Checklist.

This is the checklist your endocrinologist should be using at every appointment. This is the checklist that would have saved thousands of thyroid patients years of suffering if anyone had run the full panel from the start. 

Most doctors test the top 2. TSH and T4. Two numbers out of ten. And from those two numbers they determine your entire treatment plan. Your medication dose. Your prognosis. Whether you're healthy or sick. Whether your symptoms are real or imagined. Two numbers making decisions that affect every system in your body. 

The other 8 sit in the column marked "rarely ordered." Not because they're not important. Because the system wasn't built to check them. Because insurance doesn't always cover them without justification. Because most endocrinologists were trained on TSH and T4 and the remaining 8 weren't part of the standard protocol. 

Free T3 tells you if your medication is actually converting. Most doctors don't test it. Reverse T3 tells you if stress is blocking your receptors. Almost nobody tests it. Antibodies tell you if your immune system is still attacking after diagnosis. Often dropped after the first year. Ferritin tells you if your iron stores are actually sufficient for hair growth and energy — not just technically "in range" at a level too low to function. 

Screenshot this. Print it. Bring it to your next appointment. Hand it to your doctor and say "I'd like all 10 tested please." If they say no — ask why. And if the answer isn't convincing — find someone who will. 

Comment CHOKING if you've never had more than 2 of these tested. Because the answers you've been looking for might be hiding in the 8 numbers nobody has checked.