Blood Drug Testing

Blood test for thyroid disease always right?

I had my thyroid tested though a blood sample and it came back that I don't have it. However after looking up stuff online and talking with friend I could swear I have it - hypo. Someone told me that it could take lots of test to diagnose it - does anybody know?

Public Comments

1. It depends on your symptoms. Many of the symptoms of hypothyroidism are the same symptoms of other conditions/diseases. One blood test should tell you for sure. As you get older, your thyroid levels may change and you could be tested again to see if anything has changed in your body, but taking more blood tests now won't change anything. Talk to your doctor about your symptoms and see if anything else could be causing them. Good Luck!
2. Labs do occasionally make mistakes and get people's results muddled up. No process involving humans is infallible and no medical test has 100% accuracy rate. So repeat the test to give yourself peace of mind. Eating before a thyroid test can affect the result a lot but many doctors don't tell you this. It is a fairly recent discovery. Eat nothing and drink no coffee before the test. On the other hand, if you really don't have low thyroid, you need to make your doctor think long and hard about what else you could have, because your symptoms must be caused by something.
3. Hi. Thyroid levels change constantly ( especially if you have thyroid disease ). One day you can be normal, and the next your level can shoot way up or down. It's important if you think you have it to get tested more then once. I have Hypothyroidism, and when i first got tested, i had my levels checked 3 times, and the numbers were very different each time. Make sure if you test more then once, you do it at the same time of day ( that helps ). It sometimes takes a while to get a diagnosis of thyroid disease. Good luck :-)
4. In early stages of thyroid disease, levels can be all over the place. You could be within range one week and then hypo the next. However, it's important to note that symptoms of hypothyroidism often occur in other diseases, so you could have a problem that sounds a lot like hypothyroidism. It might be worthwhile to get a second doctor's opinion or to see an endocrinologist just to be sure. It also depends on what test you were given. If you were given a TSH test, those levels don't change quickly, but some labs use an outdated "normal" range. For instance, a TSH of 5.5 would have been at the high end of normal several years ago, but now it is considered hypo. Many labs use the outdated range, and this is worth discussing with your doctor. If you had a negative TPO antibody test, you could still be hypo, just not from Hashimoto's.
5. Well if for any reason you feel the results that was done by taking blood. take it up with your PRC and explain to them what you feel, can't hurt never know you could be correct... I'm the same way I look up everything medical term that the doctors try and throw you they don't like one bit if you know what there talking about! Dont give up..
6. Yes, the blood test for thyroid disease is definitive. Other than a lab mix up, I can't see how it could be wrong. But did you have a test for thyroid disease? Or did you have a TSH test? because TSH isn't a thyroid hormone, and measuring it is only an indirect, second hand way to guess at what your thyroid levels are. Why would you do that if you can measure your thyroid levels directly? It only takes two tests to detect hypothyroidism. They are free t3 and free T4. If you have hypothyroidism, it may take another test or two to find out why, but you only need free T3 and free t4 to start with.
7. You need to go to an endocrinologist to make sure the proper tests are done and interpreted.