Hello there I'm new here my name's Claire. I've only been diagnosed with hypothyroidism fairly recently after a lot of bad health issues : bad muscular pains, weight gain, tremors, feeling frozen and randomly falling asleep because I was so tired being the worst of a bad bunch. Doctors tried to blame my current medication and did 6 lots of thyroid tests :/
Im wondering how long after diagnosis and treatment it's taken for people to feel their symptoms alleviate?
Anything hat can help manage this? Being tired and in pain all the time is a killer
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choust14
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Welcome to our forum and I'm sorry you are hypothyroid. The following is a list of clinical symptoms but in these days doctors seem not to be trained in clinical symptoms but only blood test results. The aim of levothyroxine (or any other thyroid hormones) is to relieve ALL symptoms and get us back to good health. I will give you a list of clinical symptoms and I bet you have more than a few:
You should have a blood test every six weeks, with an increase of 25mcg until your TSH is 1 or lower.
The following procedure should be followed to get the best result possible:-
Blood tests have to be at the very earliest possible.
Fasting (you can drink water)
Allow a 24 hour gap between last dose of levothyroxine and the test and take it afterwards. Usually levo is taken first thing on an empty stomach with one full glas of water and wait an hour before eating.
Some prefer bedtime dosing in that case you should have last eaten about 3 hours before taking levo. If deciding on bedtime doing, miss this if having a test next a.m. but take it again at bedtime the same day.
Ask GP to also test B12, Vit D, iron, ferritin and folate and thyroid antibodies.
It has probably taken years for the thyroid gland to dysfunction so it will take a while to gradually build up your dose to optimum.
Always get a print-out of the results with the ranges for your own records and post if you have a query.
All of us vary in the time it takes to recover but it's probably taken years for our thyroid gland to fail, so as long as we gradually improve as dose increases and begin to feel better with relief of clinical symptoms that is the aim.
What is the current medication your GP is blaming, presumably for different condition?
When were you diagnosed hypothyroid, what were your thyroid test results on diagnosis and what dose of Levo are you taking?
Have thyroid antibodies been tested?
Have vitamins and minerals been tested?
Post all the results that you have, along with their reference ranges (important because ranges vary from lab to lab) and members will help.
If you don't have your results, ask at your surgery reception for a print out, don't accept the receptionist writing them down or giving them to you verbally, mistakes have been made, get a print out. We are legally entitled to our test results in the UK.
Hello sorry for late reply was out of the country.
I was told by Dr and receptionist that my TSH was 18.5 my t3/T4 results 13.5
However it fluctuated within those 6 results starting at that going down as low as 8 TSHin one test then back up to 18.5 with the last few. Doctors said they can't explain the fluctuation so drastically
I will have to contact the doctor to get anything further they were funny about printing it out n would only give it over the phone but now I know other people ask this I will be a bit more forceful about it.
I have been tested for antibodies and that's fine
Vitamins and minerals test? What's that? I had protein/inflammatory markers/iron checked?
If you are in the UK then ask again for a print out of your results, you might need to remind the receptionist that you are legally entitled to them under the Data Protection Act and are sure that no-one in the surgery would wish to break the law.
We can only really get a full picture by seeing the results, with their reference ranges, so there's no point guessing at this stage in case you're given wrong information.
Have you been checked for antibodies only once? And was it Thyroid Peroxidase only or were Thyroglobulin done too? You can be negative for TPO but positive for TG so both really need testing.
What are vitamins and minerals? Exactly what it sounds like and Shaws listed them in her first reply. Vitamins and minerals need testing because if they're not at optimal levels then thyroid hormone can't work and low levels or deficiencies cause their own symptoms. Muscular pains could possibly be low Vit D, tremors could possibly be low B12, fatigue could possibly be low ferritin. So you need the following tested:
Vit D
B12
Folate
Ferritin
And if ferritin is low or under range then you also need:
In all honesty I have no idea what I was tested for I didn't even know there was this much to it. Although my mum has hypothyroidism as well she doesn't ask any questions and she felt better once the dosage was correct so didn't really feel the need to.
I'm assuming with 6 lots of blood tests it's all been done but I'll request all the results anyway I am in the uk so will be stamping my foot a bit more tomorrow and update the results asap
Even with TSH at 8, you would feel ill and certainly at 18. You haven't given the ranges for the T4 and T3 results - they are the numbers after the result. You really do need to have a copy. If your GP or the receptionists are unwilling to let you have a paper copy, you need to speak to the practice manager and say you are legally entitled to have a copy (It's your body, after all). A lot of us on this forum agree that we don't feel well until our TSH is under 1. The higher the TSH result, the worse your thyroid condition is.
That's all they told me but I will now be requesting it again tomorrow as I'm off anyway and will certainly be taking it further this time if they don't.
I was ill for a long time before the diagnosis my partner keeps passing comment on how lazy I am. I never used to be but lately I just fall asleep all the time with next to no warning I'm so damned tired I think I can probably cope with the other symptoms of I could just stop being so fatigued
There are up to 100 symptoms associated with Hypothyroidism. Are you completely happy that your two thyroid antibodies are within range? GPs don't know how to interpret thyroid results. I didn't know I had one raised thyroid antibody until January 2017 (diagnosed 1981) following a private blood test. If you do in fact have either one or two raised thyroid antibodies, that means you have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. That in turn means you have inflammation in your body which needs to be tackled. GPs and many endocrinologists seem to think that Hashimotos is the same as Hypothyroidism. The medication is the same, but there are added complications associated with Hashimotos. Good luck
I honestly don't know I will be contacting GP tomorrow to find out more. They did the antibodies test because I had apparently high inflammatory markers (couldn't tell you what)
Symptom wise i haven't had very many new ones if that makes sense.....like for years and years I've had nightmares, panic attacks, depressed, severe pains (I have permanent damage to my back). The reason I got concerned and went to Dr was because I thought my nerve damage was getting worse and suddenly was so fatigued to the point I was confusing what I was trying to say and what was coming out and falling asleep randomly
I never thought for a moment it was what my mum had even though according to my aunts (that also have it) they thought I had it for years
As I said before I really didn't think there was so much to it. Now obviously I see there's a lot more - how naive I was
Panic attacks, depression, pains, anxiety, fatigue, confusion, brian fog (as we call it) are all symptoms of low thyroid gland, whether it's Hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. It can run in families, and as your mum and aunts have it there's a good chance you have it. You need to make sure you either have had, or need to get, a thorough thyroid blood test, which is :- TSH, Free T4, Free T3 (GPs often don't like testing Free T3 but this one is vital), thyroid antibodies (2 if possible, but GPs usually only do one), vitamin B12, vitamin D, folate, ferritin. You can start off by collecting a copy of those blood results (a week after the blood test) and write a post on here with the results including the ranges.
When you go for a thyroid blood test, you need to go as early in the morning as possible, having not eaten for at least 12 hours, and only drunk a small amount of water for 12 hours. That way you get the most accurate results.
Claire you can get your own thyroid hormone blood tests from one of our two Labs. They will do all that you need.
These are home pin-prick blood tests (postal). So if you decide make sure you are well-hydrated a couple of days before and hands are warm before drawing blood.
I shall give you a link and it's either Medichecks or Blue Horizon.
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I'll get that information soon as I can 
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