I pushed for a referral to an endo which was due this month, but it was cancelled due to the lock down. Symptoms: acne forever (I'm now 42 and it's still a problem), fatigue, irregular periods, brittle dry hair and hair loss, feel the cold massively, like, can't get warm when everyone in the office is boiling, etc. Also, carpal tunnel out of the blue, weird as sugars normalised but, dunno. Also PCOS which apparently is at a low level according to a dermatologist I've seen, but GP told me everything is fine. I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for over a year, but symptoms for years.
Can you shed any light on these results? All have increased - now abormal except TSH. I pushed for an antibodies test and this came back as abnormal too.
serum free T4 18.5 pmol/L (increased steadily since 2015 and shot up 2019) - this is now 'abnormal'
Serum TSH 5.14 mu/L (increased from 1.92 in 2013) but this is 'normal'
se thyroid peroxidase Ab conc (antibodies) = 66 iu/mL which is 'abnormal' (range is 0.1 - 9, so very abnormal?)
Many, find their under active thyroid is very evident, but they remain undiagnosed. It took me several years to be diagnosed, although I am atypical in many ways.
Looking at your results. To be honest, TSH is often used as a diagnostic metric for thyroid disease. Yours at 5.14 is elevate. Anything over about 2.5 suggests the individual's thyroid is struggling. However, your thyroid peroxidase antibodies are rather high. I wouldn't say they are very abnormal. I have seen people report levels in 4 figures, but yours are out of range by some margin.
Elevated thyroid peroxidase often suggests Hashimoto's Thyroiditis
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/thyroiditis/
As the NHS site states, Hashi's is usually treated by Levothyroxine, however your FT4 is already in a decent place in range, so the medics may prefer to monitor you for a while and see what happens there.
Typically, your T3 hasn't been tested, and that's a shame, as it leaves out an important art of the thyroid jigsaw. Peppergirl, in my experience, nothing relating to thyroid anomalies happens fast, due to the sensible periods between tests.
It took me a few years to be diagnosed, and even then I was titrating thyroxine for almost 2 years before seeing an Endo for the third time. He eventually prescribes me further meds, in September.
The thyroid is a very important element of our metabolic health, and when it goes off-kilter it can leave us feeling wretched.
To be clear, I am not a medic, just someone who has learned a lot about hormones and particularly the thyroidhormonse on my journey through all this. Of course, neither I nor anyone else here can diagnose you.
It's a real pity your specialist appointment has been deferred. I have one next week, which I was informed today will still take place, but by telephone. Having met the Endo a few times, I'm OK with that. It's less than ideal, but I'm keen to see him sometime soon, so I accept it.
For you, on a first time appointment, the Endo would really want to see you, so that he can examine you, as well as listen to your story and review your blood tests.
On my meandering path to diagnosis, my GP took advice several times from the Endo Department, via email, so maybe this is something your GP could do, to see if there is anything you can be doing in the interim. If your appointment transpires to be more than 8 weeks on, in your shoes, I'd want fresh blood tests done. You wouldn't need the antibodies done again,as whilst those can and do vary, that you have elevated tPA once is usually acceptable.
If you are keen to learn more about thyroid, then I recommend Health Unlocked thyroid forum. There are some fabulously knowledgeable people over there who have helped me enormously.
https://healthunlocked.com/thyroiduk
Good luck with it all. I had the temperature regulation issues, and still do, to a much lesser extent. Being cold to the bone, when it's plenty warm enough is miserable.