[Palenaki]

Undiagnosed and untreated thyroid disease can be a cause for infertility or recurrent miscarriage. If you have not already been tested for a thyroid problem, there are several things you can do.

• Ask your doctor for a TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) test, with the full panel of thyroid levels including Free Thyroxine (Free T4) and thyroid antibodies.
  
  
• Find out the actual numerical result for the TSH level, and don't accept "the result was normal," as a complete answer.
  
  
• Look at the TSH level. At most labs, normal range is approximately 0.5 to 5.5, but some endocrinologists believe that a woman with suspected thyroid disease may have difficulty getting pregnant and/or maintaining a pregnancy at a TSH higher than 2.0.
  
  
• If your TSH is "high-normal" and/or you had elevated antibodies, and your doctor is not willing to treat you, find a doctor or endocrinologist who has a good success rate working with thyroid-related infertility.
  
  
• Ensure that you are ovulating, by using a fertility awareness method, and/or ovulation predictor.

[slobin]

Just want to support what you said and urge anybody with "unexplained infertility" to invetsigate the thyroid issue in depth. Do NOT accept an answer that "it's normal" I have been through two years of hell with unexplained infertility and 2 miscarriages (normal chromosomes) and have been given the run around my ALL my doctors b/c my TSH was 3.5-3.7 which they kep INSISTING was "normal". My RE even told me that when it went up to 4.4 after my second miscarriage that it was normal and nothing to worry about- and he's the leading RE guru in my area!!! So I did my own research, found out this wasn't normal, insisted to test thyroid antibodies which just came back elevted (TPO antibodies- 245ish) and now I finally think I have an explanation for my 2 years of misery. I've read conflicting things about the treatment- obviously it needs to be treated but I've read some studies that say that even if treated and you get your numbers normal just by virtue of having the antibodies you're at an increased risk of miscarriage. But then again I know people with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (which I guess this falls under) who get and stay preganant all the time. Please, if anyone has knowledge or experience with this let me know the details. I feel so relieved to finally have an answer but very scared that maybe just taking thyroid replacement (which I've been on for 5 weeks and my TSH is now 0.3- slightly too low) won't be enough to stay pregnant. Also please advise re having TSH at 0.3 (they didn't test Free T-3 so getting that today, Free T-4 was good) whether that is too low, or OK? Thank you for any feedback on this!

[GUS07]

Does anyone know what a normal TPO should be? My ENT insists that a TPO of 178 is normal while my Gyn doesn't believe that it is. I need the referral from my ENT to get to an endocrinologist.

[barb_wall]

Very recently i was diagnosed with hypo thyriodism... little did i know that for so many years i may have had this condition...i am so glad my awesome RE did a test for thyroid..."just to be sure"...at this moment i don't recall my numbers but i do have them written down...i also strongly suggest that if you are having "unknown" reasons for infertility to have the thyroid checked out...while this is a "secondary" cause of infertility for us...it is still something that needed to be treated...B

[GUS07]

Thanks for the info, turns out my PCP may be more help than ob/gyn or ent. I had to go to my pcp to get a referral to an endocrinologist. I had never told him any of my issues until now and he's looking into everything more, more blood work and taking a closer look at two para-thyroid masses I have instead of saying not to worry, and he referred me to an endocrinologist.