Advice

[Marggieann1]

Hi

I have been told by my doctor to take all my thyroxine in one day instead of an amount each day. Taking 175mg throxine but now take once a week 1300mg. My T4 is 10.2 and my TSH is 11.4. Not feeling god at all. Bones sore and legs very heavy, out of puff as well. Does anyoe else take medication once a week. Any avice will be great.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Marggieann1 What was the reason given for taking it weekly rather than daily?

With a TSH of 11.4 that's way over range, and FT4 of 10.2 may be under range but you haven't given it so we don't know. But your TSH alone tells us you are grossly undermedicated. The aim of a treated hypo patient generally is for TSH to be 1 or below or wherever it is needed for FT4 and FT3 to be in the upper part of their ranges, if that is where you feel well.

[humanbean]

This is a dreadful idea. I've seen papers suggesting this for people who are assumed to be "non-compliant", i.e. they don't take their medication regularly, but it is still a bad idea. You'll swing from over-dosed at the beginning of the week with your body busily churning out lots of T3 and reverse T3, to under-dosed at the end of the week.

diogenes wrote about doing this a little while ago and he wasn't in favour. I looked for what he wrote but sadly I can't find it.

Diogenes is one of the Thyroid UK advisers - Dr John Midgley.

thyroiduk.org/tuk/About_Us/...

Hopefully he might respond.

[diogenes Remembering in reply to humanbean]

The basic problem is that, to get an average acceptable dose over a week, at first when you take a big dose, you overdose and your body sees the excess T4 as a toxin, and diverts it to reverse T3 which is inactive as regards helpful hormone. The overdose also inhibits conversion of T4 to T3 the active hormone. Then over the week your T4 level steadily drops (half of it lost in 7 days) so that at the end of the week you are underdosed and now are not making enough of the active hormone T3 from it, in sufficient quantity. The need is to keep your T4/T3 level as constant as possible over time, which is what happens naturally.

[silverfox7]

Have you any results with ranges before you took it all at once? We. An then get a better idea of what you should do to improve things