Posted , 5 users are following.
Hi. Wondering if anyone can help me understand my blood results and what they mean? I was being treated for an under active thyroid with 50mg of levothyroxine but they've taken me off it for a month and will re do bloods.
Cortisol 191
Fsh 3.8
Lh 3.8
Thanks
0 likes, 6 replies
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dave64969 rebecca80606
Posted
Your TSH - I assume that's what you mean, not FSH - is below 4 and doctors usually treat that as being in the "normal" range. Yours would be high-normal though, so perhaps borderline hypothyroid. So presumably that is why they are trying taking you off the medication, to see if it changes anything. Do you have symptoms?
Bear in mind that high TSH means low thyroid, and vice-versa.
rebecca80606 dave64969
Posted
No my Tsh was 8 but came up to a normal level with the levothyroxine. They've however discovered the above results which are low which .automatically suggest something wrong with my pituitary gland. That's all I know.
Thanks
jenny19687 rebecca80606
Posted
MtViewCatherine rebecca80606
Posted
Hi Rebecca,
For FSH, lower is better. The higher it is, the harder your body is working to ovulate. By the FSH, I assume you're fairly young. Once the FSH gets above 10, it tells you your body is really having a tough time ovulating. Ok, that's what my doc told me a while back. But if you do a search, you'll see that the hormone ranges are all over the board depending on where you are in your cycle.
For the cortisol, numbers fluctuate throughout the day. However if you're measuring in ug/dl, your numbers are very high. And you could have adrenal exhaustion. Adrenal problems often accompany thyroid disease, because the thyroid, adrenals and pancrease work together to regulate energy levels.
with the levo, the idea is to supplement the thyroxin if your body is not producing enough. However, this interferes with the natural feedback loop and can suppress your pituitary's production of TSH, as well as your thyroid's production of thyroxin. So the medication isn't a perfect system. Naturally, if the pituitary is suppressed, it's unlikely that suppression if TSH has no effect on other pituitary functions. Every time I went on and off meds, I had horrible migraines located where the pituitary sits. Just sayin'.
I assume they've run these tears because you're trying to get pregnant?
Maybe do a search for blood work rangers for each of these, as all three are quite complex and change frequently.
rebecca80606 MtViewCatherine
Posted
Thank you
I did a bit of research and read that if 3 or more of your hormones are low then it's a sign that something is wrong with your pituitary gland? I have polycystic ovaries which must be why they tested the fsh and Lh. However, I have 2 children. I'm 31 this year.
My cortisol should have been around 500 first thing in the morning but wasn't. I just want to feel better. I'm constantly exhausted and low.
Xx
MtViewCatherine rebecca80606
Posted
Low thyroid can account for both the pcos and the adrenal problems. You could be low on iodine and a simple high quality kelp supplement such as bladderwrack may do wonders to start.
You might want to try a book on hormones. I know nobody wants to read a hormone book, but there are some really helpful ones out there where you can do some initial self diagnosis, with various levels of treatment from diet and exercise, to herbs, and at what point you need medical intervention.
i can pm you a book that I've found very helpful. Every time my thyroid gets wonky, everything else goes wonky, so I have to get the thyroid back on track, and then also reboot the rest of the endocrine system. I have to do this frequently, basically every time the thyroid stuff shifts. This is not an age thing, it can happen at any age, that the thyroid becomes so low that everything else shuts down and gets messed up. They used to treat this with birth control pills. But now they don't really treat very well with anything. At least from what I've seen, there is no effective "pill" for treating this sort of system failure.