Levothyroxine PLEASE HELP!

[StelAnd]

Can anyone give me some advice if they’ve experienced this?

Over the last year my blood pressure is creeping up & cholesterol too. I was diagnosed with under active thyroid 17yrs ago. I take 100mg of Levothyroxine. Now I live a very healthy lifestyle and to discover this is happening to me and potential danger I am beyond consoling. I do not want to be fobbed off with blood pressure reducing drugs or statins as it’s also being proven these as long term have bad effects. So because GPs are prone to prescribing these synthetic thyroid drugs is there any advice that anyone can give me as alternatives to help my bp & cholesterol & if they’ve changed to other forms of thyroid meds?

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

The first thing I would be doing is to see if you are optimally medicated thyroid-wise as high cholesterol is a sign of hypothyroidism.

What are your latest thyroid results - please post them along with their reference ranges and we can see if you are on the correct dose.

Also mention if you take any other medication or supplements and any other results you have, particularly useful is Vit D, B12, Folate and Ferritin.

[StelAnd in reply to SeasideSusie]

Sorry to sound thick but when you say optically medicated thyroid wise what do you mean?

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to StelAnd]

That you are taking enough levothyroxine to be well and without symptoms of hypothyroidism. The thyroid function tests are a reasonably good guide, we can see from where the results lie in the range whether a person is taking enough Levo and whether the body is converting T4 to T3 well enough.

T4 is a pro-hormone and is inactive, it has to be converted by the body to the active hormone T3 which is needed by every cell in the body.

[StelAnd in reply to SeasideSusie]

I also read doctors don’t test t3 as in depth as t4? I’m looking at having private blood tests

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to StelAnd]

That's true. FT3 is rarely tested in primary care because it's the lab that makes the decision to test even when a doctor requests it. My lab will test FT3 if TSH is suppressed but not all do.

FT3 is the most important result but doctors don't seem to know this.

Medichecks and Blue Horizon do reasonably priced fingerprick tests (or venous blood draw if preferred) and their business does are good value. If you go ahead then get the full thyroid panel not FT3 on it's own, and if you've not had vitamins and minerals tested choose the bundle that includes them, they are so important.

Medichecks thyroid plus ultravit or Blue Horizon thyroid plus eleven.

[StelAnd in reply to SeasideSusie]

Yes, going to go with the Medichecks one

[StelAnd]

Ok thank you Susie