Doctors often rely on TSH to diagnose thyroid problems, but it's a brain hormone, not a direct measure of what your thyroid actually produces. Many women get told their labs are normal while symptoms persist. Testing free T3, free T4, and reverse T3 reveals dysfunction TSH misses, like a patient with reverse T3 of 18, indicating severe metabolic stress.
We're still not testing properly. I still see people coming into the clinic with just a TSH.
Many women are told your labs look fine, labs are normal, labs are fine.
That's what they hear every single day because they are just like you said, they're looking at the TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. TSH is a brain hormone, it's not a thyroid hormone. So why aren't we looking at the actual thyroid hormones that your thyroid produces that actually have to get to your cells to give you a metabolism and to light up your brain and grow your hair?
The standard of care is sucks. So please, you don't want the standard of care.
It's very, very common for doctors to just say, oh yeah, well, nothing to see here, it's in the normal range. Meanwhile, the woman could be walking around with a reverse T3 of, let's say, an 18. Her body literally thinks she's lying in the ICU or the ER.
