Optimal thyroid levels and what they mean

This week’s Topic of the Week is about optimal thyroid levels and what they mean.

Each and every one of you should know where your thyroid levels are at all times. Do you know where yours are? If you were diabetic, you’d know your glucose and A1C levels. If you’re on a diet, you know what you weigh. The same is true if you’re managing an intact hyper thyroid. You must know where you are. If you’re not optimal yet, you must test every 4 weeks. Once you are optimal you can extend testing to 6 to 12 weeks but only if you’re firmly stable.

You hear me say over and over that normal range is not good enough, you need to be optimal to feel good and to lower antibodies. So what is optimal?

The normal ranges used by laboratories are an average of all people. This includes hypo people, hyper people, the pregnant, the elderly… so needless to say, they’ve created far too broad a range. When we’re trying to get optimal we use a much smaller range. Normal is not good enough.

For Free T4, we look at midrange as optimal. Some prefer to be slightly higher than midrange and others prefer to be slightly lower. It’s up to you to discover your sweet spot where you’re virtually symptom free. For Free T3, we look at the top 1/3 of the range as optimal. Your FT3 must be higher in the range than your FT4 is. This shows you’re converting T4 to T3 properly. For TSH, we look at between .5 and 2 to be optimal. But, since TSH can stay suppressed for months to years in Gravesters because of antibody stimulation we ignore TSH until it responds to treatment.

Do you know where your levels are? If your goal is keeping your thyroid and remission you MUST be on top of this!