Hi folks!

I know many of us have had to fight for proper dosing decisions....many of us have had docs that only look at TSH.

I stumbled upon my "Thyroid for Dummies" book that had been MIA for quite sometime.

In case anyone doesn't know this, the book is written by Dr. Alan Rubin who is described as "one of the nation's foremost experts on the thyroid gland in health and disease"

There are two long paragraphs describing his extensive credentials.

Anyhooo, on page 94 in Chapter 6: Taming the Hyperactive Thyroid, there is a section titled "Antithyroid pills"

I quote as follows:

"The TSH can't be used to monitor the effect of treatment with antithyroid drugs. It will remain suppressed for many weeks to months after normal thyroid function is restored"

Logic tells us that if we can't use TSH for doing purposes, we need to use something else and that is FT4.

Dr. Rubin describes this in detail in Chapter 4: Testing Your Thyroid.
He has a section titled "Checking Your Levels with the Best Tests" and goes onto describe FT4, FT3 and TSH.

(TSH is useful as a reference point, just not for dosing purposes)

So, to those of you having difficulty getting your doc to run the right tests, get a copy of this book and....hmmmm.....you can figure it out :)