Is this TSH high enough to cause low libido ?

[chip douglas]

Is it known whether a TSH of 2.0 can be enough to bring on low libido ?

There may be a few here that may or may not relate

[engival]

id say anything over 1.0 is enough to have ed or no libido

[coz]

You really need Free T3 & Free T4 to get a better idea of how your thyroid is doing.

[Sargovar]

It could be.. but on the other hand, not necessarily. As coz said, you need to get your free t4 and t3 checked before you can reach any conclusions.

I had a TSH of 2.49 and a free t4 of 16.1 (on a scale of 11-22, so it was midrange-ish). The doctor didn't feel a need to check my free t3 for some reason. With those figures, I had a so-so libido.. certainly not nonexistent, but nothing spectacular either. My boners were ok.. could have been better, could have been worse.

I think one's libido and erection quality are dependant on such a wide host of different factors that it's impossible to gauge them on the basis of one single hormone.
But from what I've learned, it might indeed be that testosterone is only of secondary importance when it comes to libido and erections.. that the thyroid may in fact play a bigger part.

[chip douglas]

Originally Posted by Sargovar

It could be.. but on the other hand, not necessarily. As coz said, you need to get your free t4 and t3 checked before you can reach any conclusions.

I had a TSH of 2.49 and a free t4 of 16.1 (on a scale of 11-22, so it was midrange-ish). The doctor didn't feel a need to check my free t3 for some reason. With those figures, I had a so-so libido.. certainly not nonexistent, but nothing spectacular either. My boners were ok.. could have been better, could have been worse.

I think one's libido and erection quality are dependant on such a wide host of different factors that it's impossible to gauge them on the basis of one single hormone.
But from what I've learned, it might indeed be that testosterone is only of secondary importance when it comes to libido and erections.. that the thyroid may in fact play a bigger part.

The labs my pcp does business with did the same thing as your doc with the FT3. Last summer I asked him for both FT3/FT4 to be tested, and it turned out only FT4 was done--I asked the lab and was told that they only do FT3 when FT4 is wrong.

Here's the TSH and FT4 done last summer :

TSH 2.27 (euthyr. : 0.27-5.0) mUI/L
( hypothyr. : > 5.00)
( hyperthyr. : <0.01)




FT4 20.3 ( 12.0-22.0) pmol/L

[Sargovar]

Originally Posted by chip douglas

The labs my pcp does business with did the same thing as your doc with the FT3. Last summer I asked him for both FT3/FT4 to be tested, and it turned out only FT4 was done--I asked the lab and was told that they only do FT3 when FT4 is wrong.

Here's the TSH and FT4 done last summer :

TSH 2.27 (euthyr. : 0.27-5.0) mUI/L
( hypothyr. : > 5.00)
( hyperthyr. : <0.01)




FT4 20.3 ( 12.0-22.0) pmol/L

Argh.. I hate it when they do that! It's the most insulting thing in the world when you specifically request for a test only to find out that the "doctor knows best".. when you're told you dont "need" to test that specific hormone. I went to a GP with a list of all the things I needed to have checked, and she arbitrarily assigned exactly two items off my list; TSH and free t4, and then drew up a completely useless list of her own, which had blood clotting factors and other bread and butter stuff on it that would have been of no use whatsoever to me.
She didn't even agree to have my testosterone checked!

Needless to say, I never went to get the tests she prescribed, neither did I pay her bill. I was so infuriated by her arrogance.

Anyway, your ft4 seems pretty high, but since your TSH is over 2.0, there may be a problem with t3.. or perhaps insufficient cellular level thyroid hormone action because of low cortisol?

[chip douglas]

Originally Posted by Sargovar

Argh.. I hate it when they do that! It's the most insulting thing in the world when you specifically request for a test only to find out that the "doctor knows best".. when you're told you dont "need" to test that specific hormone. I went to a GP with a list of all the things I needed to have checked, and she arbitrarily assigned exactly two items off my list; TSH and free t4, and then drew up a completely useless list of her own, which had blood clotting factors and other bread and butter stuff on it that would have been of no use whatsoever to me.
She didn't even agree to have my testosterone checked!

Needless to say, I never went to get the tests she prescribed, neither did I pay her bill. I was so infuriated by her arrogance.

Anyway, your ft4 seems pretty high, but since your TSH is over 2.0, there may be a problem with t3.. or perhaps insufficient cellular level thyroid hormone action because of low cortisol?

Low Cortisol is likely to be the culprit, cause the only one 24-hour urinary cortisol essay that was done last year was on the low side :

Urinary Cortisol 87 ( 55--300) nmol/d
duration : 24 hours
Volume : 1 150 mL


One antiaging M.D. looked at this and said : look no further Marc, there's your reason for low sex drive and anxiety. However later on, I was told that such a test doesn't mean anything until an ACTH test is performed--I assume this would prove correct if it was suspected I had Addisson's disease. Regular ACTH stim test use too high a dose to detect adrenal fatigue like Marianco often stated. The M.D. who looked at it said that normally it should have been ~250.

I don't know what to think about it, he prescribed Hydrocortisone which I still have but never gave it a go because I feared side-effects from something having to do with cortisol causing excessive dumping of thyroid hormone in a given time--I feared arrhythmias, which I've had my share of, really. What I have is not true textbook definition of arrhythmia though, they're supraventricular ectopy.

If I could bump into someone whose urinary Cortisol came out about same as mine who had low sex drive, that would help me learn more about it and hopefully make me confident it's what's wrong it's what's been wrong with me.

Further that same M.D. I referred to above said : you probably have all sorts of side effects from anything you use, and I went : yep--he then said that's low cortisol causing these. Same thing with poor working memory.