Sunday, December 18, 2011

Losing weight with hypothyroidism? Definetely not hyperthyroidism but...?

Generally yes, people gain weight with hypothyroidism, but as with everything in medicine, it differs between people. Also, you might have something else going on in addition to hypothyroidism that is causing you to lose weight, or your TSH is elevated for some other reason (hypothyroidism just happens to be the most common cause, but it's certainly not the only one). For instance, a pituitary adenoma (benign tumor) may secrete TSH in an unregulated manner - because the tumor doesn't respond to the normal feedback signals that stop TSH secretion when thyroid hormone levels are high, it'll keep making TSH, and the thyroid will keep making more thyroid hormone, therefore making you actually HYPERthyroid - you wouldn't be able to know this unless you got a T3/T4 level as well as TSH (which isn't usually done for screening, only when there is suspicion for an additional). You should definitely return to your doctor for further workup, in any case, since you continue to feel crappy. Good luck!

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