Days are good but night sweats and restless, poor sleep.

[shanza]

Hi everyone, I started swapping over to ndt some weeks ago. I have struggled to raise my dosage (first 2 days fantastic then went into terrible palpitations and anxiety and had to begin again at 1/4 grain) as I did when I first started taking t4 so after reading about the importance of iron I started taking a spatone sachet a day. This may have helped and over the weeks I have slowly managed to get to 3/4 grain. Two 1/4 grain at 7.30 and one around 2pm, iron at 6pm. I feel good in the day, more normal level of energy than I have done in ten years but still hypo symptoms and at night have night sweats and restless sleep. I am 53 so entering menopause but with these symptoms developing in the last few weeks I'm thinking there's a connection. Last blood test at my doc was while I was on 1/2 grain and showed tsh 11.3 and t4 just under the normal range. They tested my cholesterol at the same time and it was 8.6, with good HDL, but I'm still very worried about it and they keep pushing me toward statins. Blood tests from private doc before I started change to ndt:

T4 103 (59-154)

TSH 0.02 (0.27-4.2)

Free T4 20 (12-22)

Free T3 4.6 (3.1-6.8)

T3 1.5 (1.3-3.1)

I had been on 100mg of t4 for several years but began to feel anxiety and heart palpitations while still having a list of hypo symptoms that have not gone away in 10years of taking t4. Have slowly gained 2 stone I can not lose and thinning hair, sore joints with no discernable cause, ...and the list goes on...have developed. Also, my local gp is not particularly supportive of my trying ndt and the doc I saw is in London...how do I get a private blood test to do full thyroid bloods without having to go down from Manchester again?

Thanks so much for your help and advice.

[cwill]

I am on NDT but only had a slight thumping heart after taking in one dose at night and no anxiety. I found that my nights were much better once I got my dose up and took it in one dose just as light goes out at night. Perhaps others can advise on that.

You can get bloods done via pin prick test at home with Medichecks or blue horizon. Both quick and trustworthy. See the main thyroid site for details and once you use them they offer discounts.

Re general health have you got all vitamins and minerals sorted? And high/optimum levels? And you gut? Theses issues need to be sorted or you won't get the most from the NDT.

If anxiety is becoming an issue I strongly recommend Kelly Brogans book and that you look up Trudt Scott who deals with anxiety in some detail and has lots of suggestions.

[Jazzw]

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...

[Clutter]

Shanza,

You are under medicated to have TSH 11.3 and need to increase dose until TSH is <1.0 with FT3 in the upper range. FT4 isn't important when taking NDT as long as FT3 is good. Cholesterol will almost certainly drop when you are optimally medicated.

Night sweats can be due to low B12. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/252...

Sore joints can be due to low vitamin D. If you are ordering private thyroid tests you may want to order ferritin, vitamin D, B12 and folate too.

[shanza]

Thank you for those replies. It is pretty much the only help I have had on what has been a lonely and at times frightening journey.