How to taper off from Levothyroxine double dose?

[chan17]

I am 71 yr old with well-maintained diabetes for 10 years and childhood asthma.

I took 100mcg Levothyroxine for 3.5 months instead of my stable 50mcg dose. I have no symptoms or side effects. However, please advise how to taper off the dose. What would be your advice - Take 50mcg every 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 7 or 10 days?

Please advise soon.

[Clutter]

Chan17,

Why not have a thyroid blood test to determine whether 100mcg is an appropriate dose as you've not felt over medicated?

Dose adjustments are usually in 25mcg increments at 6 week intervals so you can reduce to 75mcg and in another 6 weeks to 50mcg.

[greygoose]

What do you mean by 'stable'? Do you mean that you felt well on 50 mcg and now feel bad on 100 mcg? What was stable? The TSH? What was the level?

50 mcg is only a starter dose, which most people need increasing after six weeks. It's very rare to find someone who continues to be well on it. It might be that you really do need 100 mcg if it took you 3.5 months to realise what you were doing.

[Heloise]

I agree with the others. You should determine your status on that dose. If you've had tests for FT4 and FT3 and they show over the range, that should be the only reason you would reduce the dose. On the other hand, levothyroxine has a half life of two weeks so even if you stopped taking it entirely it would still take two weeks for it to reduce substantially in your system. Yours is a very curious question. I assure you that being under medicated is not a good idea.