Goitre- normal bloods- but vit b level low?

[stressedtothemax77]

I posted a couple of months ago about possible thyroid problems and symptoms.

I had a scan for something totally unrelated and they picked up my swollen thyroid.

After another referral to the GP for blood tests and my results being within range I was told that there was nothing more to be done at this point and they would not refer me to endocrinology.

As it turned out the sonography had referred me to endo.
Saw the consultant yesterday who spent the first 20 mins explaining how I would not be getting a prescription for thyroid meds and I would struggle to find any dr in the U.K. Who would prescribe with my levels.
I then went through all my symptoms and problems. I told him my nan had her thyroid removed.
He then looked at my goitre and was amazed as apparently it's huge
and requires a barium swallow and a ct scan to check it's not pressing on my gullet/windpipe.
Took bloods and today rang to say my results for Vit B are 0.20 and I need to start treatment for this immediately. Also he's prescribed thyroxine 100mg to try and shrink the goitre.

I guess my questions are;
Can I have a goitre without having thyroid problems?
Is my Vit B a little low or very low?
Will the thyroxine shrink my goitre and ,if not what happens?

I daren't google for fear of panicking myself silly!!

Sorry, that's long..

Anyone?

Hopeful bump

A goitre is an indication of thyroid problems.

Vitamin B12 needs to be at least at the top of the lab range.

I've never heard of thyroxine shrinking a goitre. You may be lucky, but if not, and particularly if its pressing on anything else, you're looking at surgery.

Sorry, that's not what you want to hear. The good folks at ThyroidUK will help you.

From my basic biology the goitre may shrink from thyroxine as the body has been growing more thyroid tissue to keep its levels right. As it hadn't been getting enough. It's doing very well so your blood results were in range. But it's not good! So with extra thyroxine the body will hopefully stop growing more thyroid tissue and shrink it. It will most likely shrivel up completely though eventually.

Thyroids grow slightly during pregnancy and then reduce in the last trimester as baby has their own. A colleague had a partial thyroidectamy and was on thyroxine. She's not now if it has her thyroid has grown enough to accommodate her body, but was told she would eventually probably need to go back on it in the future.

(That's how I understand the biology!)

VERY happy to be corrected!

Great they've picked up on the b vit issue. Hope you feel better soon.

Thank you for the replies. I will take a look at thyroid uk.
Really don't want surgery so hoping this will work! Although if it shrinks away what happens then?!

Hopefully with the vitamin issue being addressed I might start to feel a little more human soon

Pretty sure the B12 treatment will make a huge difference to how you feel. It does with me.

I'm a little confused by the result of "0.2" as it's a different scale to the one my NHS trust uses, which has a normal range of 200-800 I think. I don't know what the units are but I don't think it would be possible to get 0.2 on that scale. Unless you're so low that levels are non existent but I would have thought they wouldn't bother with the .2 part! What's the treatment? If you're particularly low you should get a loading dose of an injection which will be daily or every two days. I think just tablet supplements or two-monthly injections if you're not extremely low.

Good luck with the rest of it, I'm afraid I don't know anything about thyroid stuff

Just thinking about it, I had a slight goitre when diagnosed which went away when thyroxine was started.

Thank you plimsolls, I'm hoping that whatever the treatment is that I'm moving in the right direction to feeling myself again.
He gave me the Vit B results over the phone and I just wrote them down.. didn't really know what they meant or what the ranges were. I have had a little look on dr google and everything I can see states ranges 200+ so I'm confused as to what he means. Either that or I have no Vit B at all
This seems really unlikely as, I presume, I'd be really really unwell?!

He said he was going to tell my GP I needed 20,000 units of therapy.
I'm hoping I can get an explanation from my GP.

When I was first diagnosed, my level was 90 and I was pretty unwell with it. I expect you'd very much know about it if you had zero but who knows?

Maybe 0.2 converts to either 20 (still think you'd be feeling terrible!) or 200 (in which case probably mild symptoms)

In case you don't know, symptoms can be:
Fatigue
Loss of appetite
Nausea
Feeling weak
Numbness and tingling in hands and feet
Low mood
Memory issues
Disorientation/confusion

I wrote those symptoms in the order I get them as the more deficient I get. (So only confusion when levels v v low)

I have all of those apart from loss of appetite and nausea