Those of you who didn't feel any better on 25 mcg levo

[lisan1]

Did you feel any improvement when you uped the dose to 50 mcg? I'm desperate to art least start to feel an improvement...

[lisan1]

No improvement at all on 25mcg. What where your tsh and ft4?

[humanbean]

A dose of 25mcg Levo is usually prescribed as a starter dose to frail, elderly people with heart disease.

Younger, healthier people would normally start on a dose of 50mcg or more.

25mcg or 50mcg isn't normally considered to be an adequate replacement dose of thyroid hormone for most people. Most doctors would assume that raises in dose would be necessary. But a body starved of thyroid hormone due to hypothyroidism takes a while to adjust to having thyroid hormone again, so the usual pattern is :

1) Prescribe Levo.

2) 6 weeks later do thyroid function tests (TFTs). If appropriate, raise dose of Levo by 25mcg per day.

3) Go back to stage 1. Keep repeating the cycle until TFTs show good results, then leave dose alone for a year before re-testing.

Sadly, doctors have been getting more and more reluctant to diagnose hypothyroidism at all, refuse to prescribe reasonable starter doses, delay re-testing and raising dose of meds, and are quite happy to leave people to rot for months or even years with too little Levo.

[lisan1 in reply to humanbean]

Yeah, I was told to wait 3 months for new tests!

[humanbean in reply to lisan1]

That is too long. You could print this page out and mark this passage for your doctor to read :

cks.nice.org.uk/hypothyroid...

Quote :

For people who do not need admission or referral, treat overt primary hypothyroidism with levothyroxine (LT4) — do not prescribe combination therapy (LT4 and LT3) in primary care.

See the section on Prescribing information for further information on initiation and titration of LT4.

Review the person every 3–4 weeks after initiation of LT4 and adjust the dose according to clinical and biochemical parameters, aiming to:

Resolve the symptoms and signs of hypothyroidism.

Normalize serum TSH and improve thyroid hormone concentrations to the euthyroid state.

End quote

I would actually say that reviewing every 3 to 4 weeks is too short a time, and if it was adhered to by a doctor (which would be rare) it might tend to over-medication eventually.

[shaws Administrator in reply to lisan1]

Your dose is too low and three months is far to long and shows that you should avoid that particular doctor if you've any chance of improving.

[lisan1]

What were your results before starting meds?

[humanbean]

Have you found any more chapters of that book, by any chance?

I'm always impressed with people who can find goodies like your link above, and wonder how they go about finding them.

Incidentally, I think you mean "unlucky" rather than "malicious".

[shaws Administrator]

This might be informative for you:-

web.archive.org/web/2010112...

[humanbean]

Thank you.

[samaja]

Started with 25 felt better but not really well, after three months upped to 50 and went into being hyper within two months and had to stop completely. After that despite a few attempts of restarting with doses such as 12.5 and alternating with 25 I realised that having more heart palpitations and really bad reactions was not what I wanted as treatment. Anyway the first thing that I really needed at that time was getting my D3 and ferritin off the floor and changing my diet to support my adrenals. Thyroid meds are not always the first solution especially in Hashi's.

[Westworld]

It can be different from one person to the next. I couldn't tolerate even 25 mcg. After only 3 weeks i bolted awake at 3 AM and didn't sleep for 5 days. I lost over 3 stones in ONE MONTH and the constant severe depression and anxiety was absolute torture. I went to the emergency room and lab work claimed a tsh of almost 4 despite the hyperthyroid or thyroid storm symptoms. My doctor blamed it on the pharmacy and said they had to have given me the wrong mcgs for that to happen. I don't have a clue what happened, the meds were gone . But I learned firsthand no one cared what did or could happen. They PROVED that much. They didn't even try to do anything. From the night I bolted awake it took over a month to stop losing weight and over 2 months for the severe depression and anxiety to go away. The depression and anxiety was by far the worst ! It does help many and I have read the brand is extremely important. Some are good, some are horrible. As for me , I will NEVER touch it again under any circumstances !

[TupennyRush]

Hi there

It takes a long while for you to get back to normal; about a year after you've got onto the right dose. thyroid meds rake at least a fortnight to get into your system.

Time taken depends on how long you've been ill.

I started on 25, felt a bit better after about 3-4 weeks and upped doses every 2 months until I got to 100. it then took 2 years to get back to being me but that's because I took levo for a year but I have the di02 gene defect so needed to be on a med with t3 in it. I took levo for a year then switched to ndt and it took another year to get back to normal.

I'm still not 100 per cent (I'd say I was about 97 per cent) and I'm now doing various lifestyle changes to get back fully to normal. But once you're on the eight dose you feel gradually better month on month. Where I am now and having the energy to tackle the diet and other changes that I need to make is solely due to getting my main problem of hypo under control. Unfortunately the failure to treat me for 6.5 years did considerable damage to my body and it's taking a while to get rid of this