Migraine

I have a question about thyroid issues and migraines, prompted by a recent post in another thread by Teri Roberts. About 8 months ago, when I had my first ever migraines, at age 43, my gp ran a thyroid antibody test which confirmed Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The T3 and T4 tests were normal however, and so no further action was taken. Last month, my neurologist repeated the T4 and tsh tests, and both were normal. Teri mentioned having these tests done first thing in the morning, which was not done in either case.

My question is, should I just assume the thyroid antibody results are coincidence and aren't related to my current migraines (4-5 times a week), given the normal t3 and t4 results? Is there some other test, or combination of tests, or testing in the morning, that I should ask for?

I know that migraines sometimes just start or change for no apparent reason, but the coincidence of the thyroid antibody test and going from no migraines to 5 a week is bugging me (to put it mildly). Any info here would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Have you seen this article yet?

Migraine, Headache, and Thyroid

Also, with 5-6 days a week spent with a Migraine, are you on preventive treatment? Migraine Preventive Medications: Too Many Options to Give Up!

Are your Migraines every day seperate attacks, or you are getting one lasting 5-6 days? Any migraine lasting over 72 hours without a break in pain of at least 4 hours (not including sleep) is Status Migrainous. You need to seek help after that 72 hour mark, call your doctor, go to the ER, what have you.

Status Migrainous

Hi, Annie!

Both Dr. Krusz and Mary Shomon, who is the top patient advocate for thyroid patients, told me that the blood draw for thyroid testing needs to be done first thing in the morning, before 9 a.m. That's good enough for me. Your neuro may not know this. We can't expect them to know everything.

I can't give you medical advice, but I can tell you what I'd do in your place. I would NOT assume that the antibody results were a coincidence. I'd ask to be retested. Also, there are different T3 and T4 tests. Be sure that they run FREE T3 and FREE T4. I'm really lucky that Dr. Krusz has taken a special interest in endocrine issues that impact Migraine. If your neuro doesn't have much knowledge in that area, you may want to consult an endocrinologist too.

Also, allow me to recommend a couple of great bookss:

• Living Well With Hypothyroidism
  
• Living Well with Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism
  
• Living Well with Autoimmune Disease

If it turns out that you have anythyroid issues, these are the best books I know of. If I remember correctly, Hashimoto's is an autoimmune disease.

Please keep us posted on this? Several of us here are dealing with various thyroid disorders.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the responses. Your suggestion makes a lot of sense Teri, and I now have a mission for my next appointment. I will post an update.

I see you've got links up the wazoo.

I'm at the other end of the auto-immune thyroid spectrum. I've been "blessed" with Graves' Disease. What a ride these auto-immune thyroid disorders are! Wheeeee!

I'll admit that I tend to do my thyroid labwork blood draws primarily in the afternoons during most of the year, because work hours aren't very conducive to doing the blood draws right away in the morning. It doesn't seem to affect much for me doing them later. I have heard and read that if you can't get them drawn first thing, then at least you should try to be consistent with the time of day you get them done, so that I do. My magic time is 3:30.

I have read all three of the Living Well books that Teri linked to, and heartily reccommend them. They are grand!

Hi annie.

Terri gave you some great links for info on thyroid disease.

Autoimmune thyroid disease or Hashimoto's runs in my family, though I've yet to test positive for anti-thyroid antibodies myself.

Treatment of antibodies with thyroid meds for people with normal or euthyroid thyroid labs (TSH, T3, & T4) currently falls in a gray area. Many doctors, like my endocrinologist will treat people with antibodies and euthyroid labs in the presence of goiter or hypothyroid symptoms. Treatment with thyroid meds may lower antibody levels for some patients.

My migraines don't seem to be affect by my thyroid levels, but my mother greatly reduced the frequency of her migraines by getting her TSH from the high end of range towards the lower end of range with thyroid meds. (TSH= Thyroid Stimulating Hormone; a high TSH typically means your body is detecting low thyroid levels and trying to get your thyroid gland to increase production of thyroid hormone).

Although when to initiate treatment for people with euthyroid labs and antibodies is a matter under debate, the AACE recommends doctors consider treatment for people whose TSH is above 3 mIU/L. http://www.aace.com/newsroom/press/2003/index.php?r=20030118
In part because the NACB has said "In the future, it is likely that the upper limit of the serum TSH euthyroid reference range will be reduced to 2.5 mIU/L because >95% of rigorously screened normal euthyroid volunteers have serum TSH values between 0.4 and 2.5 mIU/L."
http://www.aacc.org/members/nacb/LMPG/OnlineGuide/Publi...yroidDiseasePDF.aspx

HTH!

I also have been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism and currently take .075mg a day of levothyrozine. I never knew the two could be connected. I also have immuno-thrymbocytopenia (sp) and have to get my platelets checked often. Do you think I should have myself tested for Graves or Hoshimoto?

Eva

Hashimoto's is hypothryoid. Graves' Disease is hyperthyroid. There are other underlying causes of hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, too. You should ask your doctor about the possibility of testing to find the source of your disorder, and see what he or she reccommends in terms of diagnostic tests.

Wandering off topic from your post, there's something I could add about my experience with migraine while taking different types of thyroid hormone. I started out on Levoxyl, which is synthetic, and my migraines were horrid. Things started to turn around once I'd switched to natural hormone on the migraine front. Back when I did a lot of posting on the thyroid board at About, it was pretty common to see people do better with their migraines on one or the other type of hormone.

Is synthroid synthetic? What are names of some that are not?

Eva

"Armour" is the non-synthetic name of medication for the thyroid. Some are called "Nature Thyroid." too

Yep, Synthroid is synthetic. There's another natural version besides Armour and Naturethroid, but right now I forget it's name. My naturopath always preferred Naturethroid, saying most people find it the easiest to stabilize on. I didn't do as well on that, though, but I've always gotta be different.