Thyroid, daughter and me

My PCP has treated me for sub-clinical hypothyroid, and it helped quite a bit with the falling asleep after work. The medication is easy to discontinue if it isn't helping. You might want to look for a PCP who will take your concerns more seriously.

I've had diagnosed hypothyroidism for a few years, and recently switched doctors and found Dr. Peter Linfoot in Lafayette. He's great, and his NP Meghan is also amazing. I highly recommend them and their office. They really listen and take their time. 

Hi, sorry to hear you're going through this. I know how frustrating it is. For 20 years I went through the same thing, and the doctors always said this: "Well your thyroid seems a little swollen, but maybe your neck is just skinny, because your blood tests are normal." This despite being told of a strong family history of thyroid disease. I declined the tests where they make you swallow radioactive iodine, glad I did. Finally found a functional medicine/holistic M.D. who did wider tests and told me that I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis with Hypothyroidism. This is an autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid. So bullet points to know:

• Ask for the following blood tests:  T3, T4, TPO AB. If you don't get all 3, you don't get the full picture.
• Do NOT start taking iodine to "boost thyroid function" as you may be throwing gasoline on the fire.
• Remind the doctors that "Normal" represents "Within Normal Limits." Blood values are given on a range, and what's normal for 1 person might not be for another.
• Demand a trial course of Synthroid (aka Levothyrixine) plus Cytomel (aka T3), see if it helps. Also consider Armour Thyroid - some people have good luck with it, but be aware it is made from pig parts.
• Find a doctor who can do full hormone testing, preferably saliva. Not only for the usual suspects (Estrogen, Testosterone, Progesterone), but also for Pregnenolone and DHEA.
• If needed, consider Bioidentical Hormone Replacement.
• Get your A1C checked if your blood glucose has been coming up normal - no harm in ruling out pre-diabetes.
• Get vitamin D3 and D2 levels checked. You want to be between 70-100 on that result.
• Get B12 levels checked, and if you come up as low enough to be "Pernicious Anemia", get checked and/or medicated for hookworms (yes, this happened to me, several times). B12 deficiency can present similarly to thyroid (but don't assume your thyroid is fine if your B12 levels are not).
• No harm in taking some sub-lingual B12 - it's water soluble in your system and might help your energy levels while you sort out the rest.
• Get your daughter tested with you - this is very genetic.

I hope this helps, it took me years to figure this out, if I can save someone else the same grief, yay me! Cheers and I hope you get some good info and start to feel better soon.

I have found the western medicine people as a  whole to be pretty uneducated about the full picture of the thyroid and the body.
You may have to go to a Functional Medicine doc or Naturopath to get a full thyroid panel. There are many parts to the thyroid, not just the TSH which is what most 
MD's go by.  The TSH can show normal when the thyroid antibodies T-3, T-4 are off.  It's way more complicated then simply measuring TSH.  I've had Hashimoto's  Thyroiditis for over 25 years and it wasn't until I started working with a Wholistic doc only 5 years ago  that I really learned about how to keep my health at it's best with my condition. 

If it turns out you do not have hypothyroidism, you could have food sensitivities causing your symptoms, or other hormones that are haywire (same for your daughter).
Either way, I'd go out of the medical system and work with a Wholistic practitioner.

Get a second opinion! The same happened to my mother years ago before she was diagnosed with graves disease- hyperactive thyroid. The doc dismissed her claims until he saw her heart was racing while being sedated for an unrelated surgery. It is genetic. Happy to say Mom got thyroid zapped with radiation in pill form, and feels much better after treatment. Good luck.

As a long term hypo-thyroid person (starting at least 15 yrs ago) it was a long, long journey for me until, at last, I got the tests suggested by the earlier poster "Sokols"--these I got thru functional/integrative physician Dr. Sarah Ferguson, in Lafayette, after we moved here from Texas.  However, I disagree with Sokols' recommendation for synthetic drugs ( Levothyrixine and Synthroid). I took Levo for 5 months & still felt hypothyroid!  (Each of us is different, so if synthetic works for you, great.)   Armour -- a dessicated pig thyroid--was much, much better, but I started having problems with it too.  Admittedly less than before but still not feeling as well as possible.  So by my doing more online research I wanted to experiment with Nature Throid.  And for the last 6 months it's been working beautifully!  What a relief.  The fillers used in Nature Throid are some of the cleanest (Armour has a filler that isn't the best for me) Also I want to give a shout-out to Dr. Julie Goo, Berkeley Family Practice. She is open-minded, inquisitive, helpful, open to experiment. Dr. Goo is the one that now has me on several tabs of 16.2 mg of Nature Throid, per day.  And that's because sometimes I need a boost in the middle of the night (it helps me go back to sleep) and the 16.2 tab works to calm me down (When our thyroid is out of whack, too much or too little, our whole system reacts.  You might want to check out "Stop the Thyroid Madness", but pleased be warned: some of us find Janie Bowthorpe's anger a distraction (I wonder if she's 'demanding' too much medication for her hypothyroid & has now tipped into hyper-thyroidism). However, we also owe Janie a lot because she was the pioneering voice against  synthetic meds-- which some of us can't tolerate. Today there are other, super informed, less strident bloggers examining thyroid imbalances.  Please don't worry, you'll find the solution for you (and your daughter)---which may be different from each other. (My younger sister is hypo-thyroid and she addresses it with herbs. My brother is happy with Synthroid.)  All the best.