I've long suspected I have some sort of hormonal problem and also have several family members who are hypothyroid.

My last TSH was 2.85 or something(I can't find the record) and the doc didn't get much else done, T3 and T4 maybe. Anyway I have many symptoms, just not all of them.

My temperature when I wake up in the morning isn't too low 98.1. But I'm mostly cold but not always. When I'm cold, it's my hands and feet and it hurts.
I'm usually in the 97 range for temp at the doctors office. Which they completely ignore.

I have horrible insomnia, I cannot fall asleep at all, ever without medication. I tried going six months without and I dozed a few minutes a night but got really really sick from not sleeping. My sleep hygiene is beyond reproach. I'll tell you more if you want.

My eyebrows are only slightly thinner on the outsides but not enough for anyone to notice.

I have no swelling in my neck near where the thyroid is but the outside is swollen. About a year ago I stopped being able to swallow pills without a whole lot of extra work.

I have no libido at all and I've been this way for 10 years. I'm not on antidepressants which are known to decrease it.

I am gaining weight rapidly (when I don't eat LC) and now that I am eating LC I'm losing at a drastically slower amount than the last time I did LC which was not even a year ago.

I have palpitations in the morning which wake me up.

I've been told I have fibromyalgia which is getting progressively worse. STTM says some people with fibro have untreated thyroid disorders.

I do suffer from depression and much anxiety and those are untreatable with medications. In other words, 20 years of taking meds didn't work for me so I took a year or so to get off the meds altogether with my doctors help. I'm no longer suicidal since I stopped taking the drugs.

My hair doesn't seem to be thinning although it's always been very thin.

I do have terribly dry skin and weird dots and no amount of moisturization and hydration (drinking water) helps it.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis, I just want to know if these symptoms alone are just cause for me to pursue the better thyroid work ups with the antibodies and free T3 and T4 as well as a Cortisol test etc.

So to reiterate the question, do you need to have all the symptoms of hypothyroid in order for hypothyroid to be the problem? Thank you all for your help.

Nope, you don't have to have them all. However, there's lots of overlap of hypothyroid symptoms with other things too: anemia, autoimmune diseases, and so on.

For instance, insomnia is more of an issue for hyperthyroid. Hypo usually makes you sleep a lot more yet you still feel tired. The thyroid gland is not in the middle of the neck, but slightly to the side of center.

Thanks Nancy.

I completely forgot to mention Candida overgrowth.

I also read that poor levels of Cortisol can be a problem with sleep but that thyroid conditions can cause cortisol conditions.

It's like I'm sleepy and tired all the time but too hyped up to sleep.

I've been tested for autoimmune disorders and those tests always come back negative.

I suppose it's not really likely I'm hyperthyroid given my weight. But I guess I really don't know. I can't wait to get a hold of the book Stop the Thyroid Madness to learn more, It'll be here Saturday.

Not everyone gets skinny who is hyperthyroid -- I sure didn't. But your TSH is too high for that.

Well I found some test results, I know nobody here is a doctor but I kind of just need to keep talking about all this while I'm suffering symptoms hoping to get fixed.

Free t3 from 12/19/2012 is 3.2.

TSH was done back in 2011 and was 2.5 not 2.85 as I originally thought.

I have a lump on my throat it's to the right of my trachea sort of in the middle (going up and down) on my neck.

I'm sure you can understand the hope that they find SOMETHING wrong so that I can be on the road to fixing it.

Thank you to anyone who is dropping by to keep me company.

Are you getting that lump checked out?

I see my doc on Tuesday. I hope she doesn't say it's nothing. I've had a lot of bad experiences with docs. This one is an NP so may be better. I have a flabby neck and can only feel it if I look up and stretch my neck a wee bit.

I had several doctors over a year ignore me when I said I thought that there was something up with my thyroid as you could see it sticking out (usually when I was seeing them for something else). It was more obvious in photos, as it produced a shadow, and became more defined as I lost weight.

After an emergency op for something else, they said that when they put the tube down my throat they saw a lump. Booked me in to check it out and it ended up being benign thyroid nodules.

Guess the lesson is, I should have insisted it get checked out a lot earlier and not let the doctors brush me off. They seem to be good at that, it's getting to the point where we need to be educated enough to guide our own medical destiny.

Thank you Julie. Yes, I need to be firm about it this time. I haven't been able to swallow properly for some months now and I can no longer sing but there is no inside throat pain if you understand what I mean.

I really hope my doc finds enough to consider treating me this time. She still relies a little too much on labs and not enough on symptoms. Even as an ND.

Just something else to consider - you seem to have a mishmash of hypo and hyperthyroid symptoms, which can be indicative of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disorder. With your current diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, an autoimmune disorder is more likely to develop in some patients. You could ask your doctor to test you for the Hashimoto's Antibodies when they check your TSH.

I hope you find the source of your issues and get on the path to feeling better.

Thank you so much for writing. Unfortunately she won't run the antibody tests until after she runs the TSH and free T3 again, sometimes it's very hard to get these docs to listen to new research, however she did say if she's unwilling to treat that she will run them.

I may just have to do those on my own. I should have in the first place and brought the results to her.