Post Follicular Thyroid Cancer - Thyroid levels

Hi VicWig,   Don’t know if this is much help but it’s coming up to two years since my TT.   Did you have RAI too?  I have scans and neck ultrasound every 6 months at present.

Not long after the op, my thyroid levels were 0.3 then 0.2 about a year later. Last month they were 0.1 which is really good. So, there’s a good chance yours will decrease too. I have heard of people having RAI a couple of times. 

Hi Peatree - thank you for taking the time to reply, I hope you're feeling fit and well. I still have half my thyroid left, but I think they like to keep levels below 2 - mine were a little elevated over 2 so I was interested to know if anyone had any experience of this and whether they'd had any further treatment xx

I think the challenge for us trying to interpret this is not knowing exactly what you mean by 'thyroid levels'.

If you had one lobe out, I'm assuming you still have the rest and won't have had Radioactive Iodine.

So most likely it's the TSH level that's higher than the doc wants it to be. Generally, that is fixed by increasing your dose and doing another blood test after 6-8 weeks to see if he's got you where you should be.

This really isn't anything to be too concerned about. They'll increase the dose, get your TSH down and then test on a regular (but probably quite infrequent) basis to make sure you stay where they want you to be.

It's not in any way an indication that the cancer has spread or come back - that would not be spotted with that test (or indeed, any other reliable blood test due to you still having half a thyroid).