I really wished there was a (very cheap or free) home testing solution that people on thyroxin could use to monitor things regularly, it would take away a lot of the anxiety around the thought of what people’s levels are.
As I’ve said before, the condition alone is not always the issue, it’s the anxiety it can cause, “I feel tired, could my levels be out” etc.
Agreed. Every 3-4 weeks I feel like crap for a few days. Tired/sluggish, etc. My Doc tests TSH levels once a year, though I insist on getting them tested every 6 months.
I get by pretty well with the dose my doc put me on and even without treatment I have a pretty mild case. My symptoms don’t seem to be aggravated by my training but like others of said every once in a while I have a 3-4 day chunk of time where I am way off. It took me a long time to realize it’s likely my thyroid.
Totally wish there was an easier way to test quickly. My doc is great and I know if I sent her an email she’d get me set up with a test anytime I want, but with job, kids, etc even getting away for a quick lab test is tough.
Damn, you go hard.
What did cutting out gluten do for you?
The constipation is a wicked one for me. I almost think it’s a side problem not as intertwined with my Hypo. I eat high fiber oatmeal and eat a gummy fiber candy once a day to stay regular but I can’t solve it.
I didn’t know you could get tested outside of your Dr.’s office. I’d pay the money I think.
Does anyone have any good resources on how training volume/intensity or other cycling lifestyle choices may affect thyroid levels? This past year I got on the Structured Training bus, which has coincided with some major fluctuations in my TSH and T3 levels. I’ve been hypo for most of my life, but the past few years have been pretty controlled until I started training more. In the process of getting in with a specialist, but haven’t had much luck on researching to identify what may be causing this and afraid they may not have much experience treating a young male endurance athlete. Thanks in advance.
Really interesting thread, thanks all. My TSH has been 5-7 for about 5 years and my Doc said it was fine. Had a chat with a Thyroid specialist last week and she was not in agreement! So it kinda sucks I’ve had this for 5 years.
It’s only subclinical, as I have no acute symptoms. But it was amazing how many boxes I ticked when she started going through it all
Don’t have the cold feeling though.
Starting on a small dose and see how it goes. It sounds like it something that needs to be managed, but hopefully that beats having it without any treatment!
Interesting, my doctor will up my levo dose if my levels are above 4. I’ve been seeing a specialist the last couple years and has definitely helped.
How do people find it impacts their metabolism? Do you need to increase calories when Thyroid is balanced properly?
My resting rate is 1600 cals. Wonder if I need to increase that.
My thyroid was damaged after my first cancer diagnosis and treatment with radiation in the neck and mouth area. The radiation caused hypothyroidism. Then I was diagnoses with melanoma and after surgery I underwent a year of immunotherapy. One of the first things my immune system attacked was my thyroid. The doctors said they never saw TSH numbers that high. It think it was 94. I was put on Synthroid right away have been on it ever since even after my immunotherapy ended. Just lowered the dose.
I take it in the morning and 30 minutes I have coffee and an hour food. I just have to make sure with my morning workouts I have enough time to wake up and take my medication then I usually go back to bed for half an hour and then get up for coffee then food. It’s not too bad to set a separate alarm to take the medicine and go back to bed again even at 5 in the morning.
I realize this thread has been dormant for years, but I thought it would be good to revive to add my experience and I’m also curious if anyone else has experiences or insights not brought up here. It seems like there still isn’t much research on hypothyroid athletes, so the more we can share the better we all are.
I originally had Graves disease hyperthyroidism and had radioiodine treatment to remove most of my thyroid which left me hypothyroid. I wasn’t a cyclist at the time, only infrequently active. Since then I became a regular cyclist focused on century rides before starting structured training a year and a half ago and targeting even longer days in the saddle. My TSH levels and my dosage changed around (I think with activity level) before getting into structured training, but since getting into structured training my symptoms that I need to up my dosage have become more noticeable in a few ways.
As others have noted, the optimum TSH level at least for athletes is lower than the official reference range (though, poking around, I found that many doctors/scientist think that even the general population should have a lower TSH upper limit than official recommendations). I don’t recall noticing symptoms in the past of high TSH, at least not since right after my radioiodine treatment when it was really high, not until recently. But I’ve noticed off the bike fatigue and a few other symptoms, though more off the day after a long or hard ride. On the bike, I’ve had fewer and fewer days where I feel fresh, and this is linked to a tendancy to suppressed heart rate (not reach my expected lactate threshold heart rate while trying to do threshold intervals, for instance) more and more often. A year ago that would usually only happen the day after a century ride, but recently it’s been up to two days after a century ride, and up to two days after an interval session. I mostly follow advice I’ve seen from Inigo San Millan to back away when my heart rate isn’t getting as high as expected, so this has blunted how much I can do on the bike so I don’t get overtrained (of course, overtraining may be very similar to being hypothyroid in some ways).
While my heart rate is suppressed more often, I haven’t noticed major changes to other heart rate measures. My resting heart rate (according to my fitbit which I don’t consider most accurate but at least seems to be consistent enough to use) has stayed inside my normal range (which is really only 4 bpm wide) though it has spent more time on the higher end of that range. I hadn’t thought that my HRV had changed much, but looking back to last year it seems like the range has gone done a bit (while still being higher than the general population), though my range recently, and my range last year are overlapping. I only noticed this because after bumping up my dosage I’ve started noticing much higher HRV values on my fitbit than I thought (erroneously) I had ever had before.
This time the changes have all been so gradual that I didn’t immediately connect them to hyopthyroidism right away, not until my off the bike fatigue became more noticeable. However, I know what signs to look for more now so I will be more careful to spot it and get tested earlier in the future.
I’m curious as others about how exactly my training affects my thyroid levels. What follows is just my anecdote and my guesses. Moving to structured training didn’t immediately require me to up my dosage which surprised me a little. Nor seemingly did my newbie increases to my FTP (which I still had despite a history of long rides without structured training). My TSH went up slightly, but still stayed below 2 after about 8 months. But I still think it’s increases in overall effort that got high enough in the past few months to affect my thyroid levels enough to affect my training. My TSS isn’t actually much higher now than last year, but my long rides are less LSD and instead I’m pushing much harder on climbs (well, my century rides, I’m starting in on randoneurring and I will carefully pace my far longer rides). I actually (finally) got my bike fit more or less dialed in so that has stopped holding back what I can do in a way that may have freed me more to work at the higher limits of my power range, and that may be pushing my thyroid hormone dosage needs higher. But this is a journey and I will see going forward how my body responds.
I also think that my TSH levels are highest after big rides, which isn’t surprising. Of course, I expect to be fatigued at that point anyway, whether or not my thyroid levels are in check, but the few times when I’ve gotten a test later in the day after a long ride have been some of my highest TSH levels. Similar to what other’s have mentioned, it would be really nice if frequent testing were easier. At the very least, I would love if I could get one week where I could see how much numbers fluctuate day to day, and maybe a couple of times a day, just to see how my riding affects my thyroid levels).