Coach Ileen’s diagram to break down thyroid hormones and testing

November 15th, 2016 by

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Your results are normal? What’s normal?

Here is a little diagram I drew to show what I often explain to clients about thyroid hormones and testing.

Many drs out there just run a TSH and what you can see below is why that is not telling of actual thyroid dysfunction or proper testing.

TSH
A hormone made in the brain, signals the body to make T4. It can be producing plenty of TSH but the later conversions are not happening.

T4 is an inactive hormone and in order for it to be used by your cells /get into your cells, it needs to become active by converting TO T3. For that to happen, T4 needs to drop 1 of the 4 iodine molecules to become T3 (3 iodine molecules), which can then enter the cells in its active state.

T3 is sometimes blocked from doing so, by another inactive hormone called Reverse T3 ( shown sitting on the cell receptor/darkened arc on cell below) it is the mirror opposite of T3 because it too, is inactive. RT3 is a protective mechanism and will block the entry of T3 from getting into the cells if it thinks the body needs to be protected or slowed down.

You can have plenty of thyroid hormones but the cells are ‘starving’ for thyroid hormone or you can be low on all the hormones but you wont know without a full panel.

Some reasons why the above takes place can be:
Stress (diet, history, lifestyle, mental and hormonal)
Vitamin Deficiencies
Mineral Deficiencies
Thyroid Antibodies

Many Drs or practitioners fail to run the full thyroid panel which includes the following to properly evaluate thyroid function.

TSH
Free T3
Free T4
Reverse T3
Thyroid Antibodies -TPO and TGab Hashimotos and TSI/TRab for Graves.

A full panel of hormones along with your basic health labs can be a very valuable tool in helping to trouble shoot might what be going on. For a list of our lab suggested laboratory panel, see our blog. //www.leanbodiesconsulting.com/do-you-need-to-get-some-laboratory-testing-done/ as well as numerous posts on hormones. There are many blogs post written on testing and information found here: //www.leanbodiesconsulting.com/category/hormones/

Direct Labs sponsored our attendees with a shopping bag filled with goodies and a discount code that can be applied online.
The special LBC code is LEAN16 to receive 20% off your lab testing. The coupon Code is good through Nov 30th.