stop thunderbird checking for messages before opening a message

There is very often a few seconds to several seconds delays betweenI click on a message and seeing it. I notice that often when I click on a message, first a couple of newer messages appear above it in the folder and only then I see my message.

Is it possible to tell thunderbird show my message and then check for new messages? It's wasting a lot of time.

My account is IMAP.

TB is 38.6.0 on fedora 23