Tracking your hypothyroid symptoms and signs

Tracking your signs and symptoms can provide vital information and clues to whether your treatment plan, your medication levels, supplements and even lifestyle changes are effective or not.  

Doctors use “symptoms” and “signs” in a very specific way:

  • Symptom: something that you, the patient, feels or complains about.
  • Sign: a specific observation or measurement that is more objective, and that someone else can observe or measure.

For example, I may complain that I am feeling cold all the time, and then the doctor takes my body temperature and it is below normal.  The symptom is my sensitivity to cold, and the sign is the temperature measurement.  

Symptoms that I track

These are some of the typical symptoms that I have tracked, especially in the first few weeks of changing a medication, starting a new supplement or making changes to my lifestyle:

  • Mood 
  • Energy level 
  • Sleep time and quality
  • Digestive system – including frequency and type of bowel movements
  • Status of my skin, hair, and nails – hair falling out, brittle or breaking nails, skin breakouts
  • Heat or cold sensitivity
  • Mental clarity – the ability to focus, concentrate, and remember things. 
  • Muscle aches and pains – non-exercise related.  

Signs that I track

These are some of the typical signs that I have tracked:

  • Resting heart rate
  • Blood pressure
  • Body temperature
  • Weight 

Signs that I track with the help of my functional medicine doctor

These are some of the typical signs that I have tracked:

  • Blood test results, including thyroid hormone levels, blood sugar levels, cortisol and sex hormone levels. 
  • Nutritional deficiencies – iron, ferritin and vitamin D levels

Using an app

What can you use to track your signs and symptoms?  A pen and paper can work, as well as a spreadsheet on your computer.  I have found an app that I like, called Chronometer, available in your phone’s app store.  I use the free version, and I ignore the calorie counting part of it.  

What I find extremely useful is adding any biometric and exercise information, as well as the section on notes, where I can add other notes. 

Adele du Rand

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