Endocrionology Results and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

I finished all of my blood work (which they did through my port super easily! They even had a separate room and nurse just for people with ports!) and ultrasounds yesterday. My endocrinologist called me back yesterday with the results. My adrenal glands were perfectly fine and my B12 actually came back slightly elevated. This will not hurt me and is better than being low, so we are going to leave it alone. My thyroid levels came back in the very high end of normal. Since they were elevated in December, people with my conditions are prone to thyroid issues, I am of child bearing age, and I show symptoms of low thyroid he decided to start me on a very low dose of thyroid medication. I now take 25 mcg (that is 0.000025 grams) of a synthetic thyroid hormone called Synthroid every morning. This is the starting dose and we will adjust it from there.

He diagnosed me with a condition called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, sometimes called Hashi's for short. This is the most common condition that causes hypothyroidism (under active thyroid). Hashi's is  an autoimmune condition in which your body produces an antibody that attacks your thyroid gland. The disease tends to be progressive; more damage is done the longer the condition goes untreated, which is why it is good that we caught this condition while I am still young. Some symptoms of this disease are: fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold, constipation, unexplained weight gain, muscle aches, joint pain or stiffness, and excessive or prolonged menstrual bleeding (menorrhagia). As you can imagine, many of these symptoms overlap with my other conditions so it is very difficult to tell what disorder causes which symptoms.

One of the main reasons that my doctor decided to start treatment for hypothyroidism is because I am of child bearing age. Although my husband and I do not have immediate plans to have children, it is something that we would like to do at some point in within the next few years. An underactive thyroid can make it difficult to get pregnant, increase the risk of miscarriage, and increase the risk of intellectual and developmental disorders as well as birth defects of the face, nervous system, and thyroid of the baby. We want to start getting my thyroid levels stabilized now so that down the road when we do decide to have children we decrease the risk of running into these issues. 

I do not know what the results of my thyroid ultrasound were, so I will have to ask at my followup appointment in 6 weeks. I go back to see my endocrinologist on May 21st and we will see how I am doing then. He will most likely also order blood work to see how my blood thyroid levels are and if we need to adjust the dosage of the Synthroid.