Posted by bleauberry on August 24, 2009, at 18:51:23
In reply to Test Results, posted by Dima on August 24, 2009, at 8:52:38
I am not saying your numbers are good or not. I am saying a common and disabling mistake is for well-meaning clinicians to base their entire decision on lab results. Medicine is a clinical diagnosis more than it is a lab diagnosis.
There are thousands of people who had no need for thyroid attention according to lab reports, despite their symptoms that fit the pattern of a potential thyroid problem. Those thousands responded favorably when their doctor viewed their results as a "baseline" rather than a "bible". In other words, it is a starting point, not an ending point, and if there are symptoms, there should be trials of appropriate choices to address those symtpoms to see what happens. The lab numbers will either be confirmed or refuted by actual trial.
As my doctor told me, we can measure thyroid in the blood but we cannot measure how much of it is being received by the receptors. Are they blocked? Are they working? Sometimes we need more than we think to get past biochemical roadblocks that we can't see and can't measure, except for the outward symptoms that are obvious.
In addition, so-called "normal" ranges are extremely broad. Even more confounding, they vary from lab to lab. Each lab has its own normal range. Someone for example who tests in the normal range but a little on the low side, with symptoms of hypothyroid, could very well be hypothyroid and respond very well to thyroid medicine. With symptoms, it is very important for them to have the opportunity to try that and set the lab results on the shelf for a moment.
A one-time cortisol dose tells you nothing other than your adrenal gland is alive or dead. At the time you had the blood drawn, it was alive and well. But what about noon? What about 4:00pm? What about 9:00pm? Also, how do you know the adrenal receptors are not clogged? Maybe cortisol is on the high side because the receptors are sensing it properly? The point is, this stuff is not as straight forward as a common MD says it is. You have to dig deeper to get the big picture. A salive 4-sample test is a good start.
I don't know enough about actual thyroid numbers to make a judgement here. I do know enough about the big picture that it is not as black-n-white as most MDs make it appear to be. I can find you hundreds of stories where T3 and/or T4 alleviated symptoms in people who's lab results did not justify it, and the same with the cortisol issue. Sometimes it is the other way around...either thyroid or cortisol needs to be dampened down if it is near a high range and there are symptoms that agree with it.
The best test of all is the temperature test. Take your temperature each morning and noon for two weeks and record them in a journal. If the average is lower than 97.6, you have a likely thyroid and/or adrenal issue.
poster:bleauberry
thread:913846
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090818/msgs/913906.html