Hi I was on Levothyroxine for 6 months 150mg but suffered severe itching, redness around the face and eyes , had to go Private to get on Liothyronine 40mg but still have same problem to a lesser degree, both Tablets have Sodium which seemingly can cause these Side effects.
Has anyone else experienced this?
4bboys,
150 micrograms of levothyroxine will contain less than 4.3 micrograms of sodium in the active ingredient - Levothyroxine sodium.
Current advice is often to consume less than 6 grams of salt a day. That is 2.4 grams of sodium.
4.5 micrograms is less than one thousandth of a percent of your daily sodium allowance.
Some levothyroxine tablets say in the Patient Information Leaflet something like this:
This medicine contains less than 1 mmol sodium (23 mg) per tablet, that is to say essentially 'sodium-free'.
(That was taken from a Mercury Pharma PIL for 100 microgram levothyroxine tablets.)
The amount of sodium in Liothyronine sodium is similarly tiny.
Whatever is causing your problems, it wouldn't be the sodium content of these medicines.
What is often suggested if people suffer itching and redness is to take an antihistamine tablet before your thyroid hormones. Something like loratadine, chlorphenamine or any of the other over-the-counter products. If that helps, you have narrowed things down. It is quite likely something to do with another ingredient.
Try that and post back.
Hi Thanks for that, I have tried that route but no success, Have a meeting with Private Endo next week , might try a Natural product.
Cheers
Have you had coeliac blood test done BEFORE trialing strictly gluten free diet
Only 5% of autoimmune thyroid patients are coeliac, but a further 80% find strictly gluten free diet helps reduce symptoms
Essential to regularly retest vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12
What vitamin supplements are you currently taking
When were vitamin levels last tested
Which brand of T3 are you currently taking
Have you tried all three brands available
Teva - lactose free
Morningside healthcare
Mercury Pharma
Is the new Roma T3 available now too?
We haven’t heard of anyone being prescribed it ….yet
I was in communication with Roma the other day to ask why it is not listed in the British National Formulary. Seems Roma have done what is needed. (They have to add it to the dm+d database held by the NHS - BNF get their data from that.) And I can confirm that is true because anyone can access that.
They also said at least some GP surgery management systems have the products listed. But I cannot check that.
They are getting orders through.
I have also been in contact with NICE & BNF and now dm+d database people to ask why the BNF lists by supplier (effectively distributor) rather than make/brand. Awaiting response on that. Surely, in general, we don't care who distributes it, but we and GPs do need to be able to find out which products are available and not get confused?
Thanks helvella for going to the trouble. I am a member of ITT on FB and some of the members have had it prescribed so it is available. What we need is information on the cost to the NHS for these capsules, that might give us a better chance of fighting for a prescription.
Didn't you post the costs a couple of months back?
Maybe someone needs to contact the NHS Business Services Authority?
nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp...
Unfortunately, only the price for a private prescription quoted to me by one of the specialist pharmacies on the TUK list, just one of them, the rest didn’t seem interested. They either hadn’t heard of it or couldn’t be bothered to find out.I’ll do a bit more digging 😊
Ah - right.
Any private price will, of course, be uplifted from the NHS price - I do realise.
As we are in the latter part of March, I think I'll wait for the April Drug Tariff and, if not in that, contact NHSBSA, etc.
(Have already contacted dm+d - as I mentioned elsewhere - to try to understand a different issue. But the Roma product is listed so should feed through.)
Just read the last paragraph of your post- that’ll be me then 😂
I also suffer with itching when taking levothyroxine. I have tried every brand in the U.K. and also some abroad and they all caused the same problem. Even liquid Levo caused it. I have been taking Liothyronine for 7 years now (apart from when having to prove that Levothyroxine caused the issue to enable Liothyronine to be prescribed on the NHS. ) I do still get some itching despite taking antihistamines daily but have found that it gets much worse when my Vitamin B12 levels drop (I have Vit B12 deficiency). Maybe ask your private Endo to check this if you haven’t so far. Remember to stop all supplements containing vitamin B12 and biotin (there may be others that you need to stop although I’m not sure which). I didn’t know that I was being tested for this and so continued taking the supplements but my,levels were very low even with the supplements. I now have injections every 3 months although this isn’t enough so I self inject in between.
Levothyroxine is toxic to many people. Trust your body and what it is telling you. I have not experienced the itching problem but I have experienced much worse on levothyroxine. Since you have had to go private anyway… ask your doctor about NDT. Of all the medicines that I’ve tried and I have tried many (in the US), NDT has worked best for me. And after I finally got past the hesitancy I tried bovine desiccated thyroid hormone which is available without prescription and from many different and reliable producers, I find it it works the best of all. I was able to get porcine desiccated thyroid hormone by prescription here in the US and it worked well for a long time. But again, I now use (extremely little) bovine thyroid, without a prescription. I found here on HealthUnlocked many who have gone this route very successfully. In finding the exact dosage that works for me the advice was “start out low and slowly increase “ until you feel better. I also found a private Doctor who was willing to help me follow that route and we don’t even use blood tests anymore. My Dr. trusts me when I tell her when I feel well and we adjust the dosage accordingly - and I might add rarely. It is a bit scary, but what are you doing is just educating yourself and again learning to trust your body - it will talk to you and it will tell you.
My experience with itching in other matters is that the skin is a wonderful organ and it helps your body eliminate toxins, and when it is itching it’s usually because it’s sloughing off excessive toxicity. Not a bad thing so much as it is annoying! Are you listening?! Look for the many wonderful sources of bovine NDT, and give it a whirl with your Drs monitoring. And after you find out how much better you feel please share it with all of the rest of us!
Hi thanks for your information, will speak to Doctor to try a Natural product.
One thing to mention, unfortunately, there are still fillers in NDT so they are not totally natural. It’s probably the fillers in the Levo and Lio causing you the problem.
You may want to look into histamine intolerance - Dr Will Cole and Dr Ben Lynch both provide a lot of helpful guidance on this
Weirdly I have had very bad rash and puffiness around my eyes since changing brands. Will check the ingredients
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