Symptoms Of HypoT But Labs Don’t Confirm? Try Testing For Reverse T3
Here’s the scenario: You and your husband are trying to become pregnant with no success. But lately you also feel exhausted, withered, bitterly cold, and susceptible to illness. And its been like this for not just a couple of week but closer to six months. So you head in to your doctor’s office to see what the heck is up. She suspects you might have hypothyroidism based on your symptoms so she orders blood work. But oddly enough the blood work comes back and your TSH, T4 and T3 values all land within normal limits.
What your doctor may not know is that T3’s degenerate twin, Reverse T3 may be blocking your body from benefiting from the thyroid hormones it desperately needs.
The thyroid and its hormones, T4 and T3, play a huge role in just about all the systems of the body, including reproduction. T3 acts on nearly every cell. It increases the basal metabolic rate, protein synthesis, bone growth and catecholamines (such as adrenaline). It also regulates protein, fat, and carbohydrate metabolism, vitamin metabolism. and heat generation.
The way the body works to benefit from thyroid hormone is to convert T4 into the active form T3. You can think of T3 as the puzzle piece that binds onto the cell walls and allows the cells to use the thyroid hormone for its many purposes.
However, if you ever had to muddle through to Organic Chemistry (and I’m so sorry if you did), then you know that for every metabolite, there is an inactive mirrored form created. In this case, T4 can either convert into active T3 or its inactive bro, called Reverse T3.
If most of the T4 in your body is converted into T3 then your tissues get the thyroid hormone they need to function properly. If T4 is instead converted into Reverse T3, which then binds to the cell receptors for active T3, then your cells can’t receive their dose of thyroid hormone. And then you, the patient, have symptoms of hypothyroidism but your lab levels (TSH, T4 and T3) remain normal.
The only way to know if Reverse T3 is blocking the uptake of T3 is to test for it. But many doctors don’t know to look for this little culprit. Ask your MD for a Reverse T3 workup. If it comes back that your Reverse T3 levels are high, its a clear indicator that your cell receptors are clogged with the inactive ( and thus useless) form of thyroid hormone.
If this is the case, talk to your doctor about ways to flush Reverse T3 from your body, and whether taking pure T3 tablets will help turn around your hypothyroid symptoms.
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