I had a request to do an updated thyroid testing video, like what's in a proper thyroid panel and why do we do it and what do the numbers mean? So I'm kind of going to just go through the list. Name the test. What are the normal ranges for us, the functional normal ranges, why do we do it? What does it mean? How does it interact with the other tests? So if you have a thyroid panel either from me or from somebody else and you want to pull it up and go through it while I do the video, hopefully it'll help things make sense for you. But I think I've done these in the past. Someone was having trouble finding one, so they asked me to do an updated version. Here it is. So when you do a thyroid panel, the lab mixes it up and presents it in different chunks.
(00:48)
So I'm going to go through it in the order in which your body makes and processes thyroid hormone from asking for it in the beginning, all the way to active thyroid hormone at the end of this. So you may hav...
Dr. Krupka (00:01):
So I just had a situation with a patient. I thought I'd discuss it since we recently did a couple of thyroid hormone related videos. Had a patient call in today. We were going over some of her thyroid results. She deals with another practitioner to get her thyroid hormone prescribed. She takes NP thyroid, which is kind of a mix of T4 and T3. So there was a misunderstanding on the part of her practitioner, and it's a good example of what can happen if you don't understand what the different numbers mean. I'm just going to go over it with you real quick. Because she's taking thyroid hormone, her TSH is very low. Remember, TSH is how you ask for thyroid hormone. If you're taking pretty much everything you need for thyroid hormone, your pituitary doesn't have a reason to ask you to make more, right?
(00:56):
So your TSH is going to go very low. It's perfectly normal. We expect it. In fact, in cases where someone's had thyroid cancer, they'll give them enough T4 that...
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