Thyroid Cancer Update

Its been a while since I posted on the status of my thyroid cancer.  Mostly its been because there hasn’t been too much to tell aside from being tired and wanting a nap every day! 

Today I had my 6week post-RAI check up with my surgeon.  I had to get my blood drawn a couple days ago in prep – oh yay another needle stick!  Anyway, the first words we heard from the nurse were “You are on thyroid meds, right?”  Uhm… yesssss… Then she said the Dr would be right in and left my dad and I alone.  I turned to him and said “That can’t be good, my labs must be high.” 

So the Dr. came in with a resident and started doing a thorough neck check searching for enlarged nodes (I have none) and told me my TSH is at 13.0.  YIKES!  If you remember, “normal” people should have a TSH between 1.0-5.5.  Anything over 5 is considered hypothyroid.  Thyroid cancer patients are kept slightly hyperthyroid (between 0.1-0.3) so that any thyroid cancer cells that may be hanging out in our bodies are tricked into thinking they don’t need to work.  As long as the leftover microscopic thyroid cells aren’t working, thyroid cancer is not growing.  Me being at 13.0 means my thyroid cells (what little may be left) are working/growing AND I'm experiencing mild hypo hell.  I guess that explains why I feel a need for a nap still!

So the plan from him is to increase my thyroid hormone.  Here is a dilemma, I have an appointment to see my Endo in 4 weeks who will be doing my monitoring and prescribing from here on out.  I get poked for more labs in 3 weeks.  So do I increase my dosage now and screw up the lab tests in 3 weeks (it takes med changes 6-8 weeks to be fully effective) or do I wait to see what my Endo wants to do since he is the one who will be following me here on out?  I talked it through with my mom and we decided waiting until I see my Endo and then adjusting meds is our plan.  It means I will be slightly hypo through the holidays but I've been dealing with it since September, I think I can handle another month!