My mum has been on thyroxine for a while but lately she has had a few scary moments particularly at night time where her blood pressure increases and she describes unusual sensations in her body rising up, she’s aware of what is happening, there’s no pain, but she struggles to talk or move. She has been back and forth to the doctors who have adjusted her medication but there has been no success. Has anyone had similar experiences or is able to provide advise as I’m deeply concerned and worried for her.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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tesr
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Can you add her most recent blood test results for thyroid and vitamins
How much Levothyroxine is she taking?
What time of day does she take it?
does she always take it on its own, no other medication, food or drink (other than water) with Levothyroxine and always on empty stomach and nothing apart from water for at least an hour after dose
For full Thyroid evaluation she needs TSH, FT4, FT3 plus TPO and TG thyroid antibodies and also very important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12
All thyroid blood tests should ideally be done as early as possible in morning and fasting. Do not take Levothyroxine dose in the 24hours prior to test, delay and take immediately after blood draw. This gives highest TSH and lowest FT4. (Patient to patient tip, best not mentioned to GP or phlebotomist)
apologies for intervening on this thread, but I am puzzled. It is always recommended that levo be taken as SlowDragon has advised. However, I take my levo about 20 minutes after an early morning cup of tea, and usually with water, lemon juice and an arthritis powder supplement in the water. I have my breakfast, sometime after that. No problem. I feel fine. Aren't advisors just being a bit fussy? Why am I so well if it's so important to take levo as advised?
fiftyone I did exactly the same for the first 30 yrs of being hypothyroid, slugged it down with coffee and breakfast or took it when ever I remembered, and was never more well. That was pre-Internet days so I never knew I was doing it wrong lol, but my bloods were stable, I was symptom-free etc. Every thing changed with the menopause in my case, but I'd had 30 yrs doing very well, so I can understand your point. When I started "doing it right" it changed nothing. I wonder if a poll was taken of those people who are also well and not participating in forum, whether there would be a single tablet-taking behaviour or not.
I agree - I’m quite haphazard with how I take mine. It’s pretty much always after breakfast, which is mostly just cereal, but sometimes much more. It doesn’t seem to make a difference. I’ve been on holiday this last fortnight and twice forgot it until the afternoon!
I guess if you’re having problems, then being consistent may help get to the bottom of the problem and perhaps some people are more sensitive to slight changes.
I think those of us who don’t have problems are the silent majority and probably don’t frequent these forums as often for that reason.
I think your 'clue' is that you have been doing it for years so I suspect your thyroid dose is tailored to what you do. If it works for you then that's probably ok but it's when variations step in that can be a problem. Think of the contrast of a slice of toast whilst dashing out to work and a full English at the weekend. Not suggesting you would do that but others may well and that's when I think it's more of a problem. I try to work with the advice given and I've no complaints. Plus I feel consistently is important so if things start going haywire I have less things to sift through to find out where the problem has arisen.
Your Mum could add in a supplement of magnesium to help with the blood pressure.
I took magnesium for my thyroid and to help with vit d3, constipation etc without realising it also helped blood pressure. I was always being told I really needed blood pressure tablets by the dr, anyway I went in for something else had my blood pressure checked and it was normal, it has been normal for over a year now so I’ll stick with taking a magnesium supplement.
This is an awful dilemma - I have had the same recently because I changed my medication regime. Blood pressure I have found does seem to rise in the evening - especially after eating a meal which inevitably has salt in it. It could be she is low on potassium which is a controller of blood pressure - she should try to eat 2/3 bananas a day - they contain about 500 mg of potassium each - but the human body needs approx 6500 mg a day - do NOT take potassium on its own as it is bad for the kidneys - try it in a multi vitamin by all means. When you say she finds it difficult to talk or move - how does this present itself. If you could give us more info would be ideal so we can help.
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