Wife's labs - your interpretation?

[lowtdunce]

Just looking for some thoughts from all you amateur hormone docs out there ; ). Wife has been on birth control of some sort for 20 years. Was depo shot forever, now on pills. Low libido, sometimes low energy. Other than that perfectly healthy. Has always had slightly high TSH with normal T4/T3.

My big question is should estradiol be THAT low while she's on birth control pills? Shoot, I'm running in the 40s on 200mg a week.

 

[lowtdunce]

After a little reading sounds like if a woman is on the pill its normal for estrogen to test low as the test doesn't pick up on the synthetic hormones from the pill.

 

[Systemlord]

Has always had slightly high TSH with normal T4/T3.

How about normal rT3 <15 ng/dL? This hormone can block fT3 at the receptor deactivating it causing hypo symptoms and would expect to see very high TSH as in your wifes case.

By the way, a TSH of 5.1 is not slightly high, women are sensitive to even mildly elevated TSH.

DHEA is low.

 

[Cataceous]

Too much vitamin D? There are questions of safety once you get over 50 ng/mL, and she's at twice that.

 

[Vince Carter]

I agree with SystemLord in that the Thyroid numbers don't look good but missing is RT3, should rerun those with that test included. FT4 is typically in the lower half of the range and not cause for alarm. And FT3 isn't that bad but should be closer to 3.9/4.0. The TSH being very high leads me to believe that RT3 is elevated, too as from systemlord RT3 should be <15.

I would not give DHEA though it's low, her Test is already over the lab range and DHEA in women tends to shuttle to Testosterone in women.