SusanJ's intro

[Lucy5]

Great news on the A1c Susan! And so sorry to hear the sad news about your cousin. A huge loss at any age, but 71 makes it especially tough.

[KatieS]

Susan, wishing you comfort during these grieving period. You're A1c is optimal, motivates me to continue to lower mine a few points.

[circular]

Just a quick update on several fronts.

My labs from this month showed I have dropped to an A1c of 5.2. Best ever and I hope I can continue to see good results. Honestly, I think the gut healing, methylation work and histamine control are influencing insulin sensitivity/blood glucose because I did not eat particularly low carb to get to that number. Actually I've been eating a lot lately, including more carbs to put weight back on after my antibiotic barrage and resulting weight loss.

This is great news Susan! It would never have occurred to me that gut healing, methylation work and histamine control could influence A1c, but everything's related, right? Keep in mind too that A1c isn't terribly accurate. I had it measured by two labs from the same blood draw and got quite different results. So keep up the measuring, but I'd bet that you have improved with your overall health improvements.

The one surprise was that my free T3, free T4 and TSH are all low. They have been in the lower end of the range since I've been testing for several years, but these are now slightly out of Bredesen's range low. Talked with my doc and we're guessing it is perhaps from my recent sinus infection, both the infection itself and antibiotic effects on my gut and immune system. I also lost 5 pounds that I couldn't really afford to lose and so maybe I shouldn't be surprised because "starvation" is known to put the brakes on the thyroid. She wasn't too worried at the moment because TSH is low and I'm generally feeling okay. But my fT3:rT3 ratio is under 20 where Bredesen wants it >20, so I will check again somewhere down the road.

I wonder if you were following the recent paper about women's free T3 levels and AD risk. Here are my notes:

'Higher serum FT3 was associated with lower risk of conversion to AD [hazard ratio (HR) = 054; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.32–0.92 per 1 pmol/L increase]. Furthermore, patients in the lowest serum FT3 quartile had a twofold increased risk of AD compared to those in the highest quartile (HR = 2.63; 95% CI: 1.06–6.47). These associations remained after adjustment for multiple covariates.' [Emphasis added]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30223192

Quartile cutoffs for Labcorp range (2-4.4) ... 2.6, 3.2, 3.8, 4.4

And lastly, Alzheimer's has just claimed another member of my family. My second cousin (my Dad's first cousin - Alzheimer's runs in that family) passed away yesterday from "complications". She was only 71. Damn this disease.

Thinking of you and your family

[SusanJ]

I wonder if you were following the recent paper about women's free T3 levels and AD risk.

Yep, I did a lot of digging after I got the results. I want to retest early next year after gaining weight, maximizing healing, and if still low, dig farther with an endocrinologist. Rule out other factors beyond being a just thyroid issue.

[SusanJ]

Thanks to all for the kind thoughts.

Katie, do keep hacking away! Sometimes it's the seemingly little tweaks that make the difference.