I sleep well, good energy, and while I gained extra weight over the winter, I figured it was because I'd slacked off and gotten into pasta and bakery junk. Dropping weight now that I've cracked down again. Mood great, too, especially now that we've traded in our junker for a nice reliable car.

Yet... My eyebrows are starting to disappear from the outside in!

I might have a little bit of a puffier face; it's hard to tell when I still need to drop some pounds. So what's up?

I've called my doctor, made an appointment, and I'm getting blood drawn on Monday. I've asked for Thyroid & D levels to be checked, and I'm arming myself with all the great info here.

Also, as of several months ago, I'm on PremPro HRT because I had simply horrible menopause symptoms; couldn't stay asleep, lousy short-term memory, and a weird stress reaction... I'd feel okay, but then something would come up, and instead of riding over it, I'd become this raging maniac!

I hated that, and so did my husband!

But I got instant relief from all those symptoms with HRT, from the very first day. And I've been feeling better and better ever since.

Could it be I'm catching it early and this is (as yet) my only symptom?

Color me puzzled!

make sure your doctor tests TSH, FreeT3 and Free T4 as well as TPO antibodies (that shows Hashimotos)

if you doctor won't test all of these then go to healthcheckusa and order the tests yourself, the price is supposed to be reasonable.

also check out realthyroidhelp.com (btw, this site shows promo codes for ordering your own labs at reduced prices) and stopthethyroidmadness.com for some great information on thyroid problems and how it should be treated.

Well, the thyroid tests they'll do unfortunately don't really cover the whole thyroid story. You really need a FT3 (Free t3) thyroid test and they rarely do that, unless you stumble upon an enlightened doctor. Another test that could be significant is a RT3 (Reverse T3) test. RT3 keeps the T3 receptors busy but it doesn't do anything. It's like jamming a straw in a keyhole. You can't unlock the door with a straw, and you can't put a key in there to unlock the door.

I'm thinking RT3 might be an issue with you because of the hormones. I believe estrogen, like in BC pills, can be a factor in creating it.

My sister has the missing eyebrows too, but she always tests fine on the thyroid tests her doctor does -- not the good tests. She's also been on synthetic HRT for a long time too.

Well... a buncha bad words.

Mind you, I'm not thrilled to be on HRT. But I'm less thrilled with the truly hideous time I was going through previously.

And, prior to menopause, I was on BC pills for many years. No eyebrow problems there.

However, this article:

http://www.thyroid-info.com/article...esmenopause.htm

Is utterly fascinating. It suggests that my problems were actually thyroid related all along... and dropping the HRT and doing thyroid hormones instead would be a better solution for me.

Hmmm.

The way that you can fix RT3 problems is with a rather largish dose of T3 (cytomel). There's an RT3 forum on yahoo groups. But, you need to figure out if that's the issue first.

Thanks so much for your insight, Nancy LC. I will keep all this in mind!

Also - Latisse will grow the eyebrows back!!!!

UPDATED - Okay, it wasn't thyroid. I'm relieved.

Did the TSH AND the Free T4, and shows my doctor is pretty good.

So thanks so much to all the people here... oh, what was it? The eyebrows are bleaching out and becoming fine as a result of the aging process, he thinks.

But I did get my Thyroid Consciousness raised. That might have come in handy for two friends.

You didn't do Free T3 (FT3) or RT3? Those are very important. You can't really rule out thyroid until those are done. You can have a great TSH, FT4 and still have too little FT3, or usable FT3.

FT3 is the potent, active stuff. I'm one that has wonderful T4 (because of my meds) but I don't convert it to FT3 well at all. So I have to take it as part of my meds. It makes a HUGE difference. My temperature goes up, my eyebrows have grown in a little more, and I don't feel like crawling under a rock.

RT3 works like this. Imagine if you have a lock and someone jams something into it and breaks it off. You can't unlock the door anymore with the real key (FT3), it's jammed up with something unusable. The lock is the cell's receptor for T3.

What was your TSH? You can still be 'in the range' but not be optimal.

No, but you're right, I will check on that next time: I'm taking D and the Heart Scan Blog says keep track of it with blood tests, so I will be doing bloodwork again some months in the future.

I was pleased my Doctor did T4 without me nudging him. I'm sure he won't mind if I want to round the bases next time. And the two thyroid scores I did get back were "optimum."

I didn't have any of the other thyroid symptoms since getting on HRT in February. My eyebrows are there... he showed me with a magnifying glass. They're just no-color, which is stark because they were always many shades darker than my hair!

But having an eyebrow pencil in my future is something I can deal with.

Thanks so much for everyone here. I learned a great deal, and have two friends who are re-examining their own thyroid status with this new information I shared with them. They don't know what kind of tests they got; they were simply told the results were "normal."

I explained how they have to drill down and get some details... and my experience makes me think T3 sure isn't standard, and that's worth investigating, for all of us.

Beep beep, back up the truck. Whenever a doctor says it's from the aging process, I bet it's not. I bet it's from a metabolic process that the doc doesn't even consider, much less understand.

I agree with the others about the T3 and also - Iodine! where are you with that?

I'd keep investigating.

Thanks, I will.

I do wonder if this is endocrine issues that are manifesting NOW after I have begun to address them.

Iodine: this situation has alerted me to how important this is, so I've started taking kelp tablets, OR putting spirulina in a morning smoothie. (Lots of good micronutrients, but it turns any smoothie into a dull gray aluminum color. Fortunately, that doesn't bother me.)

I do eat seafood, but not very often, and I live in a mountain area where the local vegetables (another thing I try to buy) would not have any iodine from the soil.

Hormones: I started HRT in January, after a year and a half of increasing awfulness; a spiraling down of energy, sleep, and stress management issues that reached the point where I scared the doctor when I went in. She wrote me a script so fast

I figure anything wreaking that much endocrine havoc could have other consequences I don't know about yet.

Low carb it's own self: And then there's the fact that I backslid all last winter & spring. I'm sure it had to do with the hormone issues, and the car dying, and the increasingly poor health of my father, and the tons of other stress I was dealing with at that time.

But I'm back, enjoying it, and already dropping weight. So I plan to reassess in six months, AND get the T3 I didn't get last time.

And keep watch on the eyebrows.

Just a note on HRT, incoming estrogen/estriadol/tri-est/bi-est etc all bind thyroid production. In otherwords if you up your estrogen (in any form) using HRT you will likely have to match with increased thyroid hormone. If you were a healthy 20something old your body would do this naturally, if you are supplementing you have to do it with your doctor.

Also agree with Beezer and Nancy on testing the Free T3.

Iodine can make a hypothyroid worse if you have hashi's.