# Hashi roller-coaster...



## clynn1435 (Feb 28, 2013)

Hello all. I am new to this site and would love your input.

For many years now, I would describe my symptoms as hypothyroid - very dry skin, constipation, tired, very cold, heavy periods. I have also had three children since 2004 - the youngest is 2. My TSH has always been normal, so no one has ever recommended further testing.

Starting this fall, I started feeling really bad... it kicked off with a weekend where I got extremely nauseous and sick and couldn't sleep. After that, I dealt with symptoms of nausea, anxiety, lack of appetite, sweaty, weight loss, a white coated tongue, one eye bulging a bit, fast heart rate, insomnia and this buzzing feeling when I went to bed at night. I worked with an internal medicine doctor, who did an endoscopy, a chest/abdomen/pelvis CT and a brain MRI. They found nothing. He wanted to put me on depression medicine (despite me telling him that I did not feel depressed!) I refused. He told me I have tachychardia - he had me wear a heart monitor which showed that my heartrate is indeed fast (something I already knew!) He said that TSH was the only thyroid test I needed to do, and when that came back normal twice (but changed from 1.3 to 2.33 in three weeks!), he wouldn't do any further thyroid testing. He told me, as many have, that my thyroid gland felt slightly enlarged but that sometimes it's easier to feel on thin people.

Starting around the end of December, I started feeling better... but tired. So sleepy every night, but able to take care of my three boys all day again (yay!) Around that time, I started seeing a naturopath locally. We are big believers in diet as an important factor in health and like to treat any ailments as holistically as we can. After a full thyroid panel, adrenal and other tests, he told me that I have a number of things going on that are all related... low cortisol levels, thyroiditis, leaky gut and likely some allergic sensitivity. He put me on hcl to help digest my food (which has helped), a supplement for my adrenals (which has helped) and thytrophin PMG for hypothyroid (which was fine for awhile). After my gut is healed (the next step), he will do allergy testing so I can avoid triggers.

Well, a couple of weeks ago (before I started the thytophin PMG), I had another sick weekend, after which I gradually swung back into hyperthyroid symptoms... fast heart rate, insomnia, weight loss, sweaty, etc. (Which, by the way, is awful!)

Here are my lab results from one month ago (when I was feeling hypo and decent):

TSH - 1.19 (ref 0.40-2.50)
Free T4 - 0.8 (0.9-1.8)
Free T3 - 3.10 (1.80-4.20)
Reverse T3 - 15.9 (9.0-35.0)
A-Tg - 171 (ref <=40)
A-TPO - <14 (red <=34)

My question is... do these results look indicative of Hashimoto's? Is it normal to swing this much in a matter of months? Also, I have thyroid issues in my family history, as well as parathyroid cancer. I've heard high A-Tpo can occur with cancer. Should I get my thyroid gland checked out further for that? What tests should I have done?

Meeting with my naturopath on Tuesday. Thanks for reading and for your thoughts!


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## jenny v (May 6, 2012)

Welcome!

I have Hashi's and when my immune system is acting up and my antibodies are high, I swing back and forth between hypo and hyper symptoms (just recently I swung from a TSH of 1.90 (range .4-4.5) to .008 in just two months!). So, yes, it is possible for you to be feeling that way, too.

Two things stand out for me--you have a high A-Tg count and you have a family history of thyroid issues and parathyroid cancer. Both of those things together means you should be aware of what is going on with your thyroid internally. I would insist on an ultrasound of your thyroid; it could show if you have an nodules or areas to keep an eye on and even if there's not anything there, at least you will have a baseline reading to compare future results against.


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## clynn1435 (Feb 28, 2013)

Thank you! And yes, I meant that I've heard that high T-Ag can occur with cancer. I will work on getting the ultrasound. Is that sufficient when looking for cancer?


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## jenny v (May 6, 2012)

Nothing is 100% accurate until they can send samples (or parts or all of the thyroid) to pathology, but an ultrasound is good at showing if there are any suspicious nodules or lesions that could possibly be biopsied.

I have high-ish levels of both TgAb and TPO Ab in my system and my last ultrasound showed multiple nodules all over my thyroid but they were all too small to biopsy (they usually wait until they are closer to 1cm large), so I'm on the watch and wait plan for now.


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