Questions about Thyroid levels & m/c's
Find a Conversation
Questions about Thyroid levels & m/c's
| Thu, 07-08-2004 - 9:29am |
I am so glad to have found this board. I have been on a few of the other boards on this site, but definitely have a few questions which hopefully some one can help out with. I recently had my second m/c (June 17). I had blood work done on June 30 and just got a call from my midwife last night telling me that she is a little concerned with my Thyroid level. My TSH is at 4.82, which she said is still within the "ok" range, but with my history she thought that I should contact my pcp to let her know. I had my thyroid checked last Aug. but I am waiting to hear from my dr. as to what it was. I know she said it was fine, but she never told me the number. The reason why she did the blood work last year was because I am tired a lot, I eat very well and excercise so I was concerned with my lack of energy. Although I am waiting to her from my pcp I thought I would ask if there is a correlation between thyroid levels and m/c's. My first m/c occurred at 15 weeks (although I was told it really happened around 9 weeks) and it was due to a partial molar pg. My second happened around 5 weeks and the dr's don't know what caused this one. So I'm left with very few answers and a ton of questions. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated:)

ENDOCRINOLOGISTS SAY TSH NORMAL RANGE IS NOW 0.3 TO 3
MILLIONS MORE HAVE THYROID PROBLEMS UNDER NEW GUIDELINES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), 1 in 10 Americans - more than the number of Americans with diabetes and cancer combined - suffer from thyroid disease, yet as many as half remain undiagnosed. In order to counteract this lack of awareness and educate the public about the prevalence of thyroid disease, diagnosis, and treatment, in January, AACE continued its annual thyroid awareness campaign. The 2003 campaign, Hiding in Plain Sight: Thyroid Undercover, launched as part of the January 2003 Thyroid Awareness Month.
According to the AACE, until November 2002, doctors had relied on a normal TSH level ranging from 0.5 to 5.0 to diagnose and treat patients with a thyroid disorder who tested outside the boundaries of that range. The new guidelines narrow the range for acceptable thyroid function, and AACE is now encouraging doctors to consider treatment for patients who test outside the boundaries of a narrower margin based on a target TSH level of 0.3 to 3.04. AACE believes the new range will result in proper diagnosis for millions of Americans who suffer from a mild thyroid disorder, but have gone untreated until now. AACE estimates that the new guidelines double the number of people who have abnormal thyroid function, bringing the total to 27 million.
AACE made the decision to narrow the range because of data suggesting many people may have low-level thyroid problems that could be improved with treatment and a narrower TSH range will give doctors reason to more carefully consider those patients.
"The prevalence of undiagnosed thyroid disease in the United States is shockingly high - particularly since it is a condition that is easy to diagnose and treat," said Hossein Gharib, MD, FACE, and president of AACE. "The new TSH range from the AACE guidelines gives physicians the information they need to diagnose mild thyroid disease before it can lead to more serious effects on a patient's health - such as elevated cholesterol, heart disease, osteoporosis, infertility, and depression."
COMMENTARY FROM MARY
While it is a dramatic improvement in the awareness of endocrinologists that they are now realizing that the high end of the normal range was not, in fact, normal for most of the population, it's clear they still have a way to go when you read the words of Dr. Gharib, an endocrinologist and president of AACE. Dr. Gharib parrots the official endocrinologist party line when he states that thyroid disease, "is a condition that is easy to diagnose and treat."
This pronouncement contradicts Dr. Gharib's own statement. Until November of 2002, people who had clear symptoms of thyroid disease, but were in the .1 to .3, or 3 to 6 range on the TSH scale, were considered "euthyroid" or normal by almost all endocrinologists and practitioners, and were NOT diagnosed at all, much less easily diagnosed. People who had family histories of thyroid disease, symptoms (including enlarged thyroid, goiter, nodules, etc.) but whose TSH tests were in the low or high end of normal who were testing in these levels were routinely denied treatment, or told that their problems were the result of depression and given antidepressants. This has gone on for decades, as conventional medicine has relied on the TSH test -- often to the exclusion of clinical evidence, symptoms and medical observation -- to make a diagnosis. I would not consider this evidence of "easy to diagnose" -- particularly from the perspective of the millions of patients who have suffered with undiagnosed thyroid disease, not to mention the suffering that resulted from being misdiagnosed with a host of mental or physical ailments by their doctors, and prescribed various drugs, hormones, and other inappropriate treatments.
As for the "easy to treat" component, a survey I just conducted, reported on in this issue, found that more than 50% of respondents reported that they are not satisfied with their thyroid treatment. A Thyroid Foundation of America survey found that more than two-thirds of Graves' disease patients continued to suffer debilitating symptoms after treatment and while "euthyroid." A study published in the February, 2002 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that nearly five percent of Americans suffer from often undiagnosed thyroid disease. And those projections were based on the earlier .5 to 5-6 TSH "normal range." If thyroid disease is so easy to diagnose, why are millions of people undiagnosed?
Perhaps more telling were the results of the groundbreaking Colorado Thyroid Prevalence Study, reported on in the February 2000 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study found that among patients taking thyroid medication, only 60% were within the normal range of TSH (and again, that was according to the .1 to 5-6 TSH range). The fact that forty percent of patients, a number that translates to millions of Americans, are already taking thyroid hormone and being treated by a doctor but are still not in TSH range indicates that proper treatment is not as easy as Dr. Gharib suggests.
The inadequacy of treatment's ability to relieve symptoms was also addressed in February of 1999 when the February 11, 1999 New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark T3 thyroid drug study that found that the majority of patients studied felt better on a combination of two drugs, including levothyroxine (T4) and T3, and NOT solely levothyroxine/T4 (i.e., Synthroid, Unithroid, or Levoxyl) alone. Levothyroxine alone is the standard treatment.
The AACE has finally moved into the 21st century in terms of its awareness that the outdated TSH reference range needed revisiting, but it's just a first step among many much-needed revisions to the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid disease.
(Source: Canaris, et. al. Vol. 160 No. 4, February 28, 2000, "The Colorado Thyroid Disease Prevalence Study," Archives of Internal Medicine.)
now then, the other side to this is hyper thyroid which i have heard is more often linked to m/c. i do not know much about this, but my guess would be that it is somehow related to the amount of progesterone the body is producing. for instance, i went into preterm labor with my baby- dr. said that when body is ready to deliver it releases less progesterone.... altho it was the incorrect time, that's what my body was doing. so i have heard of women who have difficulty holding pg's to get progesterone shots. i guess the amt of prog. in the body drops significantly when baby should come. this is interesting cuz this is what happens when you get your period too. i do not know if you have ever temped... but when you are temping your cycle- you can see a temp rise right before ovulation (increased progesterone) and a temp decline a day or 2 before your period. so anyway... that is just a guess. let me know if i can help in any other way.
Erika