Thyroid Awareness Week 2018: How can I get my thyroid tested?
It’s Thyroid Awareness Week and today I wanted to share with you some information about testing.
You can request a blood test from your GP for a thyroid assessment. They’re going to want to know what your symptoms are and why you think you have reason to request one.
It’s a standard blood test with no need to fast beforehand and the results come back quickly enough.
There are however several different approaches and you may not get all the information necessary from a standard test.
Some will test you for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and Free Thyroxine, others will include tests for autoimmune antibodies, whilst a full panel of tests can also include T3 and Reverse T3.
Obviously the wider the test the more information you’ll have.
However the problem can lie in the fact that the ‘normal range’ is not always best and a narrower band of ‘functional range’ is preferred by nutritionists, functional doctors and holistic therapists. General Practice doctors tend to be happy with normal range.
In his book ‘Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When my lab results are normal’, Dr Datis Kharrazian details all the functional ranges for the differing presenting problems for thyroid disorder. It’s in chapter 4, page 67 and well worth a read (and a shove under the nose of your GP) if you’re not feeling better even though bloods are fine.
If you want to take matters into your own hands, then companies like Medichecks and Thriva have tests that you can do at home with a finger prick test.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about autoimmune thyroid issues (Graves and Hashimoto’s) and what I’ve learned on my little Hashimoto’s expedition.
