What would make the TSH high And T4 high at the same time. My grandmother (76 years old) was overdosed with synthroid forever until her family parctitioner doc finally recognized it. Now that he has lowed her meds she still can't sleep and is still nervous.
Does this suggest a pituitary problem? or could her TSH be high because her body is just confused?
There are only two main differentials for that scenario when the TSH is normal or high and the T4 is high. Once lab error is ruled out and the results have been confirmed, usually by a different method, a search for either a pituitary adenoma or resistance to thyroid hormone should be sought.
I have resistance to thyroid hormone. I'm mostly hyper. I'm also partly hypo. Some people are either mostly hypo or pretty much euthyroid. Treatment usually involves giving more hormone than most people require in order to supress the pituitary's output of TSH along with beta blockers. Beta blockers are used first and if they control it, fine.
Did she feel better at the higher dose of hormones? You've tickled my radar.
No she was so hyper that she couldn't eat because of the nausea along with every other hyper symptom. But now that they've lowered her dose she feels somewhat better because at least now she can eat a little
As a person gets older, sometimes their need for thyroid hormone decreases.
Do you know anything more about it? Have the doctor's only been following her TSH all these years? My disorder wasn't seen in the early 80's cause only my TSH was tested and it was perfectly normal. It wasn't til I had an exacerbation of symptoms again in the the early 90's that my T4 was tested and then shortly afterwards, when my TSH went above normal and my T4 kept rising, that's when I started getting the strange looks from the docs. I didn't fit in their nice neat little categories. Totally blew em away when my TSH hit 134 and I was still hyper. At that point my T4 hit the dirt but my T3 was high. They were trying to treat me with anti-thyroid meds and it wasn't working at all.
Every time someone says the words High TSH, High T4, my ears perk up. I've never spoken with anyone else who actually has this disorder. However since it occurs in 1 in 40,000 live births, I'd say there's a lot of us out there.
She has been hypothyroid for maybr like 15 years now. Her family practitioner has been taking care of her for a while now and the tests are only of T4 and TSH. My mom is supposed to go by and pickup a copy of her last three blood test and then I'll know more. We are getting a referel to an endo. The frustrating thing is it could take 3 months to actually get in, have blood test and get results.
I'd be interested to hear what's on those tests. I'm still trying to figure out why it takes so long to see these endos. Hopefully she can get on some kind of cancellation list and maybe get in sooner.
