questions, I have no real symptoms and found out by chance so there was no change after they started the treatment. Feel normal.

I have planned to start ivf on NHS in the UK and they have never even raised this! I found out from my private doctor and NHS nurse didn't understand why private doc raised this in the first place..

My levels went down very quickly when I started the Thyroxine meds last time ( a month to go from 3.4 to 2.1) so perhaps I can start IVF anyhow. They plan to put me on the contraceptive pill for 30 days before starting stims so it wont be until at least 5-6 weeks before I will start stims so I think it will be down by then and way before I get pregnant ( hopefully! ) .. Is it bad for me to carry on?

Thanks again

 

[Vonn]

TTC or not, I'm really glad to hear you don't have any symptoms and feel okay. It is a real bummer to have your hair falling out, gums bleeding, zero energy, etc., etc. etc...

I would think it would be fine for you to start levo and bcps around the same time. It'd be probably a month and a half before you could actually be pregnant & it seems like enough time based on past experience to get that TSH down. Sounds like you'll have to go through private doc for the thyroid, so s/he may have a strong opinion about the timing of all the meds. I'm not a dr, just an interested advocate. Be a strong advocate for yourself & good luck!

 

[MariaIsabella]

Thanks Vonn! Will speak to doctor today or tomorrow so I can start Levo today hopefully to speed up the process..

I hope you don't min me asking but what was your level of TSH and how did you sort it out?

Thanks

 

[Vonn]

I hope you get good news at your appointment!

AFM--I never had a TSH above about 5.2. which some drs dismiss out of hand, unless it is accompanied by a very low T4. I was dismissed, a number of times, and had to battle to find a dr who would take me seriously and try to help me fix my symptoms, not just look at my lab numbers. My TSH was barely high and my T4 and T3 were low, but not super low. My T3 has been the hardest to budge, so there is definitely an issue there.

I even had my reverse T3 tested and it's high. (Though not all drs believe in/understand enough about rT3 to give it much credence--but when you are sick, you are willing to look for answers just about anywhere and this just makes sense to me...and others.) This most likely means that my body is not doing a good enough job of converting T4 into T3 & is wrongly converting more than it should into rT3 instead of T3.

I don't know if you know any of this, so sorry if I am boring you! I am feeling MUCH better these days and have a very suppressed TSH because I am on T3 meds along with T4. I take doses 3x a day (not ideal) & take 32.5 mg of naturthroid (T4 & T3) along with 80 mg of T3 only. T4 alone (as in levothyroxine) helped me some, but not enough, likely cuz my body doesn't convert it to the active T3 hormone.

It's all complicated because I have gut issues, with a systemic overgrowth of candida. And since 20% of T4 is converted to T3 in the gut, I'm sure that's not functioning properly. It's all related & I can't even be sure what caused what! I'm not back to 100%, but am certainly much improved over a few years ago. Sorry for the long post, once you get me started...

I'm very glad for you that you have a pretty easy to treat case & not much for symptoms. Pay attention to you body, though, in case things change (esp when you get pg)!