TSH alone remains low - Question and Answer Forum - Elaine Moore Graves' Disease and Autoimmune Disease Education

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Sunday, April 22, 2012

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Welcome to The Q&A with Elaine Moore. Registered members are invited to ask any question of Elaine Moore on autoimmune diseases, Graves' disease, other thyroid diseases and subconditions, laboratory work, traditional and complementary medicine, triggers and environmental influences, thyroid and immune disorders in pets and animals, and other relevant areas of inquiry.

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Questions are answered solely by Elaine Moore, a medical writer and clinical laboratory scientist, MT, CLS, with more than 30 years of experience in immunology. Moore has also authored and edited over a dozen books in the area of health sciences and is an editor for McFarland Publisher's Health Topics Series.

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TSH alone remains low

3/5/2012 10:04 PM

Lou Ann

Joined: 11/3/2010

Posts: 12

TSH alone remains low

Hi Elaine,

It's Lou Ann, whose son has had mild to moderate Graves' now for the past 2 1/2 years, but only treated for the last year or so. He began taking 2.5 mg Tapazole late June 2011.

Oct. 2011 labs: FT4 2.46, tot.T3 266, TSH 0.0072.

Late Nov. we increased the dose to 5 mg. per day.

Dec. 30, 2011 labs: 1.57, 150, 0.0073.

Still maintaining 5 mg., Feb. 29 labs: 1.49, 144, 0.0066.

The reference ranges for all three:

0.70 - 1.48; 58 - 159; .35 - 4.94

Do you have any thoughts on the persistently low and decreasing TSH?

Thank you so much.

Lou Ann

3/6/2012 3:09 PM

Elaine

Joined: 8/1/2008

Posts: 3424

Re: TSH alone remains low

Hi Lou Ann,

Your son's labs look great on the 5 mg dose. TSH stays low for a very long time and doesn't mean that someone is hyperthyroid when they're on meds for GD. TSH is falsely decreased by TSH receptor antibodies. When the patient stops producing these antibodies in significant amounts TSH returns to normal. We can't accurately measure TSH levels lower than .01. There's no significant difference in those TSH results. Most labs would report these results as <.01. Best, elaine

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TSH alone remains low

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