Hey all,
Last week I had bloodwork done to measure my serum TSH. I called the doctor's office today and the receptionist told me my TSH was measured at 2.575 mIU/L and the doc noted that my thyroid was fine. I have scheduled a follow up appointment with my doc for Monday, at which point I plan to try to convince him that I am hypothyroid. I will include some relevant medical history and current symptoms in this thread with the goal that you guys can correct any erroroneous conclusions I have made or provide additional ammo I can use to strengthen my case on Monday.
Background
I'm a 29 year old male who has lived in an area of Canada with very little total sunshine hours. I was a vegetarian for most of my life (~5yo - 28yo) with some of those years as a vegan. My diet was very low in protein for most of the years I lived at home (~24yo) as neither myself nor my parents knew much about nutrition. For the past year and a half I've eaten mostly a PHD diet and have starting eating Peat style for the past month. I've been active my whole life. Lots of cardio, which I've cut back on in the past year or so, but I still engage in kickboxing which causes some mouth breathing. I've had psoriasis since I was 7 (runs in the family) and was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis last winter - a few of the joints of my fingers experienced pain and swelling for a few weeks last winter and the winter before, but I experienced zero symptoms since then. My pulse is ~60bpms (up from 50 - 60 before I started peating, though I rarely exercising now); my morning armpit temperature is ~96F (unchanged since I've been intermittently measuring this for a year); and, the last time I gave blood my blood pressure was 101/54. I also have a slight case of panda eyes (whiter skin tone around my eyes) which I've read on the internet is linked to Hashimoto's.
My Case
I plan to (re)present my doc with my perceived hypothyroid symptoms - low pulse, low body temperature, cold hands and feet, dry skin, pain and stiffness and swelling of joints, panda eyes, and impaired memory. I will also explain my risk factors - short stature (may indicate hypothyroidism in teens), low protein, lots of cardio exercise, and pre-exisiting auto-immune disease. I will also present him with the following excerpt from http://thyroid.about.com/od/gettestedan ... hlevel.htm:
"In the future, it is likely that the upper limit of the serum TSH euthyroid reference range will be reduced to 2.5 mIU/L because more than 95% of rigorously screened normal euthyroid volunteers have serum TSH values between 0.4 and 2.5 mIU/L."
So that's my case. Please critique!
Last week I had bloodwork done to measure my serum TSH. I called the doctor's office today and the receptionist told me my TSH was measured at 2.575 mIU/L and the doc noted that my thyroid was fine. I have scheduled a follow up appointment with my doc for Monday, at which point I plan to try to convince him that I am hypothyroid. I will include some relevant medical history and current symptoms in this thread with the goal that you guys can correct any erroroneous conclusions I have made or provide additional ammo I can use to strengthen my case on Monday.
Background
I'm a 29 year old male who has lived in an area of Canada with very little total sunshine hours. I was a vegetarian for most of my life (~5yo - 28yo) with some of those years as a vegan. My diet was very low in protein for most of the years I lived at home (~24yo) as neither myself nor my parents knew much about nutrition. For the past year and a half I've eaten mostly a PHD diet and have starting eating Peat style for the past month. I've been active my whole life. Lots of cardio, which I've cut back on in the past year or so, but I still engage in kickboxing which causes some mouth breathing. I've had psoriasis since I was 7 (runs in the family) and was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis last winter - a few of the joints of my fingers experienced pain and swelling for a few weeks last winter and the winter before, but I experienced zero symptoms since then. My pulse is ~60bpms (up from 50 - 60 before I started peating, though I rarely exercising now); my morning armpit temperature is ~96F (unchanged since I've been intermittently measuring this for a year); and, the last time I gave blood my blood pressure was 101/54. I also have a slight case of panda eyes (whiter skin tone around my eyes) which I've read on the internet is linked to Hashimoto's.
My Case
I plan to (re)present my doc with my perceived hypothyroid symptoms - low pulse, low body temperature, cold hands and feet, dry skin, pain and stiffness and swelling of joints, panda eyes, and impaired memory. I will also explain my risk factors - short stature (may indicate hypothyroidism in teens), low protein, lots of cardio exercise, and pre-exisiting auto-immune disease. I will also present him with the following excerpt from http://thyroid.about.com/od/gettestedan ... hlevel.htm:
"In the future, it is likely that the upper limit of the serum TSH euthyroid reference range will be reduced to 2.5 mIU/L because more than 95% of rigorously screened normal euthyroid volunteers have serum TSH values between 0.4 and 2.5 mIU/L."
So that's my case. Please critique!
