I would recommend the same book as Marchlove, they also have a website that is excellent, by the same name.
Thyroid testing on NHS usually is just TSH. This is thyroid ‘stimulating’ hormone, a messenger only and completely useless when on thyroid meds as your thyroid is suppressed, and not that great even if you’re not. The actual active thyroid hormones should be tested, that is Free T3, and Free T4, and at the beginning reverse T3 and obviously antibodies at the start too. The Free T3 should be in the upper quarter of the range, the Free T4 should be at halfway or above. The maths to determine this, as lab ranges vary, is on the website but you want to work out using the range they give and you should be able to work out the halfway point and go from there. In range is meaningless, it’s about optimal thyroid function. But, you’ll struggle to get a GP to listen. I went private and I use Medichecks to monitor, it’s fairly cheap there to just test Free T3 & T4. The doctors that give results and feedback understand thyroid suppression on meds too so they evaluate the results and ranges properly. If you’re on T4 medication only, but can’t convert that into T3, you’re still not going to feel well so that’s why patient advocate groups are asking for T3 to be added, or NDT’s like Armour as an option on the NHS. Some GPs will prescribe NDT or synthetic T3, but not many. Most NHS labs refuse to test Free T3 so Gps are not always to blame. But it is as frustrating an area as menopause and the fact hypothyroidism mostly affects women, 90% of patients, pretty much answers why that is. They simply do not listen to us, make us wait till our TSH is super high despite ‘normal’ being 1.0, we have to be over 10 to get some treatment but even then it’s poor. I felt like death at 4.5 TSH, literally bedridden and 2 stone heavier. Privately I discovered my T3 was almost 0 and my T4 was only just in range and nowhere near half, all of my hormones were barely in range Inc cortisol across the day, estrogen & testosterone too and my prolactin was double the top of the range. I was very sick and the NHS would of just left me like that. I don’t even think they realise that you can go into a myxedema coma if you’re hypothyroid and left like that. Thankfully I had money to go private, many women do not. It’s not acceptable. What you can do if you can’t afford private tests is use your daily temperatures, Google it, because my private doc said he thinks that’s the best way to tell if you’re currently in a hypothyroid state. There are graphs and things you can use to monitor that. Personally my main official kind of sources is thyroid Uk, not the British thyroid association who are hopeless.
