Holy Hematology!!!

I was talking to my mother yesterday and expressed frustration over my difficulties with losing some weight (ok, I complained vociferously, even though I should be more chill about this). Then, very coincidentally, she read an article later that evening about hypothyroidism, a condition which can lead to difficulty losing weight. She sent an excerpt that reads: "an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) disrupts your metabolism. Some estimates show that as many as 10% of adults have hypothyroidism which is more common in women and is often diagnosed in women between the ages of 40 and 50. Other symptoms of hypothyroidism include hair loss. If you’re interested in following up on this, ask your internist to run a TSH (thyroid-stimulating-hormone) screening on you. The higher your TSH level, the slower your thyroid is. While traditional normal values are between .45 and 4.5, if your level is above 2, you might still struggle to lose weight. Your doctor may also want to check your levels of T-3 and T-4, the two main thyroid hormones.” Could that be it???? Needless to say, I called first thing this morning to schedule an appointment with my doctor. I'll see her on Tuesday this coming week and I'll get a blood test the same day. When I receive the results, I'll share them here. The condition is treated with medication, so it's not an enormous problem. I've been instructed that the lower your body fat percentage drops, the harder it is to lose the fat. So dropping from say 20% to 16% is hard, and dropping from 16% to 12% is even harder. But if something else is interfering here, I'd like to know about it.