Stoppinglevothyroxine

[Pennpops1]

Has anyone stopped medication, if so how did it go?

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Levothyroxine is not a medication

It’s a replacement thyroid hormone, prescribed because your thyroid is not making enough thyroid hormones

So in Virtually all cases, it’s likely needed for life

It’s important to be taking high enough dose. Frequently patients are left on too low a dose, leading to poor outcome

How much levothyroxine are you currently taking?

Do you always get same brand of levothyroxine?

Many people find different brands are not interchangeable

How long at current dose?

For full Thyroid evaluation you need TSH, FT4 and FT3 plus both TPO and TG thyroid antibodies tested. Also EXTREMELY important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12

Low vitamin levels are extremely common, especially if you have autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's) diagnosed by raised Thyroid antibodies

Have you had thyroid antibodies tested?

What vitamin supplements are you currently taking?

Ask GP to test vitamin levels

Recommended on here that all thyroid blood tests should ideally be done as early as possible in morning and before eating or drinking anything other than water .

Last dose of Levothyroxine 24 hours prior to blood test. (taking delayed dose immediately after blood draw).

This gives highest TSH, lowest FT4 and most consistent results. (Patient to patient tip, best not mentioned to GP or phlebotomist)

If/when also on T3, make sure to take last third or half of daily dose 8-12 hours prior to test, even if this means adjusting time or splitting of dose day before test

Is this how you do your tests?

Private tests are available as NHS currently rarely tests Ft3 or thyroid antibodies or all relevant vitamins

List of private testing options

thyroiduk.org/getting-a-dia...

Medichecks Thyroid plus ultra vitamin

medichecks.com/products/thy...

Medichecks often have special offers, if order on Thursdays

Thriva Thyroid plus vitamins

thriva.co/tests/thyroid-test

Blue Horizon Thyroid Premium Gold includes vitamins

bluehorizonbloodtests.co.uk...

Bloods should be retested 6-8 weeks after each dose increase in levothyroxine

The aim of Levothyroxine is to increase the dose slowly in 25mcg steps upwards until TSH is under 2 (many patients need TSH significantly under one) and most important is that FT4 is in top third of range and FT3 at least half way through range

NHS guidelines on Levothyroxine including that most patients eventually need somewhere between 100mcg and 200mcg Levothyroxine.

nhs.uk/medicines/levothyrox...

Also note what foods to avoid (eg recommended to avoid calcium rich foods at least four hours from taking Levo)

All four vitamins need to be regularly tested and frequently need supplementing to maintain optimal levels

[Lalatoot]

Badly.

Being certain that my symptoms were caused by levo I gradually reduced my dose. 6 months later my TSH was sky high and my FT4 and FT3 were below range and I was very ill.

What I know now was that it was not the levo that was making me feel bad; it was the fact that I did not convert it well and although my FT4 was at a good level, my FT3 was always low. The FT3 level was never tested until I became ill.

Now I am on combo treatment and feel I am getting ever stronger.