Hello,

Blondie: Good Luck at your rheum appointment. We are all rooting for you.
I was wondering if anyone has checked for Lyme and celiac disease yet? If you read this in time, maybe you can bring these up too, just to make sure they are covering all the bases.

Cat265:
My thyroglobulin was 196 (normal range, 0-25)
My thyroperoxidase was 122 (normal: 90-60)
but results vary based on what assay they use and the set cut-off points they use. Some assays have a very narrow range of numbers...

At first, I was a little skeptical (I got my lab results prior to the follow up visit with the neurologist), as I had read that up to 10% of the normal population has elevated thyroid antibodies. The neurologist stated that mine were too high for this to be the case, and also pointed out that they were both elevated.

I was pretty much sold on the HE when I went home and Googled it, as my doctor had suggested I do. Sure enough, my symptoms were listed. While I never had more serious symptoms (psychosis, coma, seizures), I had all the others. Every patient is different and you can have only a few or many of the symptoms.

Then they did an ultrasound of my thyroid and found that it was full of tiny nodules from the autoimmune destruction, and I was floored. There is no way that it could all be a coincidence, and in fact my neurologist mentioned that a few of her colleagues have noticed similar findings in their patients who have thyroid disease.

Also, i stopped using my cane after the first steroid pulse.

I don't know what level it is they look for specifically, and each lab uses a different assay with different cutoff points, but my guess is that if you are having neuro symptoms that could be consistent with HE, and positive antibodies (outside the range), then you likely have HE. Of course, only a trained neurologist (familiar with HE) should make the diagnosis.

Hope this helps!