Maybe I'm just a Salazar apologist, but when I was overtrained last year, my T3/T4 was high (aka hypothyroid). I didn't take meds specifically for that, but I had to change my diet a lot and also treat my vanishingly low estrogen.

I'm sorry to hear you were diagnosed hypothyroid!  I hope the meds help.

I guess I'm taking them too, then!!  (Actually, wait.  I was already taking them when I started running, I think.  So any improvement has nothing to do with that.  Maybe I should demand a dosage increase...)

TSH is not on the WADA prohibited list.

So even if it does enhance performance (right now that jury is out), its not a banned PED.

TSH is the thyroid stimulating hormone which causes the increase in T4 (as I understand it).  The supplement would be levothyroxine.  But I doubt that's on the banned list, either.

Runner's World put out this article after the WSJ one I posted in the OP was published.

Oski, I was diagnosed as hypothyroid also and have been on low dose of levothyroxine for over a year.  And I regret to say I am running slower than ever......but I also have some sort of hamstring injury.  So....who knows 

I was recently diagnosed as potentially hypothyroid as well.  In August my Thyroid tested borderline-low (4.21, considered by some doctors to be normal, considered by some to be low enough to need threatment) so my doctor decided to give it three months and see whether it stayed low or whether it was just a weird fluctuation.

So I guess we'll see later this month what those results are.

I do have hypothyroidism in my family, so I have reason to believe it's not just a training volume thing.

It's been a little weird for me because so many of the symptoms of hyopthyroidism (energy level stuff especially) is so subjective.  On the one hand I think-- I'm able to train relatively hard (up to 60 mpw with 2 speed workouts) -- obviously I don't have hypothyroidism.  On the other hand, by the end of the day I'm so tired that other stuff in my life suffers-- I am usually too tired to cook dinner and just microwave something to eat, and my other chores pile up and have to wait for the weekend because I just have no energy for anything other than just sitting.

I don't even know which way I hope it turns out.  On one hand, I really don't want to be dependent on medication, but on the other hand...  if a thyroid issue were holding back my progress in running, and I was able to get that back to normal, I do wonder what I could accomplish.  Obviously I'm not going to the Olympics (hah!) but maybe I could make a little more progress than I have.

Hope the diagnosis and the treatment are helpful to you!

Scap, if you're still reading the thread, how did you change your diet?  Did it help?  I've upped my B and D vitamins but I'm having trouble separating the wheat from the chaff in all the thyroid advice that's everywhere online.

Also, meaghan, before I was diagnosed my running didn't really suffer (though I had a bunch of other crap going on at the time so I was sucking at that anyway), I was just generally exhausted much like you describe.

Thanks bluerun, it's helpful to hear what your experience was.  This thread (and the fact that all week I've been staying at work late because I feel too tired to start my commute) is making me think about making that doctor appointment sooner rather than later.

 

Thanks bluerun, it's helpful to hear what your experience was.  This thread (and the fact that all week I've been staying at work late because I feel too tired to start my commute) is making me think about making that doctor appointment sooner rather than later.

FWIW, my PCP (who is no longer my PCP) pointed out to me that my thyroid levels were off after routine bloodwork... he wouldn't give me meds for it because, in his words, "it's such a small abnormality that any endocrinologist would have to be out of his mind to medicate it."

So I went to an endocrinologist, who took great offense to the above comment and did give me Synthroid.  Maybe it's partly a placebo effect, but it made a huge, huge difference for me.