Levothyroxine and thinning hair! This seems common!

[AndrewO]

Hi there,

I've been reading through various posts and can see that taking Levothyroxine has an effect on hair, but it is infact Hypothyroidism that will effect your hair. Thing is, even when diagnosed with Hypo, (after having no energy but I was severely growth hormone deficient at the time) my hair was thick and healthy. Now, it's horrible and thinning rapidly.

Now as I said I do have severe growth hormone deficiency, (treated) which I feel very lucky to be getting treated for but my question is this.

(I feel a bit silly asking this as there are people on here coping with some really bad situations and I wish you all well, but I have to ask)!

Will my hair grow back to how it was? Am I better off not taking the levo because how Hypo can I be?-my hair was fine before. No issues at all. Maybe it was the un-detectable levels of GH in me that was causing the low energy.

Unless of course hair loss doesn't always occur in someone with Hypo.

I'm taking the lowest dose, (50) of Levo. And have been for a number of months. Later I'm off to buy some oils advised by doctor Axe later to thicken hair

My diet is healthy too.

People have said people with very high levels of TSH tend to recover quicker-well I'm out luck because my T4 and T3 look great, but my TSH is low.

Should I stick it out? I do not want to end up with Levo withdrawal!

Please find results from my bloods a few weeks ago.

Thank you in advance.

Best r's

[AndrewO]

TSH 0.97 0.27 - 4.20 mIU/L Free T4 14.50 12.0 - 22.0 pmol/L Free T3 4.19 3.1 - 6.8 pmol/L

[SilverAvocado in reply to AndrewO]

I'd say you could definitely do with a dose increase. Both freeT4 and freeT3 are well below halfway through the range. Ideally you want freeT3 in the top third, and you'll probably need to get the freeT4 pretty high to get there.

Levothyroxine contains T4, and that needs to be converted to T3 to be used by the body. TSH is a message produced by your pituitary to tell the thyroid to produce more. Doctors often use a high TSH to diagnose hypothyroid, because when your hormones are low, TSH will raise.

Your TSH is quite low considering your horrmone is low, too. It's enough to make me a tiny bit suspicious you might not be making enough TSH. This could give you problems with doctors if they try to dose just on that, and don't look at the whole panel.

Some people feel worse on an initial starter dose of Levo. It can be enough to disrupt your own hormone, but not enough to give you any relief. Although people often do report symptoms from the Levo itself. It's well worth tuning your dose, though, as you don't really know whether Levo is working for you until you've been on the correct dose.

[AndrewO in reply to SilverAvocado]

Terribly sorry for the delayed reply Silver.

I’ve been away and am now getting back to work.

Thank you for your detailed reply.

It’s interesting what you mentioned about the levels, as I did actually take 100 for a bit, but had a headache and didn’t feel great at all.

In terms of the TSH, I have a faulty Pituitary I thought, so my understanding was that the TSH would be low, as the pituitary isn’t detecting the levels either way. So that is always going to be low right?

Maybe I should increase the dose again!

Best wishes

Andrew

[SilverAvocado in reply to AndrewO]

Good to hear you've got a diagnosed pituitary issue, as that is what I was suspecting with the low TSH.

Hypothyroidism can be the result of a pituitary problem. If you're not producing enough TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), which is what stimulates your thyroid to do its job, your thyroid will just do very little. Even if the thyroid itself is completely healthy.

This is called Secondary hypothyroid. Unfortunately the only treatment is to replace the hormone your thyroid should be making. This is a pretty rare form of hypothyroid. Most of what you read will be about Hashimotos, which is an autoimmune condition where the thyroid gets attacked and slowly destroyed.

My understanding is that if you have an underactive pituitary, you may have problems with lots of other hormones. Sex hormones is what I hear mentioned, but I'm sure you will know more about it than I do!

Sorry, I never mentioned your hair! Yes, it does tend to grow back once on an ideal dose.

Is your situation that you're not planning to raise because of your headache experience? If you're on 50mcg now, going up to 100 was a big jump. It might be an idea to try 75mcg and see how you do on that. Ideally stay on it for 6 weeks and get another blood test. Most people don't feel any better till they get above 50mcg, it's just a low dose to start you off.

If you really can't get on with Levo, you might want to try T3 or NDT (natural dessicated thyroid). If you're in the UK you might have to self medicate these.

The other thing you could try is looking at vitamins. Ferritin, folate, vit D and vit B12 are the main ones for thyroid. It's common to have low levels for some of these, and your body needs them all the make good use of thyroid hormone. Try to get your GP to test them, and if you don't have any luck there, get ya mail order finger prick test from BlueHorizon or Medichecks.

[AndrewO]

Silver Avocado thank you for your in-depth replies.

I'm going to invest in the supplements you mentioned definitely.

I have increased my Levo dose to 75mg in the hope this 'ups' my range a little.

The other day I spent a small fortune on Biotin, (in the hope it would help my hair thicken up again), and aloe vera capsules etc, however I think they had the opposite effect. I wish I would've know that sooner!

I might have a look at the T3. That would indicate that my body isn't converting or absorbing the T4 right? Something like that.

I'll definitely invest in the supplements though and have my bloods done again in a month or so.

Thanks again Silver! Have a good weekend