I have put on 3 stone in the last 4 years and d... - Thyroid UK
I have put on 3 stone in the last 4 years and don't know why. Am peri menopausal. Am only 39?? Why??
underactive thyroid causes weight gain..i too have gained 3 stone ..cant seem to lose it
But is menopause linked to such weight gain??
IF you have slowed down as most do as we age and we do not stay as active and continue to eat the same amount of food, YES you will gain weight. But if it is a sudden weight gain I'd look at my medicines on line to see what the side effects are. Lots of them cause weight gain. If your Thyroid meds are not working right then that could be a cause too. You really need first to look at your meds side effects, and see a ENDOCRINOLOGIST if you have a thyroid issue. Primary are STUPID on the subject. Not enough training.
R u not on thyroxine?
Hi Menopause often makes the thyroid worse.Weight normally associated with low FT3, be sure to have it tested. FT3 often needs to be near the top of range, unlike T4 in top third. Tests should ( include tSH, T4 and FT3, often T4 .levo and T3 needed on a script, or armour etc which includes both. Everything depends on range. FT3 ovder range is dangerous. It does lower the TSH.
if Gp cannot test, worth paying for on line, I use Blue Horizon, main site, quote TUK 10 for a discount. Well known, finger prick ( good) or venous blood but do not go through a private hospital, expensive that way. Lab well known to docs.
Best wishes,
Jackie
This is a link and you will see the reason many gain weight whilst on any thyroid gland medication.
Are you hypothyroid and are you taking levothyroxine?
Am not on anything at the minute. My diet hasn't changed and my friends eat so much more than me. Is really getting me down!!
You will see weight gain is the second clinical symptoms on this list.
thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/about_...
Scary stuff I have so many of those symptoms including the embarrassing ones!! My tsh is 1.33 so I've asked for more info
Some more links. You will be surprised by last link:-
thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/diagno...
thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin... (GP's have no knowledge of this test).
I am on levo and had a tt and I also want to
Lose a similar amount of weight
The other thing to wonder about is whether you really are menopausal or whether your thyroid is causing those symptoms (or a Vit D/Vit 12/folate/ferritin deficiency - it's all a bit chicken and egg).
It's a complete nightmare. I put on 5 stone on in 5 years. I use a smaller plate and surely but slowly it has come off! (About 6 years!). It takes a couple of months hard slog to get used to it but I couldn't face a big plate of food now. Your stomach will shrink.
I have Hashi / an hypo. Unfortunately, I was unable to exercise
and know, because of other health problems, I never can do much.
Good luck. X
My first question would be to ask what drugs you are on. Several cause weight gain or edema. And it is normal for women who slow down as they age to start putting on weight if they continue to eat at the same levels they were use to. Estrogen's can cause acid Reflux for some people. If you are not seeing a ENDOCRINOLOGIST for a Thyroid issue you are NOT getting the best care. Your Thyroid is the Master Gland in your body, it controls every cell and gland. That also means the hormones for Peri Menopause. I started that at age 35. Your single provider system is real restrictive to good health care. We Yanks are staring that in the face now and know how bad it is. It is destroying jobs, putting many full time workers down to Part Time, and premiums, co-pays and deductibles are going to triple, and those of us who are Seniors or Ret. over 65 Military are going to take the biggest hits in our medical care.
I am sorry to say that many of the Endocrinologists in the UK, appear unable to treat many patients with thyroid gland problems as they have a fixation only with the TSH and if it's withi the range you are told it's nothing to do with the thyroid gland. This is despite many clinical symptoms and our suffering can go on for years undiagnosed.
That is what you get when you have government controlled healthcare. BAD healthcare. I can FIRE those kind of doctors, and have. Had a cholesterol freak primary, FIRED him. I'm allergic to the drugs he wrote. He demanded I take them anyway. I don't obey very well when I have bad reactions to CRAPPY DRUGS. We have more independence than you do. and our Endo's are better and treat sooner and are not rigid, our Primary's are the rigid IDIOTS who have less knowledge. I have been 'borderline' since my 20's, it was not until I hit my 40's and went into crisis that I got started seeing a ENDO. Every primary I've had has under dosed, or would not treat. Nor do they know what other drugs, supplements or foods effect your Thyroid meds. I never rely on what they tell me until I can research it. Same goes for the meds they write. Had 1 primary write a ABORTION drug for colon pain FIRED HIM! Another "specialist I was sent to did not do the diagnostics, sent me to a bad Physical Therapist, He damaged a Lumbar disc. When I complained about it he covered it up. FIRED him. And I am not nice to deal with when the docs are crappy, or write scripts I react badly to, they hate it because I research everything and usually know more than they do about a health issue. I tell them to stick it where the sun does not shine right quick. Patients should have the ultimate say.
FIRST DO NO HARM is about using patients, especially children as human guinea pigs is older but no less true. washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/l...
Above all else PROFIT comes first, not a patients health or reactions to the drugs.
Sick CT Teen Placed in Foster Care As Parents Continue to Fight For Custody
foxnewsinsider.com/2014/02/...
With respect abby100, I don't think you understand how it works here. Many of us see private docs and just paying doesn't necessarily make a difference. The protocol is different here than it is in the US.
I have experience of the medical system in the US and while it is good in many ways it is far from perfect. If you look at US thyroid fora similar to this one you can see how many thyroid patients suffer there. We should all be striving for better care from our docs no matter whether we pay for them through our taxes or at point of delivery.
