vertigo,nausea,dizziness,joint pain and breathlessness when exercising are not underactive thyroid symptoms!
Told to take statins because my cholesterol as be abnormal since 2009 I was never told.
I've had alot of these symptoms for years including mental health problems, Im on levothyroxine 50mgs, waiting for bloods to come back endo said probably have to go up to 75mgs.
I don't want to take statins unless I really have to, Endo is pressuring me to take them!
im not overweight, feel ill more days then well, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you, for taking the time to read.
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Frin9e
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Post your new results when you have them then members can comment. Ideally
TSH
FT4
FT3
Thyroid antibodies
Also your symptoms suggest there might be low nutrient levels so you need
Vit D
B12
Folate
Ferritin
Statins not a good idea, high cholesterol is a symptom of hypo, get that optimally medicated and cholesterol may lower. Don't take the statins if you don't want to, they can't force you to.
Come back with all those results, include the reference ranges, and we can help.
Multivitamins are generally a waste of time. They usually contain too little of anything to help, use the cheapest, least absorbent and wrong form of ingredients, some of the vitamins shouldn't be taken at the same time as others. If it contains iron then that affects the absorption of anything else and iron should be taken 2 hours away from other supplements because it affects their absorption. If it contains calcium that will affect the absorption of the iron. If it contains Iodine then that's not a good idea at all, Iodine should be tested and only supplemented if found to be deficient, same with calcium. Wait until you have those vitamins and minerals tested then supplement where necessary at the appropriate dose.
Quite a few members do get them tested, maybe not all, sometimes not Vit D as doctors say that is expensive. It's worth asking. If not then the cheapest way is with a thyroid bundle with Medichecks Thyroid Ultravit or Blue Horizon Thyroid plus Eleven.
Try cutting out all added sugar (including hidden sugar in foods) in addition to any flour products and dairy (especially low and no fat dairy) as these are all high in sugars or simple carbohydrates. It is best to cut out all processed foods (they tend to have simple sugars especially processed gluten free foods). Sugars and simple carbs which are metabolized quickly into sugar are the main cause of high cholesterol according to the source below. Cholesterol is actually trying to repair the damage sugar causes. If you do follow a good diet restricting sugars and processed foods you could still have elevated cholesterol if you are prediabetic. If you are prediabetic you probably don’t know it. The test is HA1C to check.
The video, Sugar the bitter truth, explains in excruciating detail how sugar causes high cholesterol.
If your doctor balks at doing all of the (essential) tests listed above he will probably have no problem giving you TSH and T4 tests. The level of your TSH will determine if you are hypothyridic. That will be your starting point, the next thing will be to measure your antibodies TPO and TG antibodies. the level of those will give you some idea of the intensity of the condition. These two things are a starting point which you can establish very quickly and easily with no arguing nor begging your doc. Post them here for advice on the next step.
Oh and I forgot to say, resist statins as long as you possibly can. Statins interact with thyroid meds. If you take the two together you will create a problem which no doctor will be able to solve - because you can never know which medicine is getting the lion's share of your thyroid binding globulins, not to mention your doc has probably never heard of the latter. It could be thyroid meds one hour then statins the next or one will completely shut out the other - a real mess.
But first establish the state of your thyroid - and let us know.
You need to know if you have high TPO and/or high TG thyroid antibodies. This is to diagnose if your hypothyroidism is due to autoimmune thyroid disease also called Hashimoto's
Low vitamin levels are extremely common with Hashimoto's
it all started with, overactive thyroid 18mths ago, told it was thyroiditis no antibodies, though I have heat, cold intolerance, numbness in fingers and toes, they also change colour blue-black, im hoping when thyroid levels come up, i will feel better, so many symptoms.
You mention numbness, this is a neurological symptom of b12 deficiency. The dizziness could also be b12 related and/or thyroid. Before checking your b12, you need to be off supplements or even energy drinks containing b12 for 4 months, otherwise it will give a false high reading. I assume that the multi vitamin you've started contains b12? There are other tests for b12.
There's lots more information on the PAS forum. A possible good start would be to check your symptoms on the b12d charity symptom checker.
I hope you're feeling better soon. So many symptoms overlap with other disorders so it's so hard to know sometimes what is causing what.
It's so good that we have this site, it's been a brilliant help to me. But I totally know what you mean, I was sorting out my b12 problem and then the lovely Marz on here pointed out that my thyroid was struggling so then loads more things to consider.
Hi. Have you had your cortisol bloods checked. Sometimes thyroid and cortisol issues happen simultaneously. Low cortisol can have the symptoms you are describing.
No to statins! They cause more problems! Cholesterol is not the bad guy.
Cholesterol is the body’s way of protecting itself, not the root cause of heart problems. You can read about it in the 2 links below. There are plenty more articles about.
I did try and tell endo that, he just replied with, you risking a heart attack or stroke! I haven't taken them, if I've had a problem for 9yrs, why do i need them now, makes no sense.
thank you, that's what I thought! endo was having none of it, id read alot on this site, so I was confident when I seen him, it was a joke! thinking of seeing gp tomorrow, to see if he will help me.😀
Statins are a solution in search of a problem. I've run into too many friends with statin side-effects. Are you aware statins scavenge CoQ10? Are you aware that T3, if low, can fix a cholesterol problem? I already know from personal experience that breathlessness and dizziness ARE signs of hypothyroid. Your idiot endo needs to stop wasting time, and do a full panel TSH/FT3/FT4/rT3/TPOAb/TGAb on you. He has no way of knowing whether exercise is causing those symptoms, until he has verified that your FT3 is at least mid-range and you don't have excessive rT3. Also you can have multiple nutrient deficiencies that could contribute to those symptoms, such as low blood protein. But given that you are only on 50mcg of levo, chances are good that you are not getting enough levo(T4), and/or that you need to add some T3 to your T4.
There are likely only a few endos who have an appreciation for the many patient-centered articles published on the 300+ hypothyroid symptoms, such as hypothyroidmom's. Most of them are too busy with diabetes patients to understand anything thyroid. Besides, as Kent Holtorf has said repeatedly, most docs practice 17 years behind the state of the art, and most reject new information that conflicts with what they were taught in med school.
Forget Statins can have bad side effects. Doctors get paid for each new statin taker!!! The brain needs 30 per cent of your cholesterol !!! ?? Dementia???
I suffered bad side effects years ago,so am very biased
Most cholesterol is made in the body; it needs it to function, particularly your brain. Do read Dr. Kendrick’s blog and books. The side effects of statins can be devastating and painful. As far as I can ascertain from reading about statins, they do not help women at all and only men after a CVD and it is thought by Dr. Kendrick that this is an anti-inflammatory effect. I am not medically qualified and I’m not giving advice.
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