kellihope

Hello everyone!
I'm not sure if this is the place for me. . .I don't have PCOS (That I know of) but I am hypothyroid. I am 27, have a beautiful 8 month old baby girl names Isla, had 2 unexplained miscarriages before her, and post-baby I started feeling very depressed and was unable to lose the last 10lbs of pregnancy weight, even with eating right, BFing and exercising. My midwife said I probably have PPD and put me on zoloft, but upon my prompting, tested me for thyroid issues too. It came back with low TSH, low T3 & T4. They said that was very odd b/c usually low TSH would mean high T3&T4. It was retested in a week with the same results, then again in a month and the TSH was in the 3's and the other two were still low.

My doc wanted to start treatment, but I wasn't crazy about it and was still in denial that my thyroid was "broken". But then we started researching hypo & ttc & pregnancy and found some pretty scary info about bad things it can cause during pregnancy, so we managed to get an appt. with a reproductive endocrinologist! We are ready to start TTC #2, but really want things straitened out before doing that.

So I have 2 questions to start with for you!

#1: If I start treatment as soon as next week, how long realistically would I have to wait before things could be stable enough to get pregnant? I've had about 6 periods since having my baby and the first 5 were pretty normal, 30ish days. this last one though was 40 days long and the flow was very very light - I'm guessing I did not ovulate. I really want to start trying right away

#2: Does the thyroid "act up" or go through bad spots? Back when I got tested a few months ago and first found out I had this problem I was very tired, very depressed to the point of feelling like I was having a nervous breakdown, and I came out with this itchy rash all over my body! It went away, I started to feel a lot happier/more normal, then just last week I feel like my body threw itself back into chaos again! The rash is back, I have been SO depressed/down, so tired and, like I said, I don't think I ovulated this month. I feel like that means something really screwy is going on, is that normal?

Thanks so much, I hope I've come to the right place!
Kelli

verbal0rchid

Please don't panic, but low tsh with low frees (t4 and t3) can indicate hypopituitarism. Do you have pain in your kidney area (where the adrenals are)? Temps that go up/down/up/down? Anxiety for no apparent reason? Over-reacting to things that aren't normal for you? Do you find that coffee doesn't really keep you awake, in fact makes you sleepy sometimes?

I disagree with PPD dx; rather I think post partum thyroiditis with possible adrenal issues. I personally would not take the zoloft because at this point it's a band-aid. It's not going to the root of what's CAUSING your depression and anxiety. That's only treating the symptom and you need to find the underlying cause.

I can't tell you how many people I've seen say they break out in hives/rashes when they are stressed, and it turns out it was from low cortisol. When I get severely stressed I get a freakin' cold sore. Every damn time. It sucks!

And yes, to answer one of your questions, tsh can fluctuate which is one reason I have found it to be virtually useless to diagnose hypothyroid. Symptoms matter more.