Levothyroxine dosage

[Monique66]

I originally had hyperthyroidism but after radioactive iodine almost 8 years ago it's under. I was on 125mg levothyroxine in the mornings for the past year, my GP upped the dosage to 150mg recently, I was only able to take this for a week as I felt my heart was racing. Went back to my GP yesterday and he said to take 150mg and 125mg on alternative days. This morning I took 125mg but have felt really tired, dizzy and nauseous. Has anyone else experienced this and did it get better soon?

[pennyannie]

Hello Monique66

I have Graves Disease and treated with RAI in 2005 to ablate my thyroid.

Was your diagnosis the same ?

I became very unwell about 5 years ago now, and thank goodness I found this site, and started my learning curve.

A fully functioning working thyroid would be supporting you daily, with, approximately, 100 T4 + 10 T3.

Some people can get by on T4 ( Levothyroxine ) alone, some people for some reason simply stop converting the T4 to T3 at some point in time, and some people simply need both these vital hormones dosed and monitored independently to bring them into balance and to a level of well being acceptable to the patient.

Some people, especially after RAI seem to do better on a T3/T4 combo or switch to taking Natural Desiccated Thyroid, both of which, currently, are very difficult to get prescribed on the NHS.

In the first instance I would suggest you ask for a copy of the blood tests you had recently, including the ranges, so we can see the level of your TSH, T4 and T3 - since your doctor commented on your low T3 presume he must have tested this, which is good, because many doctors seem to dose by only getting a value of the TSH.

T3 is roughly 4 times stronger than T4. T4 is a storage hormone and your body needs to convert T4 into T3 which is the hormone that the body runs on, and as mentioned above conversion of T4 to T3 in sometimes compromised.

It could be because of low ferritin, folate, B12 or vitamin D - these all need to be optimal for thyroid hormones to work effectively, so it would make sense to ask your doctor to run these blood tests.

So post all the results along with their ranges, on here, and people more able than me will be able to advise you of your next step back to better health.

Your Thyroid and How To Keep it Healthy by Dr Barry Durrant - Peatfield is a very good, sometimes funny, insightful book, written by a doctor who has hypothyroidism. The thyroid is a major gland, responsible for full body synchronisation, including your mental, physical, psychological and spiritual well being. We need to know all that does so we can try and compensate for it's loss.

If with Graves Disease, Elaine Moore has an excellent website for all things Graves Disease.

it is stateside, so medical protocol slightly different, but nevertheless a leading research and active forum, available for all Graves patients to read, research and learn through.

This lady has Graves and went through RAI, found no help in the late 1990s so wrote a book, and as they say, the rest is history.

Tired Thyroid by Barbara S Lougheed is another interesting book written by another American who has the same health issues. She also now has a " blog " and amongst other things debunks the theory that the TSH alone has any value in managing Graves Disease.

[Monique66 in reply to pennyannie]

Hi Pennyannie, that's how I started almost eight years ago. My GP ran vitamin plus iron tests and the came back good ( I have pernicious anemia)

[pennyannie in reply to Monique66]

Hey there, in my experience what some doctors refer to " as good, or ok " with regard to vitamins, minerals, T3, and or T4 values, is not good enough for us.

We need all our vitamins and minerals optimal and this probably means some supplementation along the way.

I notice you've another post running concurrently, and all the information on there is most important for you to follow.

You will get detailed advice once you have any blood tests plus the ranges to share with us.

it might also be worth detailing on the other post that you are with Graves Disease and post RAI, and have pernicious anemia so all your information is in the one original post and possibly easier for you to manage.