I've been thinking I had a few things to write about, but, nothing earth shattering.
Immediately, I'm getting blood drawn today for my 6 month panel. My doctor is open to my suggestions and this time around I asked him for a more comprehensive tests for my thyroid levels. I've also asked for a Vitamin D metric so I will know if supplementation has been helpful. With the way things usually go, I'll have some results delivered to my phone by about Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm drinking black coffee, and it's kind of sad.
I have stopped doing at-home A1C tests every month because they went up in price ($26 test), I ran out of flexible spending funds, and my sensor data does tell me average blood glucose pretty accurately. That being said, when I stumbled across a great deal ($12 test) at a different drug store, I bought another kit. So, at the beginning of the month I ran the test and it was 6.7. I was coming off about two weeks of illness and some erratic glucose levels, so it was pretty much what I was expecting.
I've been learning a bit about how thyroid levels effect lipids, and for some people just treating the thyroid effectively brings the lipoprotein levels back to optimal. I'm not really concerned about my lipids, exactly, but they have been progressively going up, even while lifestyle has remained the same. The ratios are healthy, but the overal numbers are rising. It has happened in parallel with my suspicions that something is awry with thyroid function. I'd be curious whether my TSH levels are still clinically high, or whether the lipid levels have continued to change. When I mentioned this connection to my doctor he didn't seem to think it was a factor to worry too much about.
I recently heard Chris Masterjohn talk about cholesterol and he was mostly talking about the false perceptions about what were good signs and bad signs of cholesterol in the body. It was interesting that he recommended thyroid correction (even minute amounts) to fix most non-genetic problems with lipids.
I'll report back with more data. I'll be seeing my doctor about my blood work next week.
Chris Masterjohn has a lot of interesting and intelligent things to say. I think you're right about the thyroid and lipids issues going together. Have you done much investigation into iodine supplementation? It turns out that most people these days are iodine deficient, and that really impacts the thyroid and all hormone production. That's what I've been ruminating on lately, trying to get my body temperature up...
ReplyDeleteYes, it's important to know the connection between lipids and thyroid. It's also theoried that it's unlikely to overdose iodine if you have sufficient selenium. My thyroid supplement has both in it, but it seems to effect my arrhythmia if I take it too frequently. Overall I've been feeling pretty good, so I'm interested to see if TSH and free T4 are in line.
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