Weight gain

[Kev78]

Hi all I had a total thyroidectomy in June last year and have been on 150 mcg of thyroxine since, o have had my good days and bad days of feeling lousy since but my weight has rocketed up and no matter how hard I train and diet I can’t shift a pound, I had some blood tests done on Tuesday and my gp called me back in as soon as they got results back and said my thyroxine needed to be increased and put me on 200 mcg, my question is has anyone had the same problems with weight and moods and is it possible to lose the weight when on thyroxine? I have heard so many stories of people saying they can’t lose weight etc

Thanks

[pennyannie]

Hey there Kev,

Do you have any current blood tests for thyroid function and vitamins and minerals to share with us so as to offer you an informed, balanced opinion ?

Just as a point of reference, a fully functioning thyroid would be drip feeding you, on a daily basis, 100 T4 and 10 T3.

As someone without a working thyroid it just seems perfectly obvious to me that both these vital hormones need to be on your prescription.

Some people can get by on T4 alone, some people stop converting the T4 into the T3 and some people need both these hormones prescribed and monitored until they feel relief of symptoms, and more like they were before the medical intervention of thyroid removal.

The thyroid is a major gland, responsible for your whole body synchronisation, much like that of a conductor of an orchestra.

[MaisieGray]

We are all different in our body's response to thyroid dysfunction - there are slim hypothyroid people, some who even report being naturally skinny, and those who struggle to maintain a healthy weight. However there are a couple of basic facts - hard exercise/training can be counterproductive in feeling well and/or losing weight, especially when not yet optimally medicated and so soon after having your thyroid removed, because it is a drain on your T3. Likewise, low calorie/restrictive diets can similarly have an opposite effect to that desired. You need to eat a well-balanced nutritionally sound diet in an adequate amount, however counterintuitive that seems.

Levothyroxine does not make you gain weight, but being inadequately medicated can; which can mean not having enough Levo, or not having it in combination with T3 if your body is unable to adequately convert the l-thyroxine to T3 for whatever reason - some people may have a genetic variation that may, but not always, impact how effectively their body does that, or there may be other reasons interfering with the process. It's good in principle, that your GP had responded to your blood test results by increasing your dosage, but they don't always intuit blood test results correctly, nor does the NHS routinely test comprehensively enough, and so decisions can be made based on insufficient data. Dosing according to the TSH alone (a pituitary hormone, not a thyroid hormone) is a good example. Often, we have to have recourse to a more comprehensive set of tests carried out privately, which include key vitamin and minerals in addition to a full thyroid panel, to get a better understanding of what's going on. But if you post all your latest blood test results, and their reference ranges (the numbers often in brackets), folks here can comment more specifically.

[greygoose]

It's not the thyroxine that's the problem, it's being hypo! Taking thyroxine should stop you being hypo by increasing your FT4 and FT3.

You need to get hold of your latest lab results - it's your legal right in the UK to have a print-out of all your results - you need to see what has been tested and what the results were.

Thyroxine is T4, a storage hormone. It needs to be converted to T3, the active hormone. Not everybody does that very well. Especially not if they are under-eating and over-training. You could be making yourself worse by doing that. Your hypo weight-gain is not due to too many calories or not enough exercise, it is caused by not enough thyroid hormone. So, you need to know exactly how much you have in your system.

First step to lowing weight? Get print-outs of your blood test results and learn to understand them.