Blood tests, and Thyroid function

I’m not a big fan of the word ‘expert’.

It makes a person sound like they are single-minded, and that they know everything there is to know about a certain subject. Which, to my mind, doesn’t seem possible, nor does it seem like a very well-rounded approach to anything, particularly when assessing healthy Thyroid function.

(No, I’m not a fan of specialist doctors either. They tend to work alone, rather than as part of a team-effort with specialists in different areas of health.)

I get termed ‘expert’ — quite a bit — when people are referred to me for Hypothyroidism, Thyroid dysfunction, or Iodine therapy. However, having worked in these areas for some years now, I’ll only ever admit to having a good level of expertise here. Especially as I’m not solidly focused in this one area of health. I’m a holistic natural health practitioner. (I look at the whole person, and the various factors that influence their health.)¹

What I can say is that at OOMPH, I provide the best care that I can for your Thyroid, based on my current level of education, understanding, and experience.

No more. No less.

That said, in this blog-post I’m going to share something that I’ve learned about Thyroid function over the last few years:

SPECIALISTS ARE NO WISER ABOUT THYROID FUNCTION THAN, SAY, NATUROPATHS.

AND, 

UNFORTUNATELY THE BLOOD TESTS FOR THYROID FUNCTION AREN’T VERY ACCURATE

For one, I see screeds of clients at OOMPH who are clearly displaying the signs and symptoms of Hypothyroidism, yet their Thyroid blood-work suggests otherwise (their results are ‘normal’, and sometimes even appear to be perfect.)²

And, because I have clients from all over New Zealand — and I get to see their blood test results — I’ve come to realise that there isn’t a universal Thyroid function reference range to actually fit into!

Not only do I find these issues confounding, but I also find it to be a real concern.

I mean, just what are we really dealing with here, anyway — a sliding Thyroid testing system where the results don’t necessarily match-up with the symptoms?

How are we to compare apples with apples here?
Instead, it’s more like we’re comparing (Adam’s) apples to Kiwis… 😳

Confused?
Join the club.

I am lucky enough to work with clients from all around the country, and when I receive their blood-work results, the reference ranges are included. (Or, if my client just emails me their test results, I refer to a LabTests record of reference ranges.

While I keep a rough idea of the various blood-work ranges in my head; I don’t keep the actual specifics — because, well,  I didn’t think I had to. However, as I progressed with my work, I was getting all-sorts-of-confused when my clients were displaying random, or results contrary to what I had anticipated🤔

Then I realised that we aren’t all on a level playing-field when it comes to testing our Thyroid function.💡

The region in New Zealand where you live will determine what the reference range for your Thyroid function will be — and for the most part, they are all different.

Now, I would love to say that the reason for this discrepancy is because the region you live in impacts the functioning of this gland e.g you live close to the sea, or live in a land-locked area. (which would affect your access to fresh seafood and therefore your access to iodine  — more on this below.)

But unfortunately, this isn’t the case, as obviously, we have supermarkets that standardise, and supply (reasonably fresh) food across Aotearoa.

The actual reason for the various Thyroid function result ranges are simply due to which lab-test facility you use — because they all use different methods of testing.

Therefore when I’m assessing my clients blood-work, not only do I have to take into consideration the idiosyncrasies between individuals, but I also have to take into account these ‘sliding scales’.

Note: For my international readers – New Zealand is also called Aotearoa, which has a population of around 5,000,000 people spanning the wee islands we inhabit in the South Pacific ocean.

While you would hope that no matter where, and how, you had your blood-work analysed in New Zealand — that if your Thyroid was dysfunctional then it would be picked up (and fall outside the reference ranges). That somehow it would all come out-in-the-wash regardless of what lab-assay was used in the production of the results.

However, if that were the case, then why would LabTests have gone to all the time, money, and effort to recently change their testing method (January 2021) — from Siemens to Roche Assays — when there isn’t much difference between the reference ranges? Doesn’t the simple fact that they felt compelled to align with other pathology services, over the smallest discrepancies of reference ranges, suggest that this whole thing smacks of inconsistencies, and therefore inaccuracies..?

(Please see below for more specific information.)

If there are any Chemical Pathologists reading this, please correct me 🙏🏻

However, in saying that, I did find this research article from:
The Association for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine (accepted January 17 2017).
It says:  “Our study demonstrates clearly that there are marked variations in the reference intervals for thyroid hormones between analytical platforms. There is an urgent need for standardization of thyroid hormone assays to permit transferability of results. Until then, guidelines will need to reflect this method-related difference.”