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Post by pplthot on Sept 19, 2014 10:41:07 GMT -5
I screened and my TSH was too high. I know the reason is I drank too much coffee the week before screening and it's happened before. I just have to wait a while for it to go back to normal and see a doctor and ask for a blood test on my own then send PPD the result to be allowed to do studies again.
I know there are places that you can go to directly and get blood testing done without seeing a doctor. Does anyone know if PPD would accept results from one of these places? I asked the recruiter about this but I'm not sure she understood what I was saying.
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smiling4areason
Junior Member
I don't know what they gave me, but it sure seems to be working, I feel GREAT!
Posts: 72
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Post by smiling4areason on Sept 19, 2014 17:39:10 GMT -5
I'm assuming you mean like "WalkInLabs" or "AnyLabTestNow" for getting blood work. It's legit. I see no reason there why they wouldn't accept them. I used one for blood work and excepted it no questions asked. They lab that does the blood work is the same labs that everyone uses normally anyway. You're just skipping the DR office visit and getting a direct line for the lab work.
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Post by pplthot on Sept 19, 2014 21:37:30 GMT -5
Right that's what I tried to tell her. I had to do this before and the doctor didn't do anything. He just sent me to some other place to get my blood drawn then handed me the results once he got them back. I don't have health insurance so I'm trying to save some money. Maybe she thought I was asking if I could do the blood work myself like I have some home laboratory.
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Post by respect on Sept 20, 2014 12:02:02 GMT -5
What research clinic fail to tell us is when lab values actually indicate a disease state. That is why it is important to have a primary doctor. By the way if you dont get-health insurance you will be penalized for it. By the nature of what you do it is bad practice not to have health insurance. The research doctor and clinic have insurance to protect if they injure you or God forbid kill you in the process.
You are more than a lab value and sometimes you have to trust the professional judgment of medical staff. This is a country with lots of opportunities so explore them! The reason why the pharmaceutical companies is a billion dollar industry is because people get sick. We are people and in economic terms we might be seen at a greater risk than the general population of getting sick due to exposure to a lot of unapproved medication. I have seen lab rats with perfect ecgs and 3 months later they have the ecgs of an 80 with a heart condition and he trying getting into a next study. He is auditioning for the medical examiner table study. The pay off is eternity. A smart family may hit the lotto by taking out a life insurance policy on the fool friendly soul.
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Post by pplthot on Sept 20, 2014 13:43:13 GMT -5
I don't have a disease I just drank too much coffee. Obviously it would be a good idea to have health insurance and a regular doctor I see but that's not the situation right now.
The doctor I saw the first time went on about all kinds of thyroid diseases and depression and other possible problems and I told him too. I just drank too much coffee. My results came back just fine and I went back to doing studies.
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mike
Moderator
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Post by mike on Sept 20, 2014 16:44:42 GMT -5
It's a common misconception that thyroid related hormones fluctuate from normal activities, like diet or exercise; but this is actually not the case, even with drinking a lot of coffee.
If your TSH is showing high, its probably because you are hypothyroid. This is why the doctor was "going on about all kinds of thyroid diseases".
What is your age? Hypothyroidism is caused by an autoimmune dis about 99% of the time, and by thyroid cancer the other 1% of the time, and the autoimmune problem usually takes a while before it messes up your thyroid enough for it to start showing on tests, like perhaps by age 25 or 30.
Also, do you know what your TSH was specifically? The normal range is usually soing like .45 to 4.5.
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Post by respect on Sept 20, 2014 20:15:11 GMT -5
A lot of people use a stimulant like coffee to treat hypothyroidism. This condition comes with fatigue and sometimes coffee seems like the perfect remedy but simply mask the problem!
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Post by pplthot on Sept 20, 2014 21:11:27 GMT -5
It's a common misconception that thyroid related hormones fluctuate from normal activities, like diet or exercise; but this is actually not the case, even with drinking a lot of coffee. If your TSH is showing high, its probably because you are hypothyroid. This is why the doctor was "going on about all kinds of thyroid diseases". What is your age? Hypothyroidism is caused by an autoimmune dis about 99% of the time, and by thyroid cancer the other 1% of the time, and the autoimmune problem usually takes a while before it messes up your thyroid enough for it to start showing on tests, like perhaps by age 25 or 30. Also, do you know what your TSH was specifically? The normal range is usually soing like .45 to 4.5. The first time this happened was because I started taking caffeine pills as a workout supplement. The week leading up to my last screening I was drinking double americanos daily. A stupid mistake and I should've known since it happened before, but I forgot. I've been doing studies for at least 5 years now, and these are the only two times I've any problem with blood. Caffeine is known to affect the thyroid. There's no mystery to this. I didn't come here asking for a diagnosis. I KNOW 100% for a fact that my TSH was off because of caffeine.
