McCall McPherson explains which tests diagnose hypothyroidism and Graves disease. Most doctors check only TSH, but he recommends testing free T4, free T3, reverse T3, TPO antibodies, thyroglobulin antibodies, and TSI to catch autoimmune thyroid disease and Graves.
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Hi McCall here with modern Thyroid Clinic. And today we're going to talk a little bit about what labs you need to get a diagnosis of hypothyroidism or to rule out a diagnosis of hypothyroidism. So conventional medicine really uses TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone to diagnose and manage people's thyroid. But in fact, really you need a lot, lot more information than that and we're going to talk about exactly what you need. So of course TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone is really useful. So we'll go there, get that. You also need a hormone called free T4, very different than total T4. You need your free T3 different than total T3 or T3 uptake. You also need reverse T3. That's a pretty good functional thyroid panel, meaning this can tell me how your thyroid is working or not working. To check for Hashimoto's or the autoimmune component of hypothyroidism, you really need to check antibodies. So those are TPO antibodies or thyroid peroxidase antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies. If you want to check for GRAVES or rule out GRAVES disease, which is associated with hyper thyroidism, you need to check TSI antibodies or thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin. If you want to know more information about how these work and how your thyroid works and what they all need, check us out at our course below. Thanks.
