Please can anybody help with ways of eliminating fluid retention and weight loss.

[mackers63]

I eat very healthily apart from the odd treat. I don't drink alcohol and i don't eat potatoes, wheat, sugar and i cook everything from scratch but i am having terrible problems with my weight and fluid retention.This is really getting me down as i am eating healthily and exercising regularly but my weight seems to be increasing.Can anybody suggest something that may help? Thanks

[Cassandra]

Hi Mackers

I am experiencing the same symptoms as you - I don't know what medication you are currently taking but I am on 100 thyroxine and 8mg Candesartan for high blood pressure.

Like yourself my husband and I cook all our meals from scratch - I have been seen by the hospital dietician and she said my diet was excellent and definitely weight gain and fluid retention was certainly not caused by excess calories. Despite good diet my cholesterol is very high. When I try to explain to my gp that my legs are just wobbling with fluid, bras and shoes get very tight through the day he just looks at me with a blank expression. Last year I had to get fluid tablets when I got back from a holiday in Portugal - I thought I was never going to get back to a normal size.

I had been thinking of increasing my dosage of thyroxine to 125 daily to see if it makes a difference although my gp will not hear of it as "all blood results are in range". If I could purchase thyroxine without going through my gp I would do so and give it a try - common sense would tell me if I was on too high a dose.

I looked into natural therapies and was advised on vitamins etc and told juicing vegetables would soon clear the fluid - guess what - still as bad as ever. Maybe it's a case of what works for one person will not work for another.

Sorry for the long post but please if you get to know of anything that helps please contact me.

[mackers63 in reply to Cassandra]

Hi Cassandra,

Thanks for the reply. I am taking 75mcg of levothyroxine but i don't think this is enough but like you "all blood tests are in the normal range".I have been doing 10km a day on the exercise bike most days as well as lots of walking and still nothing seems to happen.

I know i eat a healthy diet and i know if i went to see a dietician i would be told the same as you that i eat healthily. It is so annoying when everybody around me is eating exactly what they want and i limit myself all the time and still look like a beached whale!

I am going to try dry brushing to stimulate the lymph system and see if that helps.I would do anything if i thought it would help.

[lilliput]

I know when I'm retaining fluid because my watch gets tight. It's worse in the morning.Like the OP if I flew I'd have massive fluid retention; after Kenya my cankles were huge. I then peed for England and lost aout 4 pounds in 3 days. I wasn't medicated then.Alcohol and inactivity .for me trigger it but it still happens to a lesser extent when active and sober. It seems to be thyroid related in that since taking Levothyroxine its not as bad.

I lost 9 pounds using My FitnessPal and a home exercise DVD. I had to keep to 1200 kc in order to do it and lost weight very slowly about a pound a fortnight. Its a catch 22 as I wasn't well enoughto exercise to begin with and gained weight on 1200 kcals. So the exercise was crucial.My Fitness Pal has a forum for people who are hypo and trying to lose weight. Its helpful because it recognises that it it is slower and far more difficult.

Going below 1200 puts your ody into starvation mode and could make you ill.

[Hidden]

Hello Lilliput

I'm interested in your fitness pal and the forum for people who are hypo and trying to lose weight. Please could you give more info.

[shaws Administrator]

This may give you some information as the problem is world-wide with hypothyroid patients with 'in range' TSH and on levothyroxine alone. Excerpt

In addressing this issue, Julian Kesner cited an important study. The study vindicates countless hypothyroid patients who have failed to convince their clinicians that their weight gain was not from lack of exercise or fattening food intake. Literally hundreds of patients have told me they complained to their clinicians about accumulating fat after going on T4 replacement—the thyroid hormone therapy that keeps the TSH in range. Invariably, the patients have expressed frustration at their clinicians’ cavalier assurance: “Your TSH is in range, so your thyroid is fine; you just need to exercise more and cut back on calories.”

That many patients have found these assurances frustrating is understandable. Some of the patients, for example, were actively teaching aerobics classes several time each week, and they subsisted on a virtual caveman diet.

thyroidscience.com/Criticis...

[Hidden in reply to shaws]

i'm just repsonding to this so that i can keep track of the posting. sorry.