Hookie01 Regenallotment We went a little off piste with another post and I thought we should put this up as a stand alone topic
When you just can't find your thyroid sweet spot take a look at your sex hormones, balance is the name of the game
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I would add tinnitus too
More for me to trouble the NHS with!
Have an appointment with the Women’s health clinic nurse to discuss. I will report back!
Not keen on HRT if I can avoid, was on it for 3 years and it made me so unwell, (well technically lack of hypo diagnosis made me unwell) but I now have fibroids as a result and it’s taken almost 4 months to resolve my digestive damage that started with first week of HRT which is annoying. Plus the mental health and mistrust in GPs going forward.
It will take some convincing to get me to try again.
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Don’t give up! I had they same: was put on HRT when it was hypothyroidism and I was so unwell on that I though I would die 😞 ( a little dramatic, but it affected my breathing, which made me panic)
But now, 5 years later, I am back on HRT (as well as NDT) and it has made a marked difference. I feel more positive, have more energy and think a little straighter.
My GP is part of a menopause clinic and I got a referral to there. The Doc there listened to me and we started really slowly with patches (I already had a Mirena) and increased the dosage slowly. I am due a blood test, but at the moment I am feeling a lot better.
Start with a blood test to figure if it‘s really menopause?
Good luck!
Did you take oral HRT?....I couldn't cope with it either and wouldn't touch that again 🤢
Stick to the body identical transdermal... I know nothing of Fibroids thankfully, are they from the HRT or the untreated Hypo?
Stick to the body identical transdermal...
I’ve heard of bio identical. What’s body identical?
I think there is a bit of crossover.... Bio refers to the ones which can be compounded by pharmacists or just off the shelf without specific strengths so unregulated/unlicensed and body identical is the regulated licensed ones.... I think? 😬
Both molecularly identical to human hormones as opposed to the synthetic pills
NHS will supply body identical but not bio but they generally offer you pills first unless you request BI
morning I’m just trying to sort out HRT which one did you try x
Morning, started with pills🤢 then patches which were ok but not strong enough, now Lenzetto spray (easy to alter dose), Utrogestan (needed if you still have your bits) though a Mirena is a good option, used one for many years and the icing on the cake for me is Testosterone 🤗
Again, it's another trial and error game but you are in charge 😉
How do you go about being prescribed testosterone? I think that could be the missing link for me. My libido is zilch even though I’m taking HRT post menopause and my thyroid levels are optimal for me.
You have said the magic word 'libido' if you say this to your GP they are able to prescribe for this reason... they might not be willing but know your facts and perhaps drop in the mental health and wellbeing aspect.... get them to test your levels... which is oddly the only sex hormone they insist on a blood test for?
Perhaps look at your local stance, I printed this off and handed it in for my GP's attention 😀
gloshospitals.nhs.uk/media/...
Thank you so much for your reply Eeyore. That’s really helpful and the link you sent will be a great help too.
I’m beginning to lose hope that I will ever feel like I used to. I do feel a sense of improvement on HRT since I started taking it back in feb this year. However I’m still suffering mood swings as well as the lack of libido.
Time to contact my Gp. Thank you 🙏
I can honestly say going on HRT is one of the best things I’ve done. I feel so much better and can function successfully again both at home and at work. We are all different and what works for one doesn’t work for all unfortunately.
For other members considering options in peri menopause and menopause, it may be useful to have a look at Dr Louise Newson’s free Balance App, as I find it really useful for current info on prescription and non prescription options. . There is also an ability to post questions.
healthunlocked.com/redirect...
Absolutely agree, I just got so bogged down in trying to sort my thyroid issues I didn't see the whole picture and how my lagging sex hormones were the missing link.
I also found Liz Earle's wellbeing podcasts really informative, some great ones on Thyroid and Menopause.
Dr Louise Newsom is a force majeure! Bet here Dr regrets refusing her HRT! 😏
Hi, all these symptoms are so me, I'm hypo and menopausal, can I kindly ask which book this list is in, currently suffering with Gastro issues, which has got worse in the past 12months (been referred to non clinical gastro clinic), could be a coincidence but now looking at this list it seems since I started HRT June 2021, I've been on NDT for years, recently added in levo and I have the mirena, thanks in advance.
It came from this book, which I found in the library, I don't remember much else about it but this page stuck. Read before starting T3 so memory of a goldfish 🙄 probably worth a revisit
Thank you muchly, I'll see if I can source a copy, have a lovely day ☀️
Despite them saying gum disease is not related, oral manifestations are many with thyroid disorder so I’d disagree with them on that one:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Same for urinary problems:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Also osteoporosis:
mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/d...
Yes, I agree it isn't without flaws, I think it's nearly 20 years old.... not that much has changed.
My mother eventually died of renal failure... don't think she was ever treated for Hypo.
