This is a post on the science on thyroid antibodies and symptoms. It was not until I had been thyroid sick for 7 years, that a doctor mentioned antibodies to me. That my high anti-TPO levels could affect my well being. This was in 2007. That is quite early for a doctor to be aware of this. Most doctors TODAY refuse to believe that antibodies can affect quality of life. At least here in Denmark. Many doctors won’t even test for antibodies. The Danish endocrinologists claim, antibodies are only important in terms of diagnosing. And they don’t even know, that some people with autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) don’t have antibodies at all. You can read more about that here.
I have no doubts, that antibodies affect us. Our immune system is not in balance. It’s my conviction, that a lot of fatigue is caused by imbalances in our immune systems. I also believe, our gut health plays into it, and some people have what’s called a leaky gut. I am not going into that in this post though.
Everybody with AITD knows, we are not who we were. But it’s difficult to say what’s what. Is it all the years with mistreatment? All the years with too low FT3 even though we were on thyroid medication? Or can the antibodies also contribute to the fatigue we often feel?
It’s usually after years of being sick that we start understanding our disease. At that point we learn about optimal thyroid levels, which you can read about here, here.
And we get the right medication that will give us these levels. But we often still feel tired. It could be antibodies, though us with Ord’s atrophic have low antibody levels after our thyroid has shrunk. It is not my impression, we are feeling better than the people with true Hashimotos, who often have high antibody levels even after years of disease. It could be, it’s our compromised immune system that is the problem. I know for myself, after I started with Low dose naltroxene (LDN) link, the fatigue improved immensely. And what LDN does, is regulate the T regulator cells. Which play a big role in our AITD.
I will look at the science in this post. To wake people up to the fact, that it’s important. Here in Denmark, people have enormously high antibody levels. I am talking 20/30 000 IU/L. And they are being told by their doctors, it does not matter. It does matter!
You can show your doctor some of these studies, if he or she doesn’t let you test for antibodies.
I am very disappointed though, or I would have been were it not for the fact that I have reads heaps of studies on thyroid issues. The participants are very often low on their thyroid levels. And it is the same in most of these studies. So we can’t really say what’s what, hypothyroid or antibodies.
I almost didn’t bother writing this post after I had looked at the science. But even if we understand, the participants are hypo thyroid, your doctor won’t understand it. So to have a case for antibody testing, these studies work fine.
