Posted by raybakes on September 26, 2004, at 5:00:37
In reply to Re: TSH levels and thyroid illness? » raybakes, posted by karaS on September 25, 2004, at 19:07:17
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> I was wondering if you might have some insight >into a condition that two different people have >brought up to me recently. It relates to >thyroid problems. Both people have high TSh >levels and their doctors have told them that >they are hypothyroid and yet their symptoms are >more like those of people who are hyperthyroid. >One of these people is Simus who has posted on >this thread quite a bit and has gone into more >detail on her situation in those posts. The >other is my neighbor. She had been taking Armour >Thyroid but discontinued it a few months ago. >She feels great. She has lots of energy, her >concentration is fine and she is always hot when >I'm cold. If anything she acts hyper, not >hypo. She got a TSH and some other tests >recently and her level was 21. As opposed to >Simus, she tested positive for Hashimotos. Why >isn't she feeling awful with a TSH level that >high? She and Simus are both wondering if their >problem might have more to do with their >pituitary (although I don't see how that could >be given the thyroid antibodies in my neighbor's >case). Do you have any insights here? If so, >they'd be greatly appreciated.
Just goes to show that people can't be slotted into specific thyroid diseases all the time!Looked up a few things and quite a few articles contradict, so I think there's a lot of confusion amongst the medical community too!
Your neighbour could be borderline hashimoto's because the early stages of hashimoto's a lot of the thyroid hormones are normal. Also in the early stages of hashimoto's stress hormones are increased, so as long as the adrenals hold out, energy levels might be OK for a while. Looking at great smokies thyroid test, there are levels of thyroid antibodies that are within the normal range - does your neighbour know her levels?
TSH regulation in the pituitary, seems to be affected by GABA and dopamine (and so P5P), prolactin, zinc, and fluoride. I'm sure there's others too! Zinc appears to be important in the synthesis and degradation of TSH, GABA and dopamine control the nervous system's regulation of TSH. Prolactin affects (not sure if raises or lowers) TSH, and prolactin is raised by stress and insulin. (A TSH secreting tumour also raises TSH but it appears to be extemely rare - dopamine and GABA would be very important in this case).
Estogen is important too, as it regulates the levels of thyroid binding globulin - too much estrogen can bind too much free T4, and upset the feedback to the hypothalamus/pituitary.
TSH uses a messenger called cAMP (related to ATP) to pass it's message onto the thyroid. cAMP can be raised by coffee, tea and chocolate. Insulin lowers cAMP, so insulin resistance and blood sugar problems, may make TSH work inefficently, and so require more of it to stimulate the thyroid.
Thyroid peroxidase makes hydrogen peroxide to oxidise iodine for thyroxine. Excessive hydrogen peroxide has to be mopped up to prevent it damaging the thyroid, so anti-oxidants, particularly glutathione, are needed. It seems, low glutathione for any extended period of time, can lead to the initiation or exacerbation of hashimoto's - I'm deficient in glutathione as the 'genovations' detox profile showed I had a 'null' glutathione gene.
http://endo.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/2/1136
Not sure I've kept to any straight answers...I'll look at some of Simus' replies later..
Ray
poster:raybakes
thread:359642
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040901/msgs/395185.html