new labs and question

[Brucergoldberg]

this is on 5 weeks of 330 mcg.  I was going to try to get to six weeks but suddenly i got really sick, shakey, hair thinning, chronic diareah, ears ringing like crazy.  I went in and had my labs.  


tsh  1.8   .4 - 4.50
ft4  1.7    .8-1.8
ft3  3.2  2.3-4.2

I took my dose at midnight before bed, and then had my test run at 5 pm the next day.  

One of the very well known "elders" on this board suggested privately that my symptoms might be from the ft4 being too high for me to handle.   My doctor has dropped me to 300 mcg.

also there was a weird note on my labs this time under free t4 says"

please note:   the current lot of ft4 reagent available from the manufacturer produces results that are approximately 9% higher than previous reagant lots.  Please interpret these results accordingly.

What does that mean?

[Brucergoldberg]

thank you warren buffett.  LOL

[goolarra]

Demand changes as well as supply, so everything doesn't always behave as it should.

[Brucergoldberg]

so for some reason my labs got lower on a bigger dose.  in reality my ft3 did go down.  The ft4 stayed the same,  but in reality it went down.

Im on this compound.  even though i increased, i wonder if someone is screwing up my doses?

[goolarra]

If your result was 1.7 last time, whether or not you raised your dose, with the new reagent, we'd expect your result to be 1.85.  

Because if they made it simple, and we could figure it out for ourselves, we wouldn't need them!  LOL

[Red_Star]

Thanks for the explanation. I had no idea LOL

[Brucergoldberg]

thank you for the answers.  considering im an absolute moron, if my ft4 was 1.7 last time  and i raised the dose and now its 1.7 now, what does that mean?

why cant they make this stuff simple.  How on earth does a common man heal from this.   half the people i talk to dont even see this stuff and they feel great.    

[goolarra]

Don't worry...I WILL have a coherent thought at some point this morning!  LOL

Just for the sake of academic argument...wouldn't we expect the range to change accordingly, i.e. 87-196???

[goolarra]

I should have added that I've seen that note on quite a few lab reports lately.  My guess is that a new reagent has been developed that isolates considerably more FT4.  It's most likely an improvement in accuracy.

[goolarra]

No, the newer batch of reagent (chemical they mix with the blood to isolate the T4 in the test) that they use to determine the FT4 level returns higher results than previous batches...9% higher.

So, if your previous result was 1.6, you could expect your current result to be 1.74 just because the reagent has changed.  A "change" from 1.6 to 1.74 would, therefore, be no change (or a very slight drop).

[Red_Star]

The newer batch of synthroid? will cause a 9% increase on free T4 labs.