How long before symptoms improve after dose increase?

[Sarahlouise1980]

3 weeks ago I had my Levothyroxine increased from 125mcg to 150mcg as my TSH had increased to 10.6 and T4 and T3 levels had gone down. How long after starting this increased dose will I begin to feel better and see an improvement in my symptoms? Initially I felt worse, and if anything the tiredness only increased! Symptoms I'm experiencing are tiredness, dry itchy skin, dry tangled hair with a lot of hair loss and I'm struggling to concentrate. How long before I might see an improvement? Thank you in advance!

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

The full effects of a dose increase can take 6 weeks. You'll need to be retested 6 weeks after the increase to see where your level lies then, with a TSH of 10.6 you may need more than one increase.

Have you got those thyroid results, if so post them with their reference ranges so we can see where your FT4/FT3 lie as well.

Have you had vitamins and minerals tested. If so post them for comment, if not ask for them to be done as hairloss can be linked to low ferritin (and other low vits and mins), not just hypothyroidism

Vit D

B12

Folate

Ferritin

[Sarahlouise1980 in reply to SeasideSusie]

On 125mcg of Levothyroxine my results were:

TSH 10.6 (0.38-5.33)

T4 8.6 (7.0-16.0)

Didn't test T3

Doctor then increased to 150mcg and results after 6 weeks were:

TSH 0.006 (0.38-5.33)

T4 16.3 (7.0-16.0)

T3 5.1 (3.8-6.0)

Said I was overmedicated so reduced back down to 125mcg after around 6 weeks started to get hypo signs hairloss, tangled dry hair, very tired napping in the day, feeling the cold more. Again went back to the doctors and he has agreed to increase back to 150mcg aslong as my T4 stays in range. Been in this dose for 3 weeks now symptoms still with me

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to Sarahlouise1980]

Sarahlouise1980 For your TSH to go from over range at 10.6 to suppressed at 0.006 just by increasing Levo by 25mcg is not normal. I asked in your previous thread, as did SlowDragon in your very first thread, have you had thyroid antibodies tested but you haven't answered either of us.

So to make more sense of this we need to see test results, with ranges, for thyroid antibodies and the vitamins and minerals mentioned.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Essential to get thyroid antibodies tested if not been done. High antibodies is Hashimotos also called autoimmune thyroid disease

90% of Uk hypothyroidism is due to Hashimoto's

Medics ignore it as they don't understand it

We need to get to grips with it

Affects gut function, leading to low vitamins and leaky gut

This in turn leads food intolerances- most common by far is gluten intolerance.

Read lots of posts on here - you will learn a lot

Plus the thyroid Pharmacist website is excellent

Medics often have little idea about gut and gluten connections

[silverfox7]

Are both doses the same brand of medication and are you using multiples of 25's or using a pill cutter to get your doses from the 50 or even 100 mcg tablet? The reason I'm asking is that potency can change very slightly from probs to brand and I also found that within the same brand 1x 100 was not the same as 4x 25 hence asking if you made up the amounts separately or cutting from one amount tablet to end up with the dose you need. Not easy to explain so I hope you see what I am trying to say.

[Sarahlouise1980 in reply to silverfox7]

Thank you for replying silverfox7, the 150mcg I have been taking recently is made up of 100mcg almus and 50mcg mercury pharma. I'm picking up another prescription tomorrow for more 50mcg and will try and get almus so I'm not mixing brands, is that a good idea?