Hi I am taking 150mg of Levothyroxine a day and have been for about 6 years now and my question is this I am out of town and not near my dr to go get my medicine at this time but I do have a bottle of 50mg of the same medicine, when I first started out when they were switching me back and forth to see which one worked the best, would it be the same if I took 3 of the 50mg to equal to my 150 dose or should I not do that, I didn't know if this would be safe to do or not so I'm trying to find out first, Thanks
Hello: Hi I am taking 150mg of Levothyroxine a... - Thyroid UK
Hello
Perfectly safe. I’m on 150. They don’t make 150 here so I take separate 100 and 50 tablets.
Your so welcome .....
I had a problem several years ago not in that I was allowed months supply at a time but kept getting different brands but I found each different bst h different in potency. It the r d of the 3 months supply ifs adjusted it but then got another change and so it continued. At that time there was no info I could find in the uk but read on a US site that tables can vary. Tablets were made to a specific area but were allowed to.l be within a plus/minus range of 10% so moving to another brand could be as much as 20% difference in medication so almost a dose increase. Thouse are extreme figures from one at the top of the allowed range and one at the bottom but enough for me to continue taking multiples is 25's for many years. In 2009 the % change was lowered to 5% so not as noticeable but it was still there. My pharmacist in the UK agreed with my findings and always got me my entire dose in the same amount of the same brand. The actual strength in the specific brands was consistent so just a case of not changing brands and I was great for many years. Then I got a conscience! I saw figures that shows my 25's were costing g the NHS more money, not much difference but every little helps so I thought. However it did t help me! Because I was taking my dose in 100/125 all in 25's I was well stocked with 25's so swapped about so I could use up the 25's more quickly but also taking some weeks my 'new' dose of 100 mcg and things went very wrong! It soon became apparent that 4x25 was not the same as 1x 100 so I had to go back to having all my dose in 25's. I do believe is important with thyroid meds whether it be brand tablets or time of taking them to cut down any variable as much as possible. This have bedn my experience. May be I'm more sensitive that some but trial and error told me it was est for me to stick not only to the same. Rand but also the same weight as well.
The other thing you mention as taking something you trialled 6 years ago so I presume it has a shelf live which is now well past so again may react very differently from newly issued ones.
It should be perfectly OK.
However, it is possible that three 50 microgram tablets might deliver a slightly different amount of levothyroxine. Slightly more or slightly less. Quite possibly such a small difference you don't notice it but thought I'd mention it in case you feel under- or over-dosed.