A thyroid test Singapore is designed to tell your healthcare provider how well your thyroid gland works. This test can help in the diagnosing of conditions like hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s disease and thyroid cancer.
The thyroid test Singapore checks to see if your thyroid gland works like it should. In a nutshell, your thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in your neck that sits just above your sternum. It produces hormones that control several different body systems. You can regard to it as a command center that manages how your body uses energy.
You might need a thyroid test if you have symptoms like fatigue, sluggishness, restlessness, irritability, or unexplained weight changes. Other names for thyroid tests include thyroid function tests and thyroid symptom tests.
It is worth mentioning that there are several different types of thyroid tests, but they all fall under one of two categories i.e.; thyroid blood tests and thyroid imaging tests. Thyroid blood tests check for hormones and proteins like antibodies and thyroglobulin. These tests can tell you if you have conditions like hypothyroidism, or hyperthyroidism. There are several types of thyroid blood tests, including TSH, T3, and T4, and thyroid antibodies.
Thyroid imaging tests, on the other hand, help your provider find nodules in your neck and determine if they are benign or malignant. Nuclear medicine imaging like thyroid uptake scan tests all lie under this category.
So, how do thyroid blood tests work? To give you an insight into what you should expect, thyroid tests measure certain hormones and antibodies in your blood. Too many or too few of these hormones or antibodies might mean that you have thyroid disease.
Providers count on different blood tests to measure different things. For instance, TSH measures your thyroid-stimulating hormone. This is usually the first test most providers recommend. Your pituitary gland makes TSH. It travels to your thyroid gland, stimulating it to produce thyroid hormones, T3 and T4.
T3 or free T3 measures the amount of triiodothyronine present in your blood. This hormone is one of two main hormones that your thyroid makes. As for T4 or free T4, it measures the amount of thyroxine in your blood, Thyroxine is the other main type of hormone that your thyroid makes.
Luckily, you don’t need to do anything special prior to your test. You can eat and drink normally, unless your healthcare provider tells you otherwise.