[log in to unmask] wrote:

Has anyone seen studies on whether there is a connection between
estrogen levels and thyroid levels?  It would seem to make sense, since
thyroid disease affects more women than men (not to disregard those men
who have bona fide thyroid problems :-)

My thyroid condition always seems better/worse at different times in
my cycle.

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Kathy:

They do know that women taking estrogen (either as hormone replacement
-- i.e., Premarin -- or in birth control pills) may need to take more
thyroid replacement hormone. Estrogen increases the body's production of
a blood protein that binds thyroid hormone to it, making it inactive.
For women without thyroids in particular, this can cause a need to
increase the dosage level slightly, as there is no thyroid to
compensate. For women with thyroids, there's the medical assumption that
the thyroid compensates.  But I believe that after beginning any
estrogen therapy, a woman should always have TSH tested to see if the
estrogen is having an impact on overall TSH and thyroid function and
might require a dosage adjustment.

Based on that, you have to assume that even on a daily basis, there is
fluctuation in the amount of thyroid hormone bound -- and therefore
available -- to us based on whether we're at a point in the cycle when
estrogen is higher than others.  I know many women with thyroid disease
who swear their symptoms cycle with their menstrual cycle.

It's really an interesting area. If I were a medical researcher, I'd
want to be in on these new studies of women and autoimmune diseases, as
they're discovering more and more how estrogen in particular is related
to the immune system. They're even using it as therapy for some
autoimmune illnesses (I believe lupus, for example.)  They probaby going
to be able to say definitely at some point that the reason that
autoimmune diseases affect women far more often than men is indeed the
issue of hormones.

Maybe someday we'll even have our thyroid hormone dosage via a patch, or
in a birth control packet format with dosage variances to reflect where
we are in our menstrual cycles?  Wouldn't that be something!

--Mary