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That is, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone.
Unfortunately, TSH levels don't tell the whole story - and that's not the only problem with TSH levels.
One of the major problems with using TSH and other lab results to determine whether or not you have hypothyroidism is that your results will be compared to lab ranges of pathological cases of hypothyroidism.
What does this mean? This means that your TSH levels will be compared to results from people who are really sick with hypothyroidism.
But what if you have symptoms of hypothyroidism and your numbers are not within the range the lab uses? I tell you what happens...
you will most likely be told you don't have a problem - and I'm sure that's not what you want to hear.
Or what if you're being medicated for hypothyroidism and your TSH levels look fine but you feel like crap - excuse my language...
Most likely you will be told there's nothing wrong - you're blood work looks fine.
It's this frustration - or unknowing that you're dealing with that lead me to write the book The Hypothyroid Diet and its reports.
My wife dealt with these same issues.
Instead of focusing on pathological ranges of TSH levels you should compare your numbers to what's referred to as functional TSH levels.
Here are the REAL numbers you should compare your results to.
This is the function range.
TSH 1.
8 - 3.
0 mlU/L Again, this one number won't tell the whole story.
Another problem with this blood test is that it measures the amount of thyroid hormone in your blood.
However, it does not measure the level inside of your cells.
Unfortunately, there is no test on the market.
that can give you an accurate measurement of thyroid at the cellular level.
It may give you an indication that something is wrong, but to really understand why you have hypothyroidism you should have a complete thyroid panel performed.
When you have ALL the numbers from a thyroid panel, your doctor should be able to find out what the real problem is.
And if you have all this information, your doctor will be able to prescribe the right therapy for you.
So don't just rely on this one test, make sure a complete thyroid panel is performed.
Stay Healthy, Dr.
Kevin
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