You seem to have already seen a lot of bad doctors yourself, so I'm not sure why you're blaming the ACA. You are no less welcome here than anyone but speaking for myself I would prefer that you stop spamming this forum with political rants.
That I agree on all to well. Our bad drug hot line is a unusable computer system with no humans. When a drug keeps getting expanded for usage and it already has a 50% side effect failure rate for the first illness, it doe not need expended to other illnesses, and should be removed from the market. The only way to get better care is to be able to change doctors, force bad drugs off the market, and bad doctors out of practice, and not have prior test follow you when you really need a fresh prospective. Your doctors seem to be the reverse of ours on rigid standards. We have more trouble with the Primary than Specialist, except a few like Ortho's ours stink like you say your Endo's do.. Quality of health care effects us all. You use drugs in the UK that have been on your market a long time, and do well, we get stuck with the 'latest new' ones available to us, and can't get changes made, many have horrid side effects. And when you request a different approach the doctors balk, it is against all they have been taught or not taught. Husband's knee doc wanted to do a full knee, he had a second opinion and turns out your Method of Partial knee replacement is far superior to ours.. Yet our doctors are not allowed by our FDA to use it, same goes for some of your proven drugs. The second opinion doctor had learned your procedure and does it any way. His patients love him and come from 3 states around just because he uses your better method, and the no PT an keeping their knee caps and nearly 90% use of their knees from your better procedure. Many of our Ortho's would turn some of them away because of weight issues, you have to lose the lbs or stones as you call them, they say before they will do a replacement. When you are in that kind of pain waiting is not easy. And they are quite stingy on any quality pain meds. And the shots have stopped working. And you are responsible for looking up the side effects of the drugs they write scripts for. I'm of an age I don't tolerate bad doctors, I've had to many, I'd love to live out my life with what works, I prefer to try diets for diseases or supplements before side effect riddled drug. I am facing Osteoporosis now, and the drugs they offer all have real bad side effects, yet no one has thought to make a supplement of the components your bones are made of and market it so women in their 30's can start taking it, to prevent or ward off OP, they wait until you get OP bad and stick you on horrid drugs. There has to be a better way for all of us.
Fortunately we still have some doctors who know how to treat the patient. First by looking and listening to them and taking a history. Taking into account clinical symptoms and treating them with the thyroid medication which suits them and not relying only on the TSH. Not necessarily prescribe the generic which may not suit many or keep them within the 'range'. Sometimes we have to try a few alternatives to find which suits us best.
Thankfully in the UK profit isn't the reason, it's usually the cost to the practice and the guidelines doctors have to conform to.
I am finding it difficult to understand how your point about "government controlled healthcare" sits with your other comments about your "rigid IDIOTS" of Primary's?
If your Primary Care Physicians are rigid idiots, how does their being not government controlled help?
It took you 20 years to see an endocrinologist? How did not being government controlled help? Not actually seeing why your situation is better than that of many here.
We have as much right to refuse any treatment as anyone.
In my case, I was treated when only a tiny bit over-range for TSH.
I am not saying that all in the garden is roses here. But I think a lot of our problems are far more complex than whether we have a tax funded national health service or we have to in some way pay privately. Do bear in mind that for some, private medicine is a readily available alternative in the UK. Depending, just as in the USA, on availability of funding.
Rod
I am trying to learn about your system which we only hear the horror stories on, You can lay that blame on all our news services. We are talking back in the late 60's -80's health care providers were different than what they are today, as was insurance.My test always read borderline. No one had ever heard of an Endo per average citizen, and the GP sure wasn't going to tell you. Pay was lower if you were not college educated, so all you saw were GP's Specialist were not as plentiful as they are now. Especially if you lived in rural areas. Insurances still only covered very little. Our so called 'safety net programs are late coming into being. That has changed as our government responded to many government Union demands. We pay Medicare taxes in advance during our working years for healthcare in our senior years. Yet that is government controlled, same goes for Military, depending on how old you are when you have completed your 20 yrs which is considered 'retirement' it is a government controlled 3 tier system. New enlisted have a different one than our retired. If you go in at 18 come out 20 yrs later, you have another tier until you turn 65 that tier is tied as secondary to Medicare. Both are Rationed health care, and get more Rationed, no one fixes the fraud or abuse which runs into the Trillions if you add up all the years of it and the 'poor' Medicaid assistance. It all goes back to how much you earned, and what time period a health condition occurred. I'm 65, Medicare/Tricare Life which is our Military's health ins is being gutted rather badly.
Don't forget that the people who come here for help are usually not well and often not happy with their health care. Those people who go to the gp and get what they need and feel good go home and get on with their lives and probably don't have much interest in an online forum. So this is not really the best place to hear nhs success stories (though there are some here). I will go out on a limb and say that perhaps thyroid issues are an area where the nhs does not excel, so you will see maybe even fewer success stories for that reason.
In areas of fertility, emergency medicine, acute care, etc, we probably do very well. I have friends who will sing the praises of the nhs for treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and a defective heart valve, and the bill has been paid so no remortgaging or personal bankruptcy is necessary to pay for health care.
I have had both excellent care and less brilliant experiences, which I suspect is a common experience in most western countries.
White1, sorry your post got hijacked a bit. 
That's ok!! Am completely confused now! Will wait until nxt week to get my thyroid results and hope to god I do have an under active thyroid so I can get medication and lose all this weight!!
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