I've been over medicated for a while but the symptoms of over medication have gotten worse in recent weeks. I think because I've lost a couple of kilos and changed my supplement routine so now the over medication is affecting me far more intensely.
I'm here to ask for your support - i feel afraid to change the medication and also feel like i'm starting to lose my marbles. The anxiety and digestion problems have become unmanageable in recent times.
Can anyone relate?
Did you feel a bit loopy when over medicated? Or scared about the medication change? Did over medication impact on your digestion? My stomach is super sensitive and doesn't empty properly and i'm not hungry a lot of the time - except when i am hungry and then i'm starving but i fill up after not a lot of food. It's all over the shop and so am I.
Scared. (did I mention I'm scared ... )
Please, no horror stories about medication changes...i'm freaked out enough already.
Many thanks in advance.
xo
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SydneySider123
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You really need to get blood tests to check your levels. The symptoms of over and under medication can be the same. I speak from experience. What you describe could be either. This is why you need to be guided by blood levels before making any small adjustments to meds.
It is scary and yes you feel like you are losing it. I used to tell myself that all I could do was to keep myself safe and wait till things got a bit better.
Thanks so much Latatoot - i have been tested recently and i'm way over medicated. I'm just about to upload my thyroid test results to my post above. (hopefully).
Sydney TSH is not a sound tool for adjusting your medication. You need to also consider FT4 and FT3. FT3 is the more important result as it is the effects of it that causes our symptoms.
Your FT4 is nowhere near the top of range (25) for overmedication. . If these were my results I would be trying to get FT4, TSH and FT3 tested together. I would be looking at the relationship between FT4 and FT3 and where they are in their ranges. I would be questioning conversion issues.
The gut and the brain are the biggest users of thyroid hormone. If there is an imbalance in your hormones they show it. That is likely why you are having the gut problems and feeling so scared. I have been there.
Keep yourself safe and don't push yourself. Remember this is a hormone problem.
In your post/thread of 4 months ago you said you were going to obtain your results with ranges ! Did you manage it ? It would help members understand more to see them ....
It's on the results you posted above and is at the bottom of the range. You are only over-medicated if the FT3 is over range. It is low in range T3 that causes symptoms ...
Those results do not show overmedication, and there's no recent FT3 - the previous FT3 was way too low so you are probably under, not over medicated. Low FT3 can cause a rise in a adrenaline which causes sweats, tremors etc as your body tries to compensate
Free T4 13.5 (9 - 25) 28% of the way through the range
Free T3 3.8 (3.5 - 6.5) 10% of the way through the range
6/4/20
Free T4 17.8 (9 - 25) 55% of the way through the range
The earlier results show levels of both Free T4 and Free T3 which are far too low for any hypothyroid patient to have a hope of feeling well. I would say, based on comments from people on this forum, that you need both Free T4 and Free T3 to be at least 50% of the way through the range and very probably higher. Many of us need levels to be 70% of the way through the range, but we all need to find our own sweet spot.
On the basis of the results you've given you are most definitely NOT over-medicated.
Your more recent result is actually an improvement but might still be too low for best health. But it is Free T3 which determines your symptoms and you don't have a recent result for this. Too high, and you'll get symptoms of hyperthyroidism. Too low and you'll suffer hypothyroid symptoms. And to make things even more complicated some symptoms can occur in both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism so it can be difficult to know what is happening. For example, doctors assume that a fast heart rate only occurs in hyperthyroidism but there are plenty of people with hypothyroidism who get it too. High blood pressure is also associated with hyperthyroidism (by doctors) but that can affect patients who are hypothyroid too.
One problem common to people with thyroid disease is that they end up with very low levels of nutrients. In people who are hypothyroid this is connected with reduced production of stomach acid so food is poorly digested. The ones of most relevance to thyroid disease are vitamin B12, folate, iron, ferritin, and vitamin D.
