Could overtraining cause decreased production of thyroxine? Just wondering. Had it a tad on the low side. The thyroxine I mean.
Not sure about the thyroxine question, but in response to your sig line…
“Quantity has a quality of it’s own”
I don’ think. I got diagnosed after I lost a month of training for a marathon (and had to drop out). I had the symptoms for awhile, but I just became more aware as I required more from my body.
Good news is once they get your dosage right, it’s usually not an issue anymore.
I don´t really have any symptoms, not that I´m aware of. A little cold sometimes, but that´s all. Not shivering all the time.
Had it a tad on the low side.
Do you have your values from your blood profile, specifically your TSH, free T3 and T4?
There are more symptoms then that. I had no energy, was getting head aches all the time and was sick a lot.
It runs in my family. Ironically, my sister and I have to make an effort to put on weight (more than the standard few pounds).
My free T4 was 9.0.
Perhaps on the low side of normal but without TSH it is impossible to make any sort of analysis.
hey man -
do you know what your TSH was? for what it’s worth i’m very hypothyroid, and have been on medication for it for several years now. even if your doc doesn’t prescribe anything now, i’d suggest you keep an eye on that thyroid and maybe request TSH-T4 tests every year. i used to ask my doctor if training would have any effect on thyroid and he used to say ‘no,’ but it didn’t seem like a hugely confident no. there’s very little research on this, and the type of training that most triathletes do is usually very unusual (ie., intense) by most standards. i’ve also noticed during my own life that one or twice when i was very overtrained, my thyroid responded as well. coincidence? possibly.
anyway, hope it works out and that you don’t end up being sick. . .
-mike
My TSH was 1.0 mU/l. I was only reflecting that the so called Addisonic overtraining causes symptoms that are similar to hypothyroidism, so why couldn´t there be a responding swing in hormone levels as well?
I would test TSH, fT4, fT3 and thyroid antibodies - that will give a complete picture.
In my experience those with normal thyroid function do not test differently due to training (sometimes there will be transient changes for various reasons like post partum… but antibodies help sort that out)
I am now starting to look at endurance athletes and hypothyroid - what I am seeing is that as training increases the thyroid of those with hypothyroidism cannot keep up and often doses will need to be increased - I see this in non endurance athletes with seasonal variation as well.
hope this helps
My TSH was 1.0 mU/l. I was only reflecting that the so called Addisonic overtraining causes symptoms that are similar to hypothyroidism, so why couldn´t there be a responding swing in hormone levels as well?
that is a normal TSH so doubt you are exhibiting anything but normal swings
Make sure that you see a respected endocrinologist. They will be the ones to help you out. I had my thyroid taken out in 1992 so know a little bit about this subject. 
However not enough to give you any advice. Thanks and good fortune.
Without a doubt OTS can cause swings in TSH, T3 and T4 levels!!
Have you also had a cortisol level analysis? Taken via saliva is the easiest method. If your cortisol levels are “off” you will then have to determine how to gain control of them once again prior to the thyroid function improving.
Just remember that the neuro-endocrine system works as a fine balancing act and just looking at one endocrine marker and “treating” it via pharmacology may help, short term, it will do nothing for you until you determine what took you out of balance in the first place… Training stress, emotional stress, work stress etc. all play a roll in how your body functions, especially how your neuro-endocrine system functions. If you are interested, check out the work done by famed endocrinologist Hans Selye re: the G.A.S. (no not “gas” )
Sorry to hear about your experiences… not fun to say the least! I too have gone through OTS and even wrote my undergraduate thesis (BS Ex. Phys) on OTS and endurance athletes. Go figure, after I wrote it I ended up training myself to death and “earning” OTS! Anyway, While I understand your mind-set re: latent hypothyroidism coming to the surface I would venture to say that NO-ONE has latent hypothyroidism that ‘wants’ to express itself. Meaning, if all systems in the body are ‘go’ and working as they should, your thyroid should function normally.
Now, with the stress of training at the Nat. Training Center as well as the emotional stress that comes with those problems I can imagine that your neuro-endocrine system was under excessive load. Always remember that our bodies react to what we do to it… good or bad! your lack of proper thyroid function is a symptom and NOT a cause. Figure out what you can do to reach a balance in your life once again to improve thyroid function. Reason I say this is becuase once we introduce exogenous hormones into the body (taking a pill) our thyroid, in this case, then says, ‘ok, now i can stop doing my job even further because I have all of this synthroid to do the job for me.’ make sense? Then, if you go off of the meds, your thyroid is not even close to working normally. Another example is body builders taking in excessive levels of testosterone and seeing their testes shrink… why? The testes no longer need to perform their job or producing testosterone. Takes years to return to baseline.
So, to you I would say you would need to seek out a professional who has experience treating athletes such as yourself, ask a ton of questions, go to see another professional and get more answers re: Diet, supplementation, accupuncture (seriously helped me by the way), a “negative ion” environment vacation (pine tree forests and the beech), easy to moderate exercise, mental health therapy, manual therapy (PT, DC, ATC) etc. This is a hole that I just have recently dug my way out of (5 year battle). I wish you the best. ERIK
1.0 is definitely on the low end of normal. Commonly accepted clinical ranges are changing these days. It used to be it was anythwhere from .5 to 5.5 was considered “normal”. Now the thinking is more like .3 to 3.5, but that will probably change soon too. Some people respond better at diffrent levels. I feel like crap over 1.0. I was having all the syptoms about 8 years ago. I was cold, lethargic, had the worst constipation on the planet, my arms would regularly fall asleep when I slept on my side, my resting HR was in the low 30’s, I was super depressed and slept about 18 hours a day. My TSH tested out at the highest level my endocrinologist had seen in his 30 years of practice at 237. No there’s no decimal point missing. I was off the charts. After tinkering with my levels and a lot more testing, I found I have an inherited type called Hashimotos Hypothyroidism. If I miss a couple days of hormone replacement therapy I can definitely feel it. I now keep my TSH right around .30 with the help of snythetic hormone called snythroid. Some people don’t respond well to it but I did. Armor is another brand dervied from cows that some people have better results with. Others find that a combination of T3 & T4 is what makes their body happy. It takes a lot of playing around with dosages but for me it was totally worth it, probably saved my marrige.
Dave
This is all very interesting. I’m 25 and just got diagnosed with hypothyroidism a couple months ago, just when i restarted some intensive cardio workouts (setting triathlon training as my goal). There is some history of hypothyroidism in my family, and I had a number of MRI’s last year (which apparently can set it off).
I swam competitively through the end of college, took a lazy year, then began lifting weights. Through all the years of swimming there were no problems, but it is interesting how this has coincided with my return to aerobic training.
Check out Galen Rupp’s story… he set the US junior 10K record a few years ago (27:22 or something like that) then had the following season go down the tubes before eventually being diagnosed w/ thyroid problem; got properly medicated, and then finished #2 in 10K at the Oly trials last summer and current NCAA XC champ.
Yes but you are on replacement, the OP is not. Big difference.
Yes, very big difference. If I were not, I would be asleep right now! I was simply suggesting that the OP should look into replacement as an option since it was great for me.
Dave