GP told me to stop wasting his time - AIBU?

[TimeWastingTeresa]

I had my third trip to my GP today in 3 months.

I feel like absolute rubbish constantly - tired all the time , achy , generally run down .

My hair is awful - dry as a bone and gets greasy at the roots within hours of a wash.

My skin is so dry it flakes . My legs look like a reptiles !

My periods are much heavier than usual - I need to change a super plus tampon after 3 hours . I used to wear regular for the whole duration.

I have gained over a stone in weight in less than a year and I just can't shift it .

My GP ran bloods around a month ago and all vitamin levels were fine.

My thyroid came back as TSH 4.5.

He told me everything was normal and to go back in 6 months .

I went back a month later as I just don't feel well at all.

He ran bloods again and again my TSH came back as normal (4.5).

He told me I'm fine and I'll feel better if I exercise and lose weight .

I can not go on like this so I went back today and he told me that I just need to lose some weight . He told me not to come back before 6 months is up as there's nothing wrong with me .

I left in tears .
I feel so down . I'm so so tired I can't cope with much at all.

I look and feel disgusting . My hair is dull and lifeless and my scalp is so dry .

I don't know what to do

My mum says I should go private but if my TSH comes back as 4.5 again , my GP will still refuse to treat it !

Help please !

I'm overweight but I don't think morbidly so .

I'm a size 14.

Time this really sisn't has like I was last year. I know you haven't felt like this for the '6 months' but this is nowhere normal tiredness. The GP can't fob you off with 'all the bloods are normal'
They might well be but then it just means they haven't found YET what is going wrong.

Did you get ill sometimes around the time the exhaustion started? Something like a bad cold or the flu?

And if you are that tired, then please don't do any major exercise. You need to learn the art of pacing (not overdoing thzings and build some recovery periods in your day). It usually is advised for Me but regardless of whether it's ME or not, yu clearly need to take special care of your energy levels.

I hope the other GP will be more open and responsive.
But please go and see them!

Sorry you're feeling like this op.
Pop to the surgery and ask them for a print off of all your bloods.
Take it home and have a proper look at each result. Even if you don't understand them fully, there will be an exclamation mark next to results which are border,one or way above or below. Sometimes, the GP will say bloods are fine when actually they're only 1 level above or below the threashold.

Next to each result they give you the upper and ,lower limit so you'll be able to see where your result for iron, glucose etc is within that range.

As well as thyroid, your symptoms could be other things....such as anaemia and that has a pretty easy solution.

Your GP isn't helping so I'd ask to see another. Tell them that whilst your thyroid tests have come back 'normal', you feel really awful and could they either do other tests, or refer you.

Gut feeling says you need to see an Endocrinology consultant.

If your GP won't refer you then change GP sounds like he/she isnt that good anyway GP's arent all as good as we might hope for!

Teresa, I hope that you act on the good advice provided here, and that you are feeling much better very soon. 💐

Hey Op. can I encourage you to try and ignore the GP response as you know your body and they don't!

That said, I really sympathise because I am a trained nurse, and I went to my GP because I felt absolutely terrible. He ran bloods which came back normal, then told me if nothing else shows he will have to assume it's personality related. I was totally gutted cause I felt he should have treated me as a peer, I was working full time in intensive care for goodness sake!

Within a few months I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He felt terrible and apologised, offering to do anything he possibly could to ease my passage. I don't think he'll ever say that to a patient ever again. Looking back I can see it was his inexperience and ignorance talking, but at the time I was so upset he made me cry.

Sorry you're feeling so bad. :(

I've always struggled losing weight - the only time I dropped into my healthy weight range was when I had an eating disorder. But when I came off the pill to start trying to conceive, I gained weight very rapidly, despite dieting and exercising. Plus, no baby.

I was tested and it turned out I had a 'slightly' underactive thyroid (my TSH was over 8 and my T4 was out of normal range too), plus I had PCOS. Suddenly so much made sense - not just the weight gain, but the tiredness, hair thinning, ropey eyebrows, increase in skin tags, etc.

I was put on meds for both, and dropped a stone in two months (then promptly got knocked up)!

The endocrinologist wanted me to come off the meds after my son was born, as I wasn't 'properly' hypothyroid (despite the fact that even after a year on levothyroxine, the lowest my TSH ever went during pregnancy was 3.6) and was only on the meds for conception, but I discussed it with my midwife and my GP, and they agreed I should stay on it (and metformin for the PCOS). I think in some countries anything over 2.5 is investigated, and even if TSH levels are normals, T3 and T4 can still be out.

I hope you have more luck with the other GP!

I really appreciate all the responses.

I'm due to leave work in a few minutes and I imagine I'll be going straight to bed

I can barely stand I am so exhausted so I'll reply to further replies tomorrow

Thank you everyone

Irrelevant to the OP but I can confirm what another poster said upthread that many areas will not prescribe liothyronine (T3). In our area it has all been stopped via GPs and patients referred back to endocrinologists who have stopped it for almost all patients

maddyhatter. I can't tell you your mother's gastric reflux is being directly caused by her hypothyroidism but I'm willing to bet a fairly large sum of money I need that it is contributing significantly, a lot of hypothyroid people experience low stomach acid a condition known as hypochlorhydria , in which case taking the usual omeprazoles, lansoprazole, zantac etc is the worst thing you could probably do, because it lowers your stomach acid further.

