I know of someone who's 25 years old and hasn't gotten her period since last March. It didn't bother her at first because she'd always been irregular. She went for her check-up last week, and all the tests were normal except for her thyroid tests, which were low, according to the doctor. Apparently, she had been experiencing symptoms for almost a year already, like depression, hot and cold flashes, tiredness, monthly weight gain, and low energy.

I don't really know if these are symptoms of hypo or hyperthyroidism since the symptoms seem to be a mixture of both. Can you help me with this?

Hypothyroidism means thyroid is not making enough thyroid hormone while hyperthyroidism is when the thyroid makes too much thyroid hormone. Since your friend's thyroid test results low thyroid hormone,doctors usually prescribed thyroid hormone pills to treat hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism share a number of symptoms, like fatigue, hair loss, muscle aches, and psychological changes, so it's really hard to decipher her illness based on the symptoms you mentioned. Basically, in hypo, the TSH level is high while the T3 and T4 levels are low. This is the exact opposite of hyper, wherein the TSH is low and the T3 and T4 are high. So we cannot also make a conclusion on the "low" numbers that the doctor said.

Just to add, weight loss is more common in hyperthyroidism, though I'm not saying that it may be her condition. Some hyperthyroid people also gain weight prior to diagnosis, since elevated thyroid hormone levels increase appetite. Perhaps you can just wait for the results of her other tests so as to know the definitive diagnosis.