Goodness Gracious Me!!

[Slj1970]

I've just seen levothyroxine being sold online as a fat burning weight loss drug!!!! Seriously?!?!?

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[LouiseRoberts]

Unbelievable!

Have edited out the name of the website..! xx

[Slj1970 in reply to LouiseRoberts]

Oops, sorry and thanks

[Clutter]

It does precisely that for me

[nightingale-56 in reply to Clutter]

Wish it did for me! Janet.

[Hidden]

It's commonly used by body-builders to cut fat. Some take huge amounts (just have a read around the body building forums). Personally I wouldn't touch the fat loss/body building internet sources with a barge pole.

[silverfox7]

Farcical though when so many fail to be allowed to start treatment when they really need it plus many of us have put on weight with it!

[CharlS28]

My GP once told me they prescribe it to people who simply can't lose weight!! Crazy isn't it. I have to admit that was the only good thing about being hyper, being able to eat whatever I wanted and not put on a pound but all the other symptoms that accompany it I wouldn't ever want again, not even if it meant being a size 8!!

[jaxnbreeze]

Please help me out as I am trying to get my head this issue - S0, if your thyroid is working normally levo. cuts the fat in your body therefore hypo.weight should also disappear when on correct levo.dose and if not then surely something else is not working in the body.

[Jillymo]

What am I doing wrong I have been taking it for years with out weight loss ?

Maybe I need a bucket load of it...... x

[infomaniac]

They must be mad!!!! It does make me wonder though where this fallacy that "once you start taking thyroxine the weight will drop off" came from.

[shaws Administrator]

I believe that it may cause weight loss in people who don't have a thyroid gland problem and they take it.

It is well known that weight gain is a clinical symptom of hypothyroidism and if the patients aren't given an optimum amount of levo or, better still, some T3 too, to enable their metabolism to be raised it is difficult to lose weight. GPs usually halt the dose when the TSH is 'within range'.

[hairyfairy]

I read along time ago that if you take thyroid hormone when your thyroid is normal, then it`ll stop making thyroxine, & you can develop hypothyroidism as a result.

[Slj1970]

I dread to think what they'd feel like when taking it if they don't really need it, I was taking 25mcg a day and upped it to 50mcg and had the shakes, I know take 37.5mcg a day, but I have lost weight (just over half a stone) since I've been taking this for autoimmune thyroditus.

[jaxnbreeze]

So if hypo. people are still having problems with their weight do they need T3, or are the kidneys not working properly and they need a duiretic or is the liver not functioning correctly? Sorry fo all the questions but I am trying to understand what is happening to the body with hypo. I am sure I read somewhere that Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) the boxer used to take levo. He now has Parkinsons.

[mistydog in reply to jaxnbreeze]

I think his Parkinsons is attributed to being hit around the head too many times.

Certainly I am now 3 stone over my optimum weight and being only 5'2" it's affecting all my joints. I'm realistic enough to know that I'll never reach that optimum weight but I would love to lose even a stone. Since I took Tamoxifen I've put on a stone and a half in two years. So it's not all the fault of Levo, but it's definitely a factor.

[lola1956]

It's total rubbish ..I've never weighed so much than since I've been on levothyroxine

[silverfox7]

Well I think we are all different and so many different factors to take into account but having said that I took Thyroid S for just over two months and haven't lost weight but I have kept N eye on my forearms! Dr Skinner always used those as a guide with the aim of getting the line between the inside of my wrist and elbow level. Since his deTh I have sent for my notes and see he asked my GP to prescribe either NDT or T3. She didn't and she didn't tell me about the request either! NDT was starting to do this for me but after a bD reaction to what I thought was an antibiotic though it could have been the fillers in the NDT I reverted back toe I just in case and to concentrate on getting rid of the UTI. After only one week or retaking Levo that area is swollen and my watch strap tight. A previous Endo seemed upset I had lost 3 kg in a year, I would have been delight but without realizing I had propped by heavy handbag against the chair not realizing it was weighing me! The following week I came across my midwifed notes from before I was diagnosed. Part way through thT pregnancy 30 years ago I was 56 or 58 kg. can't remember which now but a huge difference!