Levothyroxine and heat

[assunta79]

Hello, I have recently been on holiday in Italy where it was more than 30 degrees, than came back and we are still having these really warm temperatures. I had my medication with me during th trip. Does anyone know if that would be enough to affect the levo pills? it does say in the leaflet to store them at 25 degrees...

[Caroline888]

Hi assunta79

I was concerned about storing my packets of Levo in this heat so asked my local pharmacist. She told me not to worry if the temperature didn’t stray too far above 25 degrees. At the time of asking it was 26 degrees in my house and she didn’t seem to think that was a problem. If it gets much hotter I will be in there asking again!

I keep my Levo in a drawer close to the floor where I expect it to be cooler. It would be easy if we could keep it in the fridge but there seem to be disadvantages in doing that, i.e. I’ve heard the tablets tend to disintegrate. The pharmacist I spoke to wasn’t in favour of doing that.

I am assuming that if they don’t look any different in shape or colour, then they’re probably ok. But I do keep them in the driest coolest place in the house.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes

Caroline

[assunta79 in reply to Caroline888]

Hi Caroline, thank you so much for getting back to me!

When we are here at home I keep the tablets in their box on the mantlepiece in our bedroom, which is fairly cool. But we were away for 10 days and they would have been exposed to the heat during our journey and where we stayed, although there was some air conditioning, the temperature must have been around 28-29.

They do look the same but I have been feeling very drowsy for a few days so I'm wondering if they have lost some of their effect!!

I am going to try and get a new prescription, just to make sure.

Thank you for your help,

Best wishes

Assunta

[Caroline888 in reply to assunta79]

My pharmacist seemed to think there was some leeway and anything below 30 degrees would be ok. On the other hand, if you are feeling more tired than usual, asking for another prescription would seem to be a wise move.

Hope you feel better soon.

Take care

Caroline