I also have thyroid disease. Mine was hyper (Graves) and treated with radioactive iodine. Oddly enough, my husband and two of my three grown children have it - possibly my third also. We suspect it is related to living in Germany during the explosion at Chernobyl. We all support Synthroid

Anyway, thyroid can really mess up your health when it goes off balance. T3 & T4 represent the usable and preconverted hormone in your blood. One or both are elevated if you are HYPER. Normally the TSH is low at the same time in a hyper person. In a HYPOthyroid patient - the levels are pretty much the opposite with T3 &T4 being low while the TSH gets high (this is thyroid stimulating hormone) essentially begging your body to make more thyroid hormone.

Estrogen DOES play a key role in regulating thyroid. Mine went all crazy again at menopause and daughter Missy's went unstable with her pregnancies. I have a couple really good books by Mary Shomon and she has a website at About.com. The has thyroid disease herself - let me find that...http://thyroid.about.com/

Very good site and she has a newsletter also. As for controling it with diet - some people try this with mixed results. Sounds like yours may well be related to the hyst. and hopefully you can get it regulated. Hope some of this helps