Advice please

[Celiab]

Hi

I am newly diagnosed as having low thyroid function and have been given tablets to start taking from my GP. I also suffer from anxiety and depression.

I have been looking around the posts for a while and must admit to being really worried about taking the tablets now as it appears that most people seem to feel worse when taking them!

I do not want to feel worse as I can hardly cope at the moment. Is there anyone who has taken the tablets and felt better?

My GP said I had just dropped down lower than borderline with my results, so do you think I really need to take them just now? She gave me 50mg of Levothyroxine and said start to take them one everyother day. Is that right as I see most people take them daily?

Thank you for reading and if anyone feels they can help I would be grateful as I feel overwhelmed with it all at present.

[Heloise]

Hi Celia, oh, not true. If your body needs thyroid hormone, you will feel better by taking thyroid. There are conditions, though, and choosing the right hormone at the right dose is necessary but if Levo does not agree with you (which is not a true hormone) you can try a natural desiccated hormone (T4,T3,T2,T1 and calcitonin).

The other condition is that you need to have decent adrenal function and good levels of B12, folate, ferritin, and vitamin D.

So, you can go ahead with your trial of T4 and you can work out the rest. Your body will let you know soon enough if it is helping you. You may need to support your adrenals as well. It is important to do something, though, as this short video lets you see how many other functions are impacted by low thyroid.

youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_CP7l...(Not working as expected?)

[shaws Administrator]

Welcome to our forum

The two main clinical symptoms you state above i.e. anxiety and depression, are also symptoms of hypothyroidism. I think your doctor has given you an extremely low dose as 50mcg is the normal starting dose unless you are very frail with a heart problem. You should have a blood test around every 6 weeks and an increase in levothyroxine. 25mcg may not do very much.

Many hundreds of thousands of people take levothyroxine tablets and recover their health. So there's no need to be worried.

The fact is that hypothyroidism is a lifelong disease and if we don't take hormones to replace the diminishing one, we cannot function normally whatsoever.

It is only a hormone and not medication. It is a hormone replacement which is called levothyroxine and should convert to T3 which is the active hormone which drives our whole system from top to toe. If we don't have sufficient then we can begin to get other problems.

You may be very fortunate and find when your dose is at optimum you feel very well. Always get a print-out of your blood test results with the ranges for you own records and so you can post if you have a query. Also ask for Vitamin B12, Vit D, iron, ferritin and folate to be tested too as we could be deficient.

When you go for your next blood test make the appointment as early as possible and fast. Leave about 24 hours between your last dose of levo and the blood test and take it afterwards.

If you're not feeling too good on your 50mcg every 2 days, phone GP and ask if you can have 50mcg daily.

[Treepie]

You should post your test results with the ranges for folk to advise from their experience.

On the face of it you have been put on a very low dose ad I would have expected daily 50mg with probable increase after the next blood tests.