New Sufferer - Was Hyperthyroid now Hypothyroid & reluctant to start thyroxine.

[Hyperjo]

Will thyroxine make me hyper again?

Hi, my illness came on literally overnight. I woke up with a massive headache & I felt like I'd been strangled in my sleep my neck was so painful. This progressed over the next week to dizziness, sore throat, diarrhoea, breathlessness, profuse sweating & a painful goitre. A blood test showed ft4 of 77 & I was started on 10mg carbimazole. A further blood test 17 days after starting carb showed an ft4 of 6.8 so I was told to stop the carb. I'd been on it for 3 weeks. The endocrinologist said she's not sure if this is viral thyroiditis (I was perfectly well before this started) or graves. I have antibodies. 3 weeks later & 2 weeks after stopping carb my bloods are ft4 5.7 & tsh 62. My endo now wants me to take 75mg levothyroxine. I'm concerned that it's only 3 weeks since I stopped carbizamole so my hormones could still be adjusting & if I take thyroxine I'll go hyper again, which was so much worse than hypo. Any advice gratefully received.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

What antibodies do you have?

[Hyperjo]

The consultant said my Trab levels are raised. I'm not sure what this means.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Hyperjo]

You might find some older threads worth a visit, such as:

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

By the way, if you had used the green Reply button at the bottom of my response, I would have received an alert. As it is, I looked back on this thread and saw your response.

[eeng]

How are you feeling? Do you have the symptoms of hypothyroidism? You seem to be very sensitive to thyroid hormones generally. If you are worried about taking the Levothyroxine you could take 25mcg for a week, then 50, then 75, then at least if you start feeling strange you can take less again. It does sound as if your episode of hyperthyroidism was very short and transitory, so lets hope the bounce-back is equally short and that your own body starts producing the correct amount of thyroid hormone again so yo don't need to take any medication. Listen to your body and go by how you feel between now and your next blood test. It takes 6-8 weeks for Levothyroxine to build up in your bloodstream so any changes will probably creep up on you. I don't think you need to worry about waking up suddenly feeling terribly hyper because you are taking too much Levothyroxine, it will happen more gradually than that and you can take less Levothyroxine to compensate. Hypothyroidism and Levothyroxine are different from Hyperthyroidism and Carbimazole in the speed that they operate.