High blood pressure, insomnia and weight gain.

[Nkechi]

I underwent total thyroidectomy in 2008. I am currently on 75mcg levothyroxine. My current test is tsh 7.65, t3 is 4.6 and t4 is 10.2. I am gaining lots of weight, my blood pressure is very high with insomnia. Pls advise me on what I can do.

[humanbean]

Hi Nkechi, Are you from the UK? Who is treating you? GP? Hospital consultant? You need to find somebody new to treat you (urgently) because whoever is currently doing the job is totally incompetent and a sadist.

Your TSH is much too high, and your levo dose is much too low. Many people with no thyroid do better taking a combination of T4 and T3, or Natural Dessicated Thyroid. What does your doctor say about your levels? Why was your thyroid removed?

Edit : I don't know how much you know about the thyroid. A healthy person would have a TSH of roughly 0.5 - 1.5. If you have insufficient thyroid hormone in the body your TSH rises. If you have too much thyroid hormone your TSH drops. You have far too little thyroid hormone to keep your TSH at a healthy level.

[Nkechi in reply to humanbean]

Many thanks humanbean. I was formally on 100 mcg levo. I was restless the whole day. Hence my doc reduced it to 75mcg. What are my options.?

[Clutter in reply to Nkechi]

Nkechi, Ask your GP whether you can be prescribed 10mcg Liothyronine (T3) in addition to 75mcg Levothyroxine (T4). It's equivalent to 30mcg (T4) but can calm some of the T4 side effects. In the meantime get back on 100mcg Levothyroxine because you're not going to feel restless until your TSH is much lower. Some people don't like TSH as low as most of us so if you start feeling restless again experiment with slightly lower doses like 87.5mcg daily, or 100mcg x 5 days and 75 x 2 etc. until you are comfortable but you will need to stick with each dose change for 2 weeks to feel the changes.