How to Know if You Need to Get Your Thyroid Checked
Health care professionals use thyroid tests to check how well your thyroid is working and to find the cause of problems such equally hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism. The thyroid is a pocket-sized, butterfly-shaped gland in the forepart of your neck that makes 2 thyroid hormones: thyroxine (Tfour) and triiodothyronine (T3). Thyroid hormones command how the body uses energy, so they affect nearly every organ in your body, even your heart.
Thyroid tests help health intendance professionals diagnose thyroid diseases such every bit
- hyperthyroidism—when thyroid hormone levels are too high
- Graves' affliction, the most mutual cause of hyperthyroidism
- hypothyroidism—when thyroid hormones levels are too low
- Hashimoto's illness, of the most mutual cause of hypothyroidism
- thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer
Your doc will offset with blood tests and may also order imaging tests.
What blood tests do doctors utilize to check thyroid function?
Doctors may order 1 or more blood tests to check your thyroid function. Tests may include thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), T4, T3, and thyroid antibody tests.
For these tests, a health care professional will draw blood from your arm and send it to a lab for testing. Your doctor volition talk to you almost your test results.
TSH test
Health care professionals usually check the corporeality of TSH in your blood first. TSH is a hormone made in the pituitary gland that tells the thyroid how much T4 and T3 to make.
A high TSH level most oftentimes ways you take hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid. This means that your thyroid isn't making enough hormone. As a result, the pituitary keeps making and releasing TSH into your blood.
A low TSH level commonly means you have hyperthyroidism, or an overactive thyroid. This means that your thyroid is making too much hormone, so the pituitary stops making and releasing TSH into your blood.
If the TSH exam results are non normal, yous will need at to the lowest degree 1 other examination to aid find the cause of the problem.
T4 tests
A high blood level of T4 may mean you have hyperthyroidism. A low level of Tfour may mean you have hypothyroidism.
In some cases, loftier or low Tfour levels may non mean you have thyroid issues. If you are pregnant or are taking oral contraceptives, your thyroid hormone levels will be higher. Astringent illness or using corticosteroids—medicines to care for asthma, arthritis, skin conditions, and other health problems—can lower T4 levels. These atmospheric condition and medicines modify the corporeality of proteins in your blood that "bind," or attach, to Tiv. Spring Tfour is kept in reserve in the blood until it'due south needed. "Free" Tiv is not bound to these proteins and is available to enter body tissues. Because changes in binding protein levels don't bear upon gratuitous Tiv levels, many healthcare professionals prefer to measure free T4.
T3 test
If your wellness care professional thinks you may have hyperthyroidism even though your T4 level is normal, y'all may have a T3 examination to confirm the diagnosis. Sometimes T4 is normal yet T3 is high, so measuring both Tfour and T3 levels can be useful in diagnosing hyperthyroidism.
Thyroid antibody tests
Measuring levels of thyroid antibodies may assist diagnose an autoimmune thyroid disorder such equally Graves' disease—the about mutual cause of hyperthyroidism—and Hashimoto's disease—the most common cause of hypothyroidism. Thyroid antibodies are made when your allowed organisation attacks the thyroid gland by mistake. Your health care professional may order thyroid antibiotic tests if the results of other blood tests suggest thyroid disease.
What imaging tests do doctors utilise to diagnose and find the crusade of thyroid disease?
Your wellness care professional may order one or more imaging tests to diagnose and find the cause of thyroid illness. A trained technician usually does these tests in your doctor's office, outpatient center, or infirmary. A radiologist, a doctor who specializes in medical imaging, reviews the images and sends a written report for your health intendance professional to hash out with you.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound of the thyroid is most often used to look for, or more closely at, thyroid nodules. Thyroid nodules are lumps in your neck. Ultrasound can help your doctor tell if the nodules are more probable to be cancerous.
For an ultrasound, yous will lie on an exam table and a technician will run a device called a transducer over your neck. The transducer bounces prophylactic, painless sound waves off your neck to brand pictures of your thyroid. The ultrasound usually takes effectually xxx minutes.
Thyroid scan
Health care professionals apply a thyroid scan to wait at the size, shape, and position of the thyroid gland. This exam uses a small amount of radioactive iodine to help find the cause of hyperthyroidism and check for thyroid nodules. Your health care professional may ask you lot to avoid foods high in iodine, such as kelp, or medicines containing iodine for a week earlier the exam.
For the scan, a technician injects a small corporeality of radioactive iodine or a similar substance into your vein. You as well may swallow the substance in liquid or capsule form. The browse takes identify thirty minutes after an injection, or upward to 24 hours later on you lot eat the substance, so your thyroid has enough time to blot it.
During the scan, you will prevarication on an examination table while a special camera takes pictures of your thyroid. The browse usually takes 30 minutes or less.
Thyroid nodules that make besides much thyroid hormone show up clearly in the pictures. Radioactive iodine that shows up over the whole thyroid could mean yous accept Graves' illness.
Even though only a modest amount of radiations is needed for a thyroid browse and information technology is thought to be safety, you should not take this test if yous are meaning or breastfeeding.
Radioactive iodine uptake exam
A radioactive iodine uptake test, also called a thyroid uptake test, can assist bank check thyroid function and find the crusade of hyperthyroidism. The thyroid "takes upward" iodine from the blood to make thyroid hormones, which is why this is called an uptake test. Your health care professional may enquire you to avert foods high in iodine, such as kelp, or medicines containing iodine for a week before the test.
For this test, you volition swallow a small amount of radioactive iodine in liquid or capsule grade. During the test, you lot will sit in a chair while a technician places a device called a gamma probe in front of your cervix, near your thyroid gland. The probe measures how much radioactive iodine your thyroid takes upwardly from your blood. Measurements are often taken four to 6 hours subsequently you swallow the radioactive iodine and over again at 24 hours. The test takes but a few minutes.
If your thyroid collects a large corporeality of radioactive iodine, you may have Graves' affliction, or one or more nodules that make too much thyroid hormone. You may have this test at the same time as a thyroid scan.
Even though the test uses a small-scale corporeality of radiation and is thought to be safety, you should not have this examination if yous are significant or breastfeeding.
What tests practice doctors use if I have a thyroid nodule?
If your health care professional finds a nodule or lump in your neck during a physical exam or on thyroid imaging tests, yous may have a fine needle aspiration biopsy to see if the lump is cancerous or noncancerous.
For this test, you will lie on an exam table and slightly bend your cervix backward. A technician volition make clean your neck with an antiseptic and may employ medicine to numb the expanse. An endocrinologist who treats people with endocrine gland problems like thyroid affliction, or a specially trained radiologist, will identify a needle through the peel and use ultrasound to guide the needle to the nodule. Small samples of tissue from the nodule will be sent to a lab for testing. This procedure usually takes less than thirty minutes. Your health intendance professional volition talk with you about the examination consequence when it is available.
Source: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diagnostic-tests/thyroid
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