How long after last meal can I take synthroid?

[Ralph1985]

I been taking my synthroid everyday at 6 am and do wait an hour before having breakfast, but I try not to drink milk or have anything with calcium in it as I heard it can mess with the absorption. Also have heard about people taking it at night instead and getting better results and so I want to give it a shot, now my question is how long after my last meal can I take it saying I eat dinner at 7pm every night???

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

After a main meal it's recommended to wait 3 hours before taking levothyroxine.

[Ralph1985 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Alright thank you

[MMaud]

When I took my T4 at night, I'd take it just before going to bed. By then my evening meal would have gone down (we don't snack), and no danger of anything further to eat or drink.

I went back to taking it in the morning (around 4am) as I hadn't noticed any change whether I took it in the morning, or at night, and I wake naturally, just briefly at 4am anyway.

Taking it in the morning makes blood tests easy too - for me anyway. Last dose of T4 the morning before the test.

[Ralph1985 in reply to MMaud]

Oh alright, there’s a couple of reasons I would like to try night dose for, not only to see if it makes a difference but also I like to drink milk with my breakfast and have coffee and other stuff that might mess around with absorption I thinks that’s what I was doing wrong and my last lab came back all weird

[jgelliss in reply to MMaud]

Dosing with thyroid meds before going to sleep help many get a deeper and better nights sleep . Drinking water is not a problem . I would refrain from snacks though.

[JOLLYDOLLY]

I have always been told to take my thyroids meds on a empty stomach, always have and always will. Normally leave it about half an hour to an hour before breakfast.

Never heard of calcium such as milk interfering with the absorption of meds itself, but then I am not a big milk person. Would make sense I guess, as I always take my Vitamin D supplement at night time, due to absorption issues. I wonder if that applies to yogurt then?

Ummmn got me thinking now??

[jgelliss in reply to JOLLYDOLLY]

Anything with Calcium and Iron is best kept away for a few hours from thyroid dosing so that you get best thyroid meds absorption.

[Ralph1985]

Yeah I heard anything containing calcium will mess around with absorption, I used to think it was only vitamins but I guess I was wrong.. all my blood work has shown a continues progression except for this last test and for a month now I been drinking milk with my breakfast and adding cheese to my eggs that’s the only change I have made. And I’m not talking about maybe a awkward result in my blood work.

Tsh was 2.85 range is .35 - 4.94 and ft3 was 4.54 range is 2.5 - 4.50. My t3 is over the range although I don’t have a lower tsh. Can’t interpret those results. That’s 8 weeks on 150 mcg synthroid

[shaws Administrator]

This may be helpful:-

endocrineweb.com/conditions...

[Ralph1985 in reply to shaws]

Wow, great article and thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I thought was happening for this past month. Bad absorption due to drinking milk too close to my medicine.