I had an ultra painful injection in my bum....seriously, it continued to sting for several hours afterwards, as indeed my doctor warned me it would. But it did finally kick my cellulitis into submission and sent it on its merry way after just a few more days of hot, itchy ankle.
As suspected, my blood test results did show a thyroid abnormality....but surprisingly, despite me having obvious symptoms of weight gain, lethargy, lack of libido etc, the test results showed that I was in fact hypERthyroid, and not hypOthyroid as I had always assumed. We were both a little confused by that, but my doctor had done some research and explained that sometime hypERt patients gain weight inexplicably instead of lose it...I guess I was one of the unlucky ones. In hindsight, I seem to gain weight both when I'm hypo and also when I'm hyper...I just can't win in the weight game.
The tests also showed that my liver function was way out of whack....I was suddenly scared, after watching all the public health announcements and TV adverts regarding binge drinking, thinking that I'd overdone it during my student days, but my doctor immediately put me at ease and said that in the absence of any other symptoms for now we'd put my wonky liver down to my thyroid, and that if the liver function tests didn't improve in subsequent blood tests, THEN we'd look into it all a little more.
A few other test results were marginally out of range, but she reminded me that with my current case of cellulitis my body was presently fighting a huge battle with the incumbent infection. And that for now we should ignore those too.
She told me that she was going to refer me to an endocrinologist, and having previously explained to her the nightmare I'd had with a so-called 'specialist' at a local hospital, she asked me if I would mind travelling a little further, to a hospital in a neighbouring county, in order to see a proper endocrinologist. I jumped at the opportunity, and said I'd go anywhere, as long as she didn't send me back to the ignorant local 'specialist'.
She said she wouldn't initially put me on any anti-thyroid medication as she preferred that to be controlled by the endocrinologist...but if I was waiting too long for an appointment I should return to her and we would discuss starting on anti-thyroid drugs (ATDs). She informed me that when I had received the primary endo appointment to come in a week earlier and get some more blood tests done, so that the endocrinologist would have the most uptodate test results to work from during my initial consultation.
She gave me a copy of last week's blood test results and told me to keep them in a safe place, and to make sure I get copies of all future tests, so that I could contrast and compare as I headed down the thyroid highway. That was the single best piece of advice I've ever been given with regards to my thyroid. She also made sure I was able to read and understand the results sheets, so that in the future I could check my results myself and then phone her and/or my endo to tweak my medication if I felt it was required.
Here are my blood test results from 18-Feb-08
| Test | Lab Range | Result |
| TSH | 0.15-3.2 | <0.05 |
| Free T3 | 2.7-7.0 | 11.6 |
| Free T4 | 10.3-24.5 | 29.7 |
| Thyroxine (T3) | 58-161 | 189 |
(when I've worked out how to set up a proper table I'll edit this and tidy it up!)
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