# Best way to get accurate labs?



## damiana9 (Oct 16, 2011)

I need to get my blood drawn on monday. I have been on Synthroid for 5 weeks now and they need to check my levels. I feel much better than before, but I think I need a smidge higher of a doseage. 
I know that getting labwork done first thing in the morning is best, but what about when you are taking synthroid? Do I wait to take it, or do I take it like normal? I feel like both of those options would offer bad results because either it would be at it's highest if I don't take it when I should, OR it will be at its really low if I do take it beforehand.


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## lainey (Aug 26, 2010)

With T4 medications, they are very long acting and the body works on "storage"--you are really measuring the body's stores of available T4 and T3 in the blood. The medication builds up in your system, and does not have that much of an "instant" effect on your levels when you take it each day. This is why you must wait 6 to 8 weeks to measure the effect of a dosage change.

There are some that say that after you take thyroid medication, especially T3 only medications (not synthroid, that is T4 only), that there is a "peak" level about 4 hours after ingestion. Some will suggest fasting labs--but IMHO that just skews the results.

You should take your medication as you normally do, and have blood drawn as instructed.


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## bigfoot (May 13, 2011)

Awesome advice. Yeah, whatever you do, do it consistently.


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## northernlite (Oct 28, 2010)

Lainey is correct to take your Synthyroid at your normal time on the day of your blood work.

This article discusses a study that showed highest TSH on a fasting, morning blood draw. I keep that in mind and if I am in the situation that you are in where I am pushing the doctor for a bit of increase in meds, I try to do a morning fasting blood draw in an attempt to get my TSH as high as possible to help my case. My dr, unfortunately, is very lab driven (particularly TSH) instead of "how are you feeling" driven.

http://thyroid.about.com/od/gettestedanddiagnosed/a/tshtests.htm


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## damiana9 (Oct 16, 2011)

My dr is also very 'by the numbers' rather than symptoms, and he doesnt use 3.0 as a max high, it's 4.5 or something.... So I am definately going to go with the first thing in the AM/fasting. It's good to know there won't be a spike in meds though so I can go ahead and take it. 
Thanks! 
I did forget to call today to see if the lab would even be open on monday. I hope they are!


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## McKenna (Jun 23, 2010)

> There are some that say that after you take thyroid medication, especially T3 only medications (not synthroid, that is T4 only), that there is a "peak" level about 4 hours after ingestion. Some will suggest fasting labs--but IMHO that just skews the results.


I'm on Armour and I fast for my tests. My opinion is different because I know that I start to feel my AM Armour dose about an hour after taking it. Then it seems to peak a few hours later ( 3 - 5 depending on what I'm doing and eating) Then it goes down as some of us can feel and which is why some people dose multiple times per day.

My feeling is that it's the morning doses that would skew the results if you had labs done 1 to 5 hours after dosing, since they are the ones that would be temporarily higher. The other 20+ hours the levels are not that high.

Now, this is only for people on a T3 med, like Armour. Not synthroid.


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

McKenna said:


> I'm on Armour and I fast for my tests. My opinion is different because I know that I start to feel my AM Armour dose about an hour after taking it. Then it seems to peak a few hours later ( 3 - 5 depending on what I'm doing and eating) Then it goes down as some of us can feel and which is why some people dose multiple times per day.
> 
> My feeling is that it's the morning doses that would skew the results if you had labs done 1 to 5 hours after dosing, since they are the ones that would be temporarily higher. The other 20+ hours the levels are not that high.
> 
> Now, this is only for people on a T3 med, like Armour. Not synthroid.


Yep; the T3 peaks in about 4 hours and seriously skews the FREE T3 test.


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