# hi..new here..question about antibodies



## cduval04 (Mar 12, 2010)

Hi there, I have been on the search for a diagnosis for 2 years now and am entering the "everyone thinks its all in my head" phase. I am so desperate not to gain anymore weight that I persuing the lap band, even though I know there is something else going on, but I wont just sit and watch myself balloon to 400 lbs while "things are trying to be figured out." it is easily removable though, so when they do find whatever is causing all my issues, I can say I told you so with a big smile on my face haha.

I have been on the cushings boards a lot, I would bet my life on it that it is either cushings or hashi's or both, but whatever it is seems to be VERY cyclical

my question is I have had two thyroid peroxidase abs blood tests and both of them have been less than 10 (normal being less than 35 IU/mL), but to me it really seems like I am cycling between hyper and hypo quite a bit now...there is a period where I am freezing (always hands and feet first), weak, tired, deeply depressed, like "where is my life headed" type thoughts, really itchy skin, no weight loss even though my appetite is less....and then all of a sudden it flips I am up all hours of the night, sweating, heart racing, panic attacks, (eating klonopin for breakfast lunch and dinner just to stay calm) and short bouts of weight loss, you know 5 or 6 lbs until I become hypo again and it all comes back on...about twice out of the blue this random sore throat comes on and a hacking smokers sounding cough (no I dont smoke never have) it lasts about a day and goes away. I have been to the endo once or twice and she has said that one side of my thyroid has felt a little swollen. My thyroid labs have been all over the place. TSH has been 1 a couple times has been in the mid*high 2's plenty of times has been 4 and 5 a few times and twice it has spiked to about 8 which was just dxed as "acute thyroiditis" my free t4s have always been just high enough to make it into the normal range so they can say they are normal, but if the range is like 0.9*1.8 mine will be like 1.0 so it just creeps by.

anyway, any ideas why my antibodies are so low? I read somewhere that antibodies are only present right after a flare up? or do you just think if I have hashi's that it hasnt progressed enough to show pos. antibodies. I am on 50mcg of levothyroxine, but even on that, my thyroid hormones are fluctuating more than they should be I think. I had a TSH done in jan and it was 1.15, (no T4 done) and then I had one done on feb 23rd and TSH was 2.44 (normal=0.44*5.00) and FT4 was 1.0 (normal=0.9*1.8)

is it possible to have hashis and get negative antibodies, also I read somewhere that there was more than one antibody test, other than thyroid peroxidase abs? is that true? pls help

I also have an 8mm pituitary adenoma and low growth hormone levels. (the growth hormone thing was just recently discovered my a neuroendocrinologst), trying to schedule to for an MRI

anyway I probably wrote way too much but this was my first post here so consider this my introduction, but I did just want to know about the antibody thing.

thanks!
*Carlie

why don't they let u type hyphens on here? the all come out as asterix (anyway, my asterix's were hyphens lol)


----------



## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

cduval04 said:


> Hi there, I have been on the search for a diagnosis for 2 years now and am entering the "everyone thinks its all in my head" phase. I am so desperate not to gain anymore weight that I persuing the lap band, even though I know there is something else going on, but I wont just sit and watch myself balloon to 400 lbs while "things are trying to be figured out." it is easily removable though, so when they do find whatever is causing all my issues, I can say I told you so with a big smile on my face haha.
> 
> I have been on the cushings boards a lot, I would bet my life on it that it is either cushings or hashi's or both, but whatever it is seems to be VERY cyclical
> 
> ...


Hi, Carly and welcome. We will have to get our admin to give us our hypens back, won't we? We had to block a certain word and there was a hyphen in it.:anim_63:

Anyway,on to you!! Does not the neuro think that the pituitary adenoma has a lot to do w/the way your thyroid is acting? What is the game plan for treatment of that?

There is evidence of TPO even though they are less than <. That does mean something autoimmune is going on but not necessarily thyroid. TPO is found in a lot of autoimmune diseases such as RA, Lupus, Sjogren's and so on. Whe you look up TPO on the url I furnished for labs, you will read that.

I will say that a lot of us have been on a roller coaster ride with labs going from one extreme to the other. First we are hyper, then we are hypo and so it goes.

Clearly something is up w/ your thyroid.

Here are some lab tests that I like to recommend...............

TSI (thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin),TPO (antimicrosomal antibodies) TBII (thyrotropin*binding inhibitory immunoglobulin), Thyroglobulin Ab, ANA (antinuclear antibodies),TSH, Free T3, Free T4.

You can look this stuff up here and more.........
http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/conditions/thyroid.html

Once again, welcome and I am "with" you on the weight issue. Do whatever it takes.


----------

