Saturday, August 09, 2008

Up the dosage!

In a nutshell, TSH has gone up (2.6) so the doc upped my dosage. Up to 88 mcg qd.

Bah. Why? Bad luck? My one swim in a chlorine pool? Shingles? Do my thyroid levels bounce around like this all the time? Did we really just happen to catch my thyroid on the brink of catastrophic failure a year ago?

Also, am grumpy that my weight is up a bit - 5lbs. Might be muscle since I've been lifting a lot lately, but it might also be the result of the month spent gingerly on my bum with shingles. Pants aren't any tighter, so that at least is good.

In the So-What-Isn't-Bad-For-Your-Thyroid-These-Days department: http://thyroid.about.com/od/newscontroversies/a/sunscreen.htm
According to research being presented at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Glasgow, Scotland, there is evidence from animal studies that the chemicals used in sunscreens and some anti-aging products may disturb thyroid function. The chemical studied was 4MBC, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation, along with benzophenone 2 (BP2). The animal studies treated rats with 4MBC for 5 days, which significantly increased levelsof thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), with unchanged T3 and slightly lower T4. These are changes that are "typical of the early stages of hypothyroidism," according to the study's leader Professor Josef Köhrle. The weight of the thyroid glands also increased significantly, another sign of thyroid dysfunction. Interestingly, the thyroid results were prevented if there was adequate iodine in the mixture.
So, um... get plenty of iodine in your diet!

2 comments:

teacakebiscuit said...

oh no, I hope you feel better soon!

Anonymous said...

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but the patients who have Hashimoto's with thyroid hyperplasia, will not benefit from adding iodine to the diet.
These, whose TPO antibodies are high, should try 100 microgram of selenium suppliment as some patients demonstrated reduction of TPO ab levels after taking the suppliment.