Appointment Results

Antibodies were twice what they should be, but not off the charts or anything. So the Hashimoto's is very mild right now, but present. So, my throid lab result levels are probably close to accurate.

TSH is suppposed to be between .2 and 2.0 per European standards (American standards are out of date): It was a WHOPPING! 28.7

Of course, all thyroid levels in my blood were low.

He did another physical exam of my thyroid gland and checked my symptoms again.

His goals are to:
1. Get my TSH to a 1.0 or below.
2. Get my symptoms under control.
3. Shrink my thyroid gland that is a visible goiter and has been for some time, since it's twice the size it should be.

He gave me 8 weeks worth of thyroid medicine.

I've been taking .075. Starting today I will take .088 for two weeks. Then .100 ... then .112 .... then .125 ....then If I'm feeling good at that level and physical symptoms have gone away he'll call in a script. Otherwise we keep on increasing the dose until I get there. Once I'm there...I'll hold at that dose for 6 weeks and then retest all my thyroid function again. So between the beginning and end of December I'll see him again.

I listed last week good indicators of decent thyroid function...but the biggie is body temperature in the morning. This morning mine was 97.0 Anything below 98 is considered hypo and anything below 97.6 is considered severely hypothyroid.

I'm excited to be on the road to recovery but feel like I'm going to have to work very hard to be patient...it takes time to get out of this situation.

I cried for half a second when I told him thank you for listening. I've been saying for almost 4 years that something was wrong and none of the 3 other doctors I saw would listen. He expressed disdain for the fact that most doctors have stopped listening to their patients...lab results are good, but knowing your patient and their history and trusting them has to come in at some point.

Now...my favorite moment...he said "We're going to give that thyroid a kick in the pants." Spoken in his cute Amsterdam accent. :)