Q: About self-testing, generally speaking, what are the ideal blood tests to run for Hashimoto’s and how often? Is there a company you recommend to do this? I cannot find an endocrinologist who has experience with Hashimoto’s.
A: It’s tricky. Endocrinologists are supposed to be Hashimoto's experts, yet there is so much that they're not able to offer and people often have to resort to taking charge of their own health.
For thyroid levels, I recommend getting a full thyroid panel that includes TSH, Free T4 & T3, plus thyroid peroxidase antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies (TPO & TG.) These antibodies are markers that show how aggressive the attack is against your thyroid gland, so I like monitoring that. Generally, you can probably ask your primary care doctor to order those labs for you. I also have set up a self-order option through a company called Ulta Lab. One of the reason why I like them so much is that they offer really great cash prices, and you can go to a lab anywhere. They work with Quest, which is present in most places in the United States. The other reason is that in many cases it’s possible to submit the labs that you self-order to your insurance (please check with your insurance first). Then the insurance company may then reimburse you. I haven't seen that with any other lab companies besides this one, and I don't know how they've worked this voodoo magic for us, but somehow they've been able to do that, but again, please check with your insurance company to make sure that's possible. For some people I also recommend doing a thyroid ultrasound.
I generally recommend testing every three months. When you’re implementing lifestyle changes that may result in improvement of thyroid function, you want to monitor your progress, in case you need adjustments in the dose of your thyroid medications. Then testing every four to six weeks would be recommended.
I have an article about 10 thyroid tests and how to interpret them, plus another one where I recommend some root cause testing, which can often be helpful in digging deeper to figure out what's going on in your body.