Low temperatures while taking thyroid medication:
- low body temperatures indicate a thyroid function problem.
– this can be from too small dose
– or rT3 is blocking a good fT3 level
– or your body is not effective at converting fT4–>fT3
You need TSH, fT3, fT4 labs and rT3 if possible.
Overall, TSH is indicating that thyroid medication is not working. Your hypothalamus is not seeing enough fT4+fT3 in your blood and is causing the pituitary to increase TSH to try to get more thyroid hormones.
You can try more thyroid medication and watch body temperatures. You may need a T4+T3 medication that delivers T3.
High TSH may cause the thyroid to get bigger or lumpy.
I am including the following for your consideration:
This is standard advice maintained here:
There is a huge amount of knowledge in the stickies. Please study these. Start with the advice for new guys sticky.
There is a lot to read there, so read carefully. There are suggestions for things that are root causes of low testosterone [T]. Low T is a symptom, not a root cause itself. But low T itself is a root cause of many of the symptoms one experiences. Note that other things cause the same spectrum of symptoms, so do not have T tunnel vision. Many docs are guilty of that and they only treat the symptom [low T] and do not attempt to find the real problem. If you go to a clinic that specializes in low T, you will get T tunnel vision for sure.
Post info about yourself as suggested in the above sticky. We need labs, almost all of your labs, not just hormones. We also need the lab ranges.
We see a very high number of thyroid issues in the population of guys that show up here. So there is a strong focus on that. Most people are iodine deficient to some degree. Your history of iodine intake from iodized salt and vitamins that list iodine is important. If you become iodine deficient, the RDA [recommended daily allowance] is inadequate for recovery of iodine stores. Please see the thyroid basics sticky for more information.
You do not want to suffer from subclinical hypothyroidism or get Rx thyroid meds to treat iodine deficiency.
If you are injecting T or contemplating that, read the protocol for injections sticky.
There are stickies for finding a TRT doc, estradiol [E2] and lab work.
Do not place your history or treatment details in the stickies! That belongs in your thread. Keep all of your posts in your thread so we can have a clear picture of your situation and needs.