Comprehensive thyroid testing, which goes beyond the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels, is crucial to your thyroid healing journey. Understanding what’s happening with other markers like T3 and T4 is very important, not to mention the thyroid antibodies.

When doing a thyroid panel, you’re given the option for free and total hormone levels. Most thyroid hormone in the body is bound to a protein, leaving only a small fraction - free thyroid hormones - circulating in the bloodstream. As a result, getting the free hormone levels gives us an idea of how much thyroid hormone is in the active forms that the body can use.

Today, I’m sharing what you need to know about the differences between free and total thyroid hormone levels and the situations where I recommend testing one over the other.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- Which markers should be tested in a full thyroid panel
- The difference between free and total thyroid hormone markers
- Why I recommend testing free thyroid hormones
- The case for testing total and free hormones in cases of hypothyroidism

As always, I hope you find this episode valuable, and I look forward to catching you in the next episode!

To learn more, visit the show notes at https://savemythyroid.com/podcast/testing-the-total-vs-free-thyroid-hormones/.

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Testing the Total vs. Free Thyroid Hormones