Funnily enough just back from the dentists and all good, less inflammation 😉
Bladder wise 6 of one, half dozen of the other as my mother liked to say
Osteoporosis is after all of us it would seem, if we don't optimise our systems 🙄
Sorry about your mum that’s very sad. Mine had all sorts of weird things go wrong for years, once she went to hossie and had to sleep in naked a net because her skin started falling off and clothing was too excruciating to wear, we weren’t even allowed to see her. She had strange and sudden mood changes and often passed out, she cried a lot. Later on she ignored a huge goitre it was like a bull frog - enourmous, hid it under polo neck jumpers once she told me she was scared of having having her neck operated on. We could not persuade her to see a doctor about it. Then out of the blue she sought help - it was suffocating her by this time they had to give her emergency chemotherapy and amazingly it shrunk it by half the next day and she survived with a long course of aggressive treatment that her 28 year old friend she met there going through the same thing did not. It upset her greatly that she died so young of the same cancer - a rare thyroid one. She got 8 good years of remission but it came back and it was a pitiful demise. I am sure it would have been a better outcome if she had sought treatment earlier. Another relative had it and had a thyroidectomy and is still fine after 25 years. Levothyroxine was fine for them but it didn’t suit me.
It’s good you are raising it, as the symptoms are almost identical and there should be more awareness especially in the medical profession. All my problems were blamed on menopause by the medics, even though I asked several times if it might he a thyroid disorder and that it was in the family. - oh no of course it wasn’t they told me without even doing a thyroid function test. But I often wonder if they weren’t mostly thyroid disorder symptoms, as menopause came and went and I became more and more unwell so it couldn’t be the menopause now. I got a diagnosis of Atropic autoimmune thyroiditis so it was the thyroid all along. Perhaps it was the lack of goitre and being thin that made them dismiss it out of hand like that even with a family history of it and a shed load of symptoms, no one seemed to think it was hyperthyroidism which at that point it was probably was presenting as such at that juncture. Oddly, I still get hot flushes despite being a decade out of menopause. Worse in the winter & often after eating so even they may not be 100% menopausal in origin.
Kind words, thank you 🙏
I think the best we can do is be as knowledgeable as we can, now we know we have it in our gene's and help our families get the best education, diet and early intervention.
Estrogen and progesterone speeds up the passage of food through your gut, once levels drop you never really get over it you just learn to accept it... they now realise that it's never too late to give HRT a try... really good for your heart and bone health in later years 🤗
yes it seems it’s all changed since my menopause days I did take HRT but listening to younger friends it’s nothing like what they get today. It used to be regarded as dangerous to take it post menopause. I hear it is common now. My bones and heart could do with a bit of youthful vigour! I should do some research on HRT today
Possibly the age of more women Dr's and high flying Women reaching the age and utterly furious at their own treatment... this is certainly how Dr Newson became an activist... her male GP wouldn't give her any HRT!
They are very keen to hand out all sorts of other pills but not so keen on giving your body something it recognises but lacks???
I heard a lovely podcast talking with a lady who had taken HRT for 50 years and watched her friends who were naysayers drop by the way side as she sailed smoothly on and another who had treated herself for her ninetieth birthday with a visit to Dr Louise Newson's clinic to get some!
I still top my engine oil up in my car too... even when she has done over 100,000miles plenty of life and adventurers in the old banger yet 😉😀
p.s. my mother (outlaw) has just started on estrogen age 89 (full hysterectomy 40 years ago)... lets see how that pans out.... in the last 40 years she has tried quite literally every treatment going, her Dr actually said "The cupboard is bare... There is nothing left to try"!
Except of course vitamins, minerals and hormones! 🙄
It can't possibly make her any worse 😱🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think this is something that needs to be shouted about. There’s currently lots of noise around menopause (rightly) but I’ve just begun to realise how much the symptoms overlap. My thyroid started to play up at the same time as I must have been going in to menopause. This was 20 years ago now when none of this was talked about. Now I wonder how much of what I’ve been blaming on my thyroid was/is in fact sex hormone related. It is time medics and the media joined all this together and took it seriously.
This is not so difficult to imagine given that ALL hormones work together and it's ONE endocrine system we have, not spearate bits for thyroid, sex, crotisol and what's not. When one hormone goes out of whack it will impact on all other hormones, and the body can only keep compensating for so long before most of them will be imbalanced one way or another. And symptoms will overlap becuase essentially they are our bodies' way of telling us something is wrong and needs attention. The difficult bit is working out what is the cause, what needs addressing first and how they will all interact once you start making changes to one part of the system.
You are so right, it all makes perfect sense but the NHS don't treat you holistically they like to treat individual symptoms which is lunacy for people's health and the state of an overstretched health service🤷♀️
Spot on. The nhs could start with appropriate testing eg a full thyroid panel not the menopause brush off or if you’re very lucky a TSH only test. They might unravel the mystery if they looked in the right places for evidence, used sensible ranges and understood what optimisation actually means and how to get there. They really need to bone up on combination therapy as it will be the future, as it was also the past. I hope t4 monotherapy becomes seen as an unfortunate blip in the history of treatment.
I found once I was optimised on NDT a lot of other things righted themselves. As you say it all works in concord.
CHRONIC HEAD/NECK & JAW PAIN - diagnosed Hypothyroid & maybe menopausal symptoms 
Hypothyroidism vs menopause
Hypothyroidism OR Menopause Or BOTH?!
Menopause and hypothyroidism 
