Sudden death 😣

[Sister2]

Hi guys,

My sister died suddenly after stopping her thyroxine for 2 weeks ( not sure why she did this- seems very out of character). She had hashimotos disease & was found unresponsive. She suffered a cardiac arrest. Any thoughts?

[Clutter]

Welcome to the forum, Sister2.

My condolences. I am very sorry for your loss.

I very much doubt that stopping Levothyroxine for 2 weeks will have caused your sister to have a heart attack. After two weeks off Levothyroxine she will have had about half the dose she used to take daily in her system. It would take months, perhaps years, for someone with very little thyroid function to develop organ failure after stopping thyroid medication.

I have no thyroid and was off meds for 4 weeks and although I was very unwell I was still able to walk the 1/4 mile to GP appointments and prepare simple meals and feed my dogs.

[Sister2 in reply to Clutter]

Thanks for your reply. I guess I'm just looking for answers when really there are none. Thanks for this, I did think it seemed unlikely and she was also very careful person. She wouldn't have done something rash if it would affect her health. It's just hard to comprehend, she has left behind three kids, a little girl who is just 11, 16-year-old son & 18 year old daughter.

[Clutter in reply to Sister2]

Sister2,

I honestly don't think stopping Levothyroxine for 2 weeks will have contributed to your sister's death if it is any comfort. I'm so sorry for you and your sister's children.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Sister2 I'm sorry for your loss, sudden death of a loved one is such a shock.

For what it's worth, and I'm not sure what you're looking for, I doubt that stopping Levo would have contributed. Levo has a half life of 7 days, so whatever was in her system would have halved after one week, etc, so there would still have been some Levo in her system.

When stopping Levo, organs can begin to struggle after a while, but that would be a long time and the person would go into myxodeama coma, it wouldn't cause sudden death.

As it was a sudden death, has a post mortem been carried out? Any other information besides cardiac arrest?

[Sister2 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Hello, thank you for your input as well. Yes it has taken close to 6 months for the post-mortem results to come back. They say she was in cardiac arrest but they don't know what caused it. The official cause of death is " not ascertained" because they could find no obvious reason as to why she would have died suddenly. A suggestion the autopsy report made was that perhaps we should seek further clarification from an endocrinologist in regards to her medication. Toxicology results showed no medication in her system, no thyroxine at all. Only her migraine medication as she had a terrible headache that morning. She was 50 and otherwise in good health. It's hard not being able to explain to the kids why mum suddenly passed away. I appreciate your comments though, all part of trying to process things I think.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Sister2]

If there was no Levo in her system at all, that could suggest that she stopped taking it more than two weeks before her passing.

[Kitten1978]

Sister2

I'm so sorry for your loss. Please accept my condolences.

I'm totally nonresponsive to levothyroxine. In fact any form of T4 makes me worse, not better. I have no pre-morbid history of cardiac problems and was very fit before developing hashi but my heart rate when unmedicated was 126 and increasing. I had chest pains and doctors didn't seem worried or bothered. I'm now taking T3-only and my heart rate is in mid 60's- low 70's. According to medical profession people like me, who cannot tolerate levo, don't exist and we all should be well on T4-only.

[silverfox7]

So sorry about you sister and I can understand the need for answers. Sudden deaths though can be unexplained and you may never find the answer but I hope you get some sort of closure xx