I went to see a gastroenterologist 3 times and had two endoscopies. Each time I was told the standard avoid alcohol (I never drink) and spicy acidic foods (was barely eating anything) Actually just eating a lettuce would trigger the burning, and regurgitation. It's when you're doing nothing but drinking water and you feel worse that you know more is going on. One major give away is food particles that look the same as you ate them in your stools on a constant basis and constipation. This explains it well: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/stomach-acid/

However acid blockers do protect the oesophagus, so I would not suggest she stop taking them. But I would suggest she see a good naturopath to see if a combination of acid cider vinegar, enzymes and diet modification could eventually calm it down. Is she just on Levothyoxine? Maybe get that checked again. I take Armour and it has helped with my reflux symptoms. Also buy a ninja blender thing, and whizz up fresh greens and fruit, you need the live enzymes and natural acids.

I think it is essential that once given a diagnosisof hypothyroidism people should really research the condition as best they can. Dont just expect to be able to pop the pills and be ok. My experience has been the doctor only prescribing Levothyoxine, not checking for hasimotos, not checking T3, taking 'within range' blood tests for magnesium and iron as signs everything is great, even when I'm saying it's not, and absolutely no knowledge about acid reflux being linked to hypothyroidism at all. A lot of what I've learned runs counter to what I've been told.

Also iron levels will be shit with low stomach acid so if she's not already, she start taking a fairly high dose of iron with something like vit C to help the body absorb it.

Try a different Dr. You have a list of symptoms as long as your arm and it's THEIR JOB to find out what's wrong with you. Don't be fobbed off by one Dr trying to make you feel like a time waster

Unless the guidelines have recently changed NICE states that a trial of thyroxine can be started if the patient appears to have "sub clinical" hypothyroidism - that is *if the TSH is between 4-10" which you are.

You should also look at iron/ b12/vitamin d levels as hypothyroid patients are often low in these and / the symptoms of deficiencies in this are very similar ( fatigue, hair loss, weight gain).

I certainly wouldn't consider going down the route of a CFS/ME diagnosis until you have been given thyroxine.

cks.nice.org.uk/hypothyroidism#!scenario:1

cks.nice.org.uk/hypothyroidism

I don't have time to type out my whole story but I was hypothyroid for years and thyroxine failed to restore me to good health - by miles. Two weeks into a trial of liothyronine ( which I fought for) my health improved dramatically. 16 months on and I feel well, really well, thanks to combination therapy. There are lots of us out there who take combination therapy and probably a fair number more who would benefit from it. Professor Anthony toft - former chairperson of the British thyroid association and one of the most respected endocrinologists acknowledges that patients with persistent hypothyroid symptoms may do better with some t3.

Like other people have said, testing just TSH is not enough. I would feel absolutely horrible with TSH 4.5 and I only feel ok and get my T3 within normal range if my TSH is below 1.

I am hypo and My consultant always wants to see tsh under 2.

I would go and request a referal to an endocrinologist who can assess you properly. Everyone is entitled to get things wrong sometimes but repeatedly dismissing you as a time waster is simply not on when you have significant symptoms.

And as for the - "oh well you're fat so that's your problem" brigade - she's a size 14 ffs.

The TSH is an unreliable blood test.

As a minimum you need:

T4
Thyroid antibodies
Vitamin D
Vitamin B12

You sound textbook thyroid issues to me.

My TSH is never over 2.5 but my thyroid antibodies are 6x the level they should be.

T4 and T3 was lower than it should be.

Vitamin D was non existent, as was vitamin b12.

See a different GP and ask for those bloods specifically.

And check out stopthethyroidmadness.com

Op, what they call a full blood count is a different thing - it's them looking directly at your blood to see the types of cells in it, so the number of red blood cells and white blood cells, the relative proportions of various white cells (there are many types) and also the morphology (shape) of cells.
Most GPS will run only TSH at first. A good GP does not say 'oh this person has all the signs of being hypothyroid but the TsH is a whiff within technically normal so it's fine.'

I'm not a medic but I am a scientist and I work with patient blood results daily in clinical trials. A good practitioner looks at the whole picture before deciding whether a symptom or value is clinically significant.

GP s are human - some are fantastic and some aren't. your thyroid is under strain - you need to find the root cause. go private if you need to.

Metalmidget what meds did you take for PCOS ?

What's your diet like? Do you drink at least 2 litres of water a day?
I used to suffer same problem and went to GP countless times. I started to change my diet with lots of veg and no processed and minimal bread pasta etc. The difference was incredible. Water definitely saved me. Keep going back OP you are not wrong for wanting this investigated. Hope you begin to feel better soon

Sorry if I've missed it. Have you had your vit d level checked?

Please change Doctor, it's very easy.
I know nothing about the thyroid conversation throughout this thread but I have Fibromyalgia and your symptoms describe it perfectly.

Changing Dr may get you a more sympathetic ear but round here the labs will not do t3 levels even if requested or even t4 if tsh is normal - that's not the gp being shit - they cannot access the test. Equally NHS prescriptions for armour thyroid and liothyronine have been blocked due to blacklisting - again nothing the GPs can do about this . This doesn't make them bad doctors. If you want NHS treatment from NHS Gps you have to accept that in many cases their options are limited. And uninformed on line vitriol will neither change this nor assist those trying to access help.

OP, I know you don't want to go back but do! Insist on a referral to a private specialist, they won't refuse that.

Sigh. So much quackery and misinformation on this thread.
It's likely that you have sub-clinical hypothyroidism. You need your T4 checked and TBH if it's around 10 or nudging below then you'd benefit from a trial of treatment. Also thyroid antibodies would be useful.
Checking B12 and Vit d might be useful but the latter is rarely low if you're white/Caucasian.
The stuff above about adrenal hormones and T3 is mostly crap.