Hi I'm new to this group.I have suffered with an underactive thyroid for years and taken many different brands of levothyroxine. I was taking levothyroxine accord 100mcg for a few years but last year a dr said it needed to be reduced to 75mcg. Within a few months of doing 75mcg I had all the symptoms of hypothyroidism. I had a few 100s left so I doubled up for a month and I was fine. I ran out of meds so had a bloodtest and it came back as underactive again and was put on a new brand of meds levothyroxine Aristo in January.
I feel like I'm dying. My symptoms are worse than ever, the depression is crippling with suicidal thoughts, my face and neck are swollen, I ache, feel the cold etc. The meds were knocking me out. So I got a call back from a different gp and literally had to fight for my meds to be changed back to accord. He said I'm hyper not hypo and basically thinks I should lower the dose again. I refused and he's sent 100mcg accord to the pharmacy for me to pick up.
I'm so sick and tired of fighting this disorder. My mental health is shot. I'm 54yrs old, just had my mirena coil taken out and probably menopausal which I feel is all adding to my depression but I'm 99% sure levothyroxine Aristo had made things do much worse
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Anastasia9
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Request new prescription for 100mcg now and get a different brand
Many people find Levothyroxine brands are not interchangeable.
Most easily available (and often most easily tolerated) are Mercury Pharma or Accord
Mercury Pharma make 25mcg, 50mcg and 100mcg tablets
Mercury Pharma also boxed as Eltroxin. Both often listed by company name on pharmacy database - Advanz
Accord only make 50mcg and 100mcg tablets
Accord is also boxed as Almus via Boots, and Northstar 50mcg and 100mcg via Lloyds ....but Accord doesn’t make 25mcg tablets
beware 25mcg Northstar is Teva
Northstar levothyroxine being phased out this month
Many patients do NOT get on well with Teva brand of Levothyroxine. Teva is lactose free.
Teva contains mannitol as a filler instead of lactose, which seems to be possible cause of problems. Mannitol seems to upset many people, it changes gut biome
But for some people (usually if lactose intolerant, Teva is by far the best option)
Aristo (currently 100mcg only) is lactose free and mannitol free. Not widely available. Some love …some don’t
Wockhardt is very well tolerated, but only available in 25mcg tablets. Some people remain on Wockhardt, taking their daily dose as a number of tablets
If a patient reports persistent symptoms when switching between different levothyroxine tablet formulations, consider consistently prescribing a specific product known to be well tolerated by the patient.
Physicians should: 1) alert patients that preparations may be switched at the pharmacy; 2) encourage patients to ask to remain on the same preparation at every pharmacy refill; and 3) make sure patients understand the need to have their TSH retested and the potential for dosing readjusted every time their LT4 preparation is switched (18).
Assuming it is Aristo upsetting you get note added to all future prescriptions “No Aristo”
Meanwhile get vitamins tested via GP
Having dose levothyroxine inappropriately reduced likely resulted in lower vitamin levels
Hi, I was on levothyroxine Accord 75mcg, I had bloods done in November 2022 and they came back normal so continued with those but Christmas I came down with a virus and by January I had a chronic kidney infection so the gp put me on ciprofloxacin antibiotics which I since learned are toxic to the thyroid. I got my bloods done again and was told they were under so put on the different meds a week later at 100mcg.
I was taking 50s and 25s, I take mine at night 4 hours after food. I have bloodtests on 8th March which will be to check thyroid and menopause. Thank you, I'll ask for vitamin levels too, I wasn't aware I could do that.
Anastasia9 'He said I'm hyper not hypo and basically thinks I should lower the dose again.'
Please get your actual test results and post them here asap. Symptoms of hypo and hyper can cross over. Your doctor may right, but without your test results we can't say one way or the other.
'just had my mirena coil taken out and probably menopausal which I feel is all adding to my depression '
Do not underestimate the effect of menopause on the brain. Thyroid hormones are in control of other hormones, so if your thyroid hormones are shot, then that will also affect your sex hormone levels.
hang in there .. the combination of menopause and Levo dose going wonky at the same time, did a proper number on my mental health for a while , but life is much better a few years later now everything has settled down again .
at the time , i thought 'if life's going to be like this from now on, you can keep it ~ and if my routine cancer test comes back positive i don't mind at all because i can get off the bus'
.. but i'm pretty happy with things again now .
i agree with redapple .. don't underestimate the effect of menopause on your head and your hormones,, including thyroid hormones... but life is often a lot beter once you are out the other side of it.
Thank you. I'm due blood tests on 8th March to see where I am with the menopause as pretty sure I'm out the other side of it now and will hopefully get optimal results for my thyroid. I've got two different Dr's contradicting what other has said. The Dr that prescribed the toxic antibiotics said I'm hyper but the Dr whom did the bloodtests said I'm hypo and I've got all the symptoms.
"...on 100mcg for a few years but last year a dr said it needed to be reduced to 75mcg. Within a few months of doing 75mcg I had all the symptoms of hypothyroidism"
a 25mcg reduction (or increase) is often bigger than is needed ... I reduced from 125 to 100 and i became badly undermedicated ..but after putting it back up to 112.5 i'm now feeling ok again .
So it may have been better to try a smaller reduction to 87.5mcg rather than 75mcg ( IF a reduction was really needed)
I did need to reduce a couple of times after menopause , i had been on 150mcg for many yrs before , and then i got symptoms of overmedication on that dose a couple of years after my periods stopped for good. So had 125mcg for about 3 yrs , and then (after the above misadventure to 100mcg) ended up n 112.5mcg .
"I had a few 100s left so I doubled up for a month and I was fine"
Do you mean doubling the dose you took to 150mcg ?
The body (and mind) really don't like big /sudden changes in their level of thyroid hormone and 'everything' takes a long time to settle down again after it's happened. 25mcg at a time is really the biggest change you should do at one time .. and even that is often to big.
"I ran out of meds so had a blood test and it came back as underactive again "
Same issue .....running out of Levo and taking 0 for '(how many days/ weeks ? ) means a huge/ sudden change in levels of T4/T3 that will often take several weeks to feel ok again ie. you'll still be feeling all over the place mentally and physically long after you start back on the same dose as before you ran out ... even if that dose is actually basically ok for you.
AND if you had recently had some time 'off' levo shortly before that test .. then that test would be misleading , it would probably still 'look' undermedicated ... ie it would still be showing the TSH level from the period of time without any Levo .. TSH can take a few weeks to settle after any dose change .. (this is why we wait 6 weeks for blood tests after a dose change) .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So basically ..(if i've understood what you did there ? ) all those dose changes in close succession will have done you no favours in how you are feeling , mentally and physically and that will take a while to improve even once you are back on a stable dose ... and your blood test will have been very misleading to the GP unless you were taking the same dose everyday for 6 weeks before the test.
p.s in my experience , i can feel wrong/ all over the place/ hypo symptoms for about the first 5 weeks after even a small dose reduction ... and then after things settle down and if the dose is actually going to be ok , things slowly improve from that point on .. so don't make your mind up too soon about how a new dose will feel once the body has had time to adjust to it .
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