Carbimazole and insomnia?

[Anarchist]

Hi

I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism 16 days ago.

The diagnosis was primarily based on blood test reports. I was put on carbimazole 5 mg along with an antianxiety and another drug to reduce palpitations.

I had no sleep problems prior to this treatment.

I have not slept for the past few days and this insomnia is hitting me really hard.

Can this be due to my medication?

I am taking sleeping pills to doze off under the supervision of my physician.

How can I sleep like before?

I don't intend to be on sleeping pills to doze off.

Is carbimazole hurting my sleep?

[Marz]

Do you have the results with ranges that indicated you are Hyper ? Did you have anti-bodies tedted ? We do see mistakes here from time to time when members actually have Hashimotos ...

Hope you soon feel better 😊

[purple64]

I would think the dose of Carbimazole is too low. You need to post your blood test results. Do you have Graves' disease? I was suffering from insomnia before I was diagnosed. It's one of the symptoms of being hyper. It will take at least 6 weeks before the medication really works and you see any changes. Almost 2 years since I was diagnosed and I still get very few good nights sleep. It's early days and you will learn to go with the illness and rest when you feel the need.

[hattersteapar]

I suffered greatly with poor broken sleep prior to be diagnosed with Graves. I was put on a very high dose of carbizamol and beta blockers to start with which after a few weeks helped with my sleep greatly. I'm now on block and replace and my sleep isn't too bad at all. I wish you luck on your journey with this disease

[Susanny]

I would actually say that it's the problem with the thyroid that is causing your sleepless nights you are taking a very low dose of cabimiazole. Yeah good luck

[Cat4health]

It's unlikely but nonetheless it's important to give it time to see your reaction. As purple64 says, it takes 6 weeks for carb to fully work. This is because it takes this long for the thyroid to use up its excess stores of hormone. However I disagree with everyone saying your dose is too low as most doctors overdose massively at the start n we don't know what your current levels are so 5mg might be enough. I'd say try to give it some time. If the sleeping tablets are necessary temporarily then so be it but things should improve. Let's also not forget that getting a big diagnosis like this might have impacted you which can cause anxiety n loss of sleep alone.

[helvella Administrator in reply to Cat4health]

Trouble with a low starting dose is that the thyroid could continue to produce at least as much thyroid hormone as is being used up. The thyroid hormone levels could even continue to rise.

Even if 5 milligrams is exactly the dose for the person in the longer term, starting out that low means it will take longer to reach an acceptable level of thyroid hormones.

A further problem with 5 milligrams as a starting dose is that split dosing is often advised, at least at the start of treatment. (Otherwise the carbimazole can run out and lose its effect before the next dose. It has a fairly short half-life.) As 5 milligrams is the lowest available dose of tablet it requires tablet splitting to achieve a split dose. At the level of practicality alone, two 5 milligram tablets taken as two separate doses is possibly the lowest that makes sense to me.

[Cat4health in reply to helvella]

I have always used tablet splitting very easily and a 5mg tablet often has a halfway line for splitting!?10mg could be way too high for a person. It certainly would have been for me. The highest I ever got was 2.5mg and that was even with relatively high ft3.

There's a lot of fear mongering around thyroid being high but for someone with graves going too low will activate the autoimmune response and make everything 100 times worse!!!!