It’s worth ruling out hypothyroidism if blood cholesterol is elevated

To be truthful, I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to hypothyroidism. I often find few dogs follow the traditional textbook description of the clinical signs.

I have seen two cases of late with elevated cholesterol, but no hair loss, unexplained weight gain, heat seeking and mucinous skin thickness.

Both cases had blood submitted for total thyroxine (TT4) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and both had very low TT4 levels and markedly increased TSH.

Both cases are also improving nicely on thyroxine supplementation.