All the symptoms of hypothyroidism - normal blood results…

[PurpleBurgularAlarm]

Any advice is welcome and appreciated.

I have (almost) every symptom of hypothyroidism, most have been going on for a long time unnoticed, others have been popping up and they feel like puzzle pieces all joining together. I’m struggling a lot with irregular periods, hair loss on the head, lower legs and now starting to have patches on my eyebrows. I’m extremely intolerant to the cold, often I am like a block of ice..Etc etc…

Although my blood tests have come back normal, Dr has only suggested I take zinc which I already have everyday for the past 10 years! I am being referred for a neck ultrasound too.. will this show anything even though my blood results are normal? Has anyone else gone through similar with normal results, as I have heard this can be quite common. Could ultrasound diagnose an under-active thyroid?

Cheers all.

What else was tested?

lots of other things can give similar symptoms such as
Low vitamin D
low Folate
Low B12
Low ferritin.

All of the above can be at the low end of ‘normal’ range yet you can still be symptomatic. Get a print out of your last blood test results if you can and see where you results lie compared to the lab reference ranges.
Ferritin for example can be marked normal at 15 but nice guidelines say to treat under 30 and it needs to be above 70 for healthy hair growth. The hair on my legs only started growing when I finally got my ferritin above 50!
B12 is set ridiculously low in the U.K. so you could feel far better at the higher end of normal than the lower.
Normal isn’t the same as optimal.

But yes, it’s possible to be suffering hypothyroidism symptoms but have normal results and then slowly, over time, get results that finally show up hypothyroidism.

What were the actual results? Agree with the above poster about other things but you do need your actual readings and to know all the tests that have been run.

Some results here 🙂 the top is my results vs the normal range below - my folate is slightly high so not sure what that means and the ferritin looks on the low side although dr said its all good!

Serum folate
19.9 ug/L
3.9 - 19.8
Serum ferritin
31 ug/L
12 - 300

Serum B12
359 ng/L
200 - 900

Serum TSH Level
0.92 mU/L
0.35 - 5.00

Serum free T4 level
16.7 pmol/L
11.0 - 23.0

Blood results look fine. Your high folate level is probably from taking a multivitamin containing folic acid. How old are you? Could you be menopausal? I would go back to the GP to get them to look into it further.

I am 31, and early menopause did cross my mind, you just never know! I will arrange to speak to my GP again and hopefully there is something I can do. Thanks for any answers, everyone.

I am not a Dr but I have managed thyroid disease for more than 30 years. Those levels mirror mine and I am fully and successfully medicated. My endocrinologist considers those levels excellent.

It looks to me as though you need a full suite of bloods, including vit D, etc.

This is reassuring, thank you. 😊

I guess the other thing would be if you were underweight you would have a lot of those symptoms.

I wish I was underweight! I have managed to put on nearly a stone since June all while eating my normal diet and being normally active! 😀 can really feel it when wearing my Jeans and trying to zip my bloody coat up 🤣

There could be other hormonal things going on that might be worth discussing with the GP - ie whether to exclude other conditions. Cushing's is one that springs vaguely to mind.

Good luck finding a way forward and hope things start to improve.

Is there a reason that you are taking zinc daily? Do you know that too much zinc can drain body of copper? Some of your symptoms could be copper deficiency. Have you looked into that?

I will have a look into that, thank you very much 😊

The reason i take it is because years ago a lot of my hair started to come out, particularly after a stressful event and I found it helped with the thinning and regrowing my hair.. only a small dose each day at 15mg. So I’ve kind of just stuck to it in habit and in fear if I stopped the hair loss would restart although of course now It is shedding a lot with other symptoms. I am going to have a look at copper deficiency now, thank you!!

I do think you would feel better if you boosted your iron. If it needs to be above 70 for hair growth, yours is less than half that amount. I feel incredibly tired still if mine is below 50.

I have just ordered some daily iron capsules from holland and barret - they are gentle on the gut apparently! Next day delivery too so the sooner I get those in my system the better! I often feel tired, a lot more so recently, so hopefully these will help with that! Thanks again. 😃

Please ask for more bloods test and ask for antibodies to be checked also. Hair loss, and low leg hair loss and eyebrow hair loss was the first sign of mine and my doctor totally ignored and passed it off as me pulling hairs out, did you ever hear such nonsense. Now years later so exhausted, dry skin, brittle nails, etc and just started on low dose of meds which are helping but getting bloods done again next week as the exhaustion going back to way I was. Insist on full blood check for thyroid. Hope you get sorted as it is horrible to feel this way and to feel you are not being listened too. It was a doctor at women clinic that noticed my old bloods off and told me get new bloods done.

Also agree with person above take some iron and it does help as my hair was coming out in handfuls years ago and now take Iron for few months stop then take again and it does really help. Take with orange juice or something else with vit c as helps absord the iron and avoid coffee around the same time and have later in day. Let us know how you get on.

This was me. My doctor tested thyroid antibodies and they were through the roof. Been on thyroxine ever since. I'm not in the UK though so maybe lucky, my.mumncant even get a blood test at the moment so they stopped her prescription, she has been on thyroxine for 30 years. I have to buy it OTC and post it to her. Keep asking and pay for a full set of bloods.

I get really bloody tired at ferritin levels of 30 (this is usually the point at which I dragged myself into my doctors office to moan, several times it’s been bang on 30 at this point so I think it’s a personal limit) my endo considers that low and prefers to keep her female patients closer to 60.

I know it’s not considered anaemic in the UK but it’s not ideal. I would try iron supplements OP.

Ah sorry just seen you have, I think it’ll make you feel much better!

Another underactive thyroid sufferer here. Your ferritin is way, way too low so am glad you are getting started on iron supplements. Be sure to take with some vit C or orange juice as that will help the iron be absorbed better. Ferritin ideally needs to be up to 90.

As a pp said, you need your antibodies tested - thyroglobin antibodies and thyroid peroxidase antibodies. If either or both of those are raised you have autoimmune disease. I had both raised. Your TSH is very normal, hence why your doctor says it's not thyroid disease. TSH isn't a reliable indicator. You also need to have your FT3 (the active thyroid hormone) tested to see whether you are converting the FT4 you have (which is the storage hormone), because if not that could be what is going wrong.

If I were you I would stop taking zinc as you've been on it a long time and it is an antagonist of copper.

You can get fingerprick blood tests to test all the thyroid parameters you need:

TSH, FT4, FT3 and TPO Ab, TG Ab.

Medichecks and Blue Horizon do these, also other companies others may recommend. Well worth doing.

Thank you for all the useful advice and information from each one of you who have posted on my thread. I appreciate it and have taken into consideration all that has been said.

Looking forward to getting the iron into me, and have been researching fingerprick blood tests and am now looking to get that done in the very near future - really useful suggestion! Fingers crossed all is well and I see some improvements with the iron too.

with all the replies I have had, it seems there are a lot of us with similar problems, be it thyroid related or vitamins etc. I have at times felt quite overwhelmed due to my symptoms so to hear others who have had the same experience and then improved is really nice to hear. So thank you for any reassurance given. 💗

will update if there are any improvements or if I find out anything when I have the fingerprick test! Thanks again 🙂

Ferritin too low - only one point above deficiency!

B12 too low, possibly because folate is good - there's a sort of see saw thing going on between those two.

Thyroid looks OK, but no better than OK. However, if you can raise ferritin and B12 it may improve.

If you can get vitamin D tested, then do. Like the rest of us, you will almost certainly need a supplement, at least over the winter.