Thyroid

[monalisa12]

Hello

I was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid 12 years ago. It has been controlled with medication (Thyroxine) and has been fine ever since. I have a yearly blood test to determine the state of my thyroid. I just had my blood test and the result was that my thyroid is very slightly over active. I said do I need to see the doctor and the answer was no. I was advised to get a blood test done again in 6 weeks time. How is that going to help? If my thyroid is sightly over active surely it needs correcting and that can only be done with medication because I do not see it changing between now and 6 weeks time because it will not get better by itself

I forgot to say that I have been feeling quite tired recently and I thought that was due to my underactive thyroid and needing a higher dose of thyroxxine but never in a million years did I think that it was because my thyroid has gone the other way and is now very sightly over

Your levels may fluctuate so if you are just slightly over then it may correct itself. My levels change and I have to slightly adjust my thyroxine dosage - sometimes just on one day a week - to level it out again

Often times you can feel just as poorly when your levels are over as under.

It may be that you have Hashimotos, which is when the thyroid swings between high and low so a watch and wait thing is probably best. If you’re suffering with overactive symptoms such as palpitations, excessive heat, problems sleeping, anger etc then you could ask about lowering your thyroxine a little but tbh if you’re not feeling any ill effects then being slightly overactive clearly isn’t a problem.

It depends on what they mean when they say overactive. What are they testing? If your tsh is a little low and t3/t4 within range, they might reduce meds slightly or they might leave it and see if it corrects itself. If your t3 is over you'll need a meds reduction (but they're unlikely to be testing t3).

If your levels have been stable on your current dose of meds they may be reluctant to mess about with it too much, which is why they'd like to wait and see. I would prefer that my GP took this kind of approach rather than immediately reducing your thyroxine and potentially sending you into a pendulum swing where you're having your dose alternately reduced and increased.

Do you have any symptoms like loose bowels, fast heart rate, sleeplessness, sweating etc?

yeah I do not know what the numbers were showing and apart from feeling tired at odd times I have no other symptoms. I am the correct weight for my height and I do not have thinning or brittle hair or any of the other symptoms of hashimoto so I doubt I have that. I am actually trying to shed a couple of pounds but that is due to overeating at xmas not anything to do with thyroid. Even having an underactive thyroid for 12 years has never affected my weight

Hormone interactions are really complicated. As other hormone levels fluctuate, everything gets impacted. Menopause often lets people reduce their dose. You need to know what is going on first though, so monitoring the levels before changing the dose is fine.