Hashimoto’s Disease

First, your healthcare provider will:

• Ask about your symptoms.
• Ask about your medical history.
• Perform a physical exam, including feeling your thyroid gland.

After this assessment, they’ll order blood tests to confirm the diagnosis, including:

• Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) test: A high TSH level most often means your thyroid gland isn’t producing enough thyroxine (T4) hormone. This result usually means you have hypothyroidism or subclinical hypothyroidism.
• Free thyroxine (T4) test: A low T4 level suggests that you have hypothyroidism.
• Antithyroid antibody test: If you have certain autoantibodies in your blood, it usually points to Hashimoto’s disease as the cause of hypothyroidism, as opposed to something else, like iodine deficiency.

In some cases, your provider may recommend a thyroid ultrasound (imaging test) to check the size of your thyroid and to make sure you don’t have thyroid nodules (growths).