Just to give one example : A lot of hypothyroid people suffer from jitteriness, anxiety, panic, sweating, insomnia and assume their thyroid hormones are wrongly dosed. But there are other possibilities - in my own case it was very low iron and ferritin (iron stores) that was the source of many of my problems. Fixing that got rid of lots of my symptoms, and improved my production of thyroid hormones too. I've raised my iron and ferritin to as close to optimal as I possibly can and I take a maintenance dose to keep it there.
But all the nutrient deficiencies cause symptoms and many of them overlap with symptoms of thyroid disease. So fix the low nutrients and you may be in a much better place to cope with your thyroid. Sadly, doctors simply don't understand or acknowledge that humans need nutrients to be optimal for them to have a hope of feeling in their best possible health, so this is something we have to deal with ourselves. (Doctors have little or no training in nutrition.)
Luckily it is possible to treat nutrient deficiencies ourselves, but it is important to know what our actual nutrient levels are before supplementing. In the case of iron and ferritin, having too much can actually be dangerous, so testing is essential.
Thanks for your reply...i've finding it all very confusing i have to say. They did check for a host of nutritional deficiencies at the same time but all was good (surprisingly).
Are you saying that you are over-medicated because of that low TSH? Did you know that TSH levels depend to a great extent on the time of the blood draw? TSH is at its highest early morning (before 9 am), and drops throughout the day. So, on the 04/04/20 your TSH would have been higher at 9 am than it was at 11 am. It also probably drops after eating - and certainly after drinking coffee. So, to get the highest TSH, you need to have the blood draw before 9 am, and fasting. And, unless the blood draws are always done under the same circumstances, you cannot compare the results.
My stomach is super sensitive and doesn't empty properly and i'm not hungry a lot of the time - except when i am hungry and then i'm starving but i fill up after not a lot of food.
You ask if over-medication can affect your digestion. Probably. But, under-medication certainly can. As humanbean says, when you are hypo, it affects your secretion of stomach acid, so you have trouble digesting your food. This affects your appetite. So, what you are saying above is a perfect description of low stomach acid. As it gets worse, the food left in the stomach starts to ferment, and causes a volcanic effect which causes acid reflux. Doctors assume that means you have too much acid, and prescribe PPIs, which reduce acid even further and make the problem even worse. But, the root of the problem is actually low acid, not high. If you try raising your level of stomach acid, things could be much improved.
Thanks GG. I take betaine and HCL with protein and have recently tried an increase in that but it gave me that burning/full feeling so I think my dose was ok. I am quite confused about the advice here as the TSH is virtually zero which seems to be off. I had the bloods drawn in the morning...mid-morning from memory so yeah. Just not sure.
A TSH result, on its own, is utterly meaningless. It has to be interpreted in conjunction with FT4 and FT3 results. Doctors who believe that the TSH tells them everything they need to know are deluded. It tells them nothing. The most important number is the FT3, but most GPs wouldn't understand an FT3 result if they were faced with one. But, with an FT4 level only 67.5 % through the range, it's hardly likely that your FT3 is going to be over-range. So, you are not over-medicated, and there's really no reason to freak out. You're actually far more likely to be under-medicated, despite the TSH!
Depends what's causing your poor conversion. And, your chances of finding that out are minimal. It could be due to any one of a lot of things, or several things. But, the first step is to make sure your key nutrients are optimal: vit d, vit B12, folate and ferritin. If they are sub-optimal, supplement accordingly, with the necessary cofactors.
And, you could try taking selenium.
Make sure you're ingesting enough calories - no low-calorie diets!
Get cortisol tested.
But, if you have Hashi's, that could be the cause of your poor conversion, and there's nothing you can do about that. Sometimes, taking T3 is the only solution.
Right, thanks. Yes my vit d, B12, folate and ferritin were tested also on 4/4/20. All fine (in fact vit b12 is really quite high). I do hae selenium in the cupboard, i'll go and take one now and keep up with that.
I also have IBS-C and low appetite which doesn't do me well for consuming enough calories. I fill up quickly and my stomach takes a long time to empty easily if i have a big meal. I'm sure that doesn't help but i can't seem to find any way out of this long term stomach/digestion issue. #sleepy-digestion.
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