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Post by respect on Sept 20, 2014 22:28:09 GMT -5
This link might explain why the doctor might have rejected your professional opinion. 1.usa.gov/1qVDLuA
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mike
Moderator
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Post by mike on Sept 21, 2014 1:08:03 GMT -5
This link might explain why the doctor might have rejected your professional opinion. 1.usa.gov/1qVDLuA Yeah if you follow that link and read a little of the study, you will see that they were using 30 and 50mg/kg caffein. 50mg/kg equals about 150mg per 7 pounds of body weight, which means drinking 20 strong 12oz. cups of coffee if you weigh 140 pounds, or 30 cups if you weigh 210 pounds. But more importantly than that, the study indicates that these high doses of caffein DECREASED TSH, not increased it. Here is an article a little more for the layman: coffee caffein thyroid"..in experiments on rats, very high doses of caffeine caused the thyroid gland to enlarge, but at doses of about 300 mg, caffeine in humans did not change levels of thyroid hormones." pplthot, you can choose to remain ignorant or in denial about the state of your health for the rest of your life if you like, and I will not be bothered by this, but if I read things here that I know to be ill-informed and false, I'm going to say soing. You did not mention your age or what your TSH reading was either as I suggested, which would make it easier for people to get an idea whether you are really mistaken or if you might be correct in thinking that your TSH reading is a temporary glitch. If people treat this board as a place where adults can come and participate and exchange information it works so much better than when people just hop on here and try to suck out some quick information for their own benefit.
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Post by pplthot on Sept 21, 2014 13:53:06 GMT -5
I don't recall if my TSH was too high or too low. It was out of range is all i remember. It may have been that my T1 was too high and my TSH was too low. It doesn't even matter. Over a 5 year period of getting my blood drawn hundreds of times, most of those times daily over periods of weeks while I'm living in the facility, the only 2 times that my thyroid shows any signs of trouble are when I consumed large amounts of caffeine before having a screening. That's pretty overwhelming evidence that the issue is caffeine.
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mike
Moderator
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Post by mike on Sept 23, 2014 13:19:31 GMT -5
I screened and my TSH was too high. From the very first post in this thread, your post. And they don't measure T1, they measure T4 and sometimes T3. And all those blood draws that you got in the facility are irrelevant because they don't test your thyroid levels every time they draw your blood, they only do this when you screen. They can't afford to do an $800 blood panel every time they draw your blood throughout the course of a study. Those blood draws during the study typically are only checking at most two things: amount of the study drug in your system, and possibly some safety marker, most likely a liver enzyme check.
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chris
New Member
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Post by chris on Nov 24, 2014 0:11:59 GMT -5
Thank you for posting and sharing. I am in a similar situation as yourself. I did studies for a good two years then last summer I got flagged.
I paid 80 bucks a few months later to get a lab test done which showed my TSH at .1 with T3 and T4 within normal levels. I went to see a doctor, with no insurance, and $140 later I was told I needed to see a endocrinologist which will cost me another $175 should I follow through with it. I haven't as of yet.
My main concern is that I wasn't aware of the effects of caffeine has on TSH. I tend to drink more coffee/energy drinks than the average person(mainly as a result from heavy dependence when I was deployed to Iraq a few years back). I'm concerned with that being said, it may have effected the results.
I'm just not sure what to do. I really could use the money from doing studies but I can't afford to keep hemorrhaging cash seeing doctors if there really isn't going to be any return on capital for those visits.
I'm 27 by the way, if that means anything.
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Post by hairyscarylarry on Nov 24, 2014 14:53:38 GMT -5
Switch to decaf, wait a month, get the test again and see where you are. I bet you will normalize.
I recently switched to decaf and I'm still alive. I did my detox slowly, not cold turkey. Dealing with the detox migraines at every check in became too much to bear.
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Post by gutterratt on Mar 2, 2015 23:26:53 GMT -5
Jesus, there seems to be a lot of pit falls in trying to get qualified for a study. It's like these study coordinators are looking for the "perfect" test subjects. So drinking too much caffeine/stimulants could disqualify you even after a week of consumption?
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