Reducing thyroxine advice please

[Simplyred57]

I recently started to reduce my thyroxine from 100mcg as my t4 was still a bit high in range (I’m taking T3 also ) I’m doing it gradually but my mercury pharma 100mcg pills are very crumbly so finding it hard to split them daily so have reduced 2 days to 50 mcg so an on 85.71 per week , is there an easier way to further reduce, Im doing this for 6 weeks then would like to reduce further then will retest ( my Endo on board with this ) but I don’t want to ask for 75mcg pills in case I feel terrible.

My results before reducing were FT4 -21 ( 12-23 ) FT3 -6 ( 3.1-6.8

Thank you advance 😊

[FallingInReverse]

Do you feel symptomatic on that dose?

[Simplyred57 in reply to FallingInReverse]

I have a lot of inflammation in my joints and since reducing my body does feel a little it calmer.

[helvella Administrator]

You could ask to be prescribed a combination of 50 and 25 tablets - all Mercury Pharma. That would allow a much less dramatic choice of alternate day dosing (or other pattern).

I definitely prefer to be in the same dose every day.

[Simplyred57 in reply to helvella]

Yes I could but I would rather stick with my 100mcg for the moment if possible as the last time I reduced to 75mcg a few years ago I felt terrible , probably because I reduced too quickly and it took ages to get my prescription re instated , I feel ok so far I’ve reduced on a Tuesday and Saturday.

[arTistapple in reply to Simplyred57]

Yes I think that’s why helvella made his suggestion. It’s not about reducing your prescription it’s just about allowing it to be more flexible for you and keeping your current dosage in total. No worries about trying to get your 100mcg replaced again this way.

I have been trying similar as I was under the impression that an endo was taking on my case, which he much later declined. My T4 was running too high whilst my T3 was disappearing almost altogether. So I started making preparation by reducing my dose. I had not too much trouble reducing it. The T4 level just ran down gradually and I even experienced one single day of feeling brand new (till I hit a bad point). However trying to get it back up again now is a nightmare.

No doubt you have thought about it seriously but one tends to forget how lousy one can feel whilst on an even more useless dose than before!

[helvella Administrator in reply to arTistapple]

Yes - that was my thought.

If prescribed one 50 and two 25s, then it is trivial to adjust dose to 75 or 125. And by splitting one 25, you can get 87.5 or 112.5. (Or alternate day dosing.)

[Simplyred57 in reply to helvella]

Good thinking will have a word with my pharmacy they’re normally very good 😊

[helvella Administrator in reply to Simplyred57]

I was assuming your endocrinologist being on board meant you could get your prescription re-written. The pharmacy cannot just substitute different dosages so you will probably need a new prescription. But always a good idea to talk with pharmacy first!

[Simplyred57 in reply to arTistapple]

Oh that doesn’t sound good for you I hope your feeling better soon , Im going to hold this dose and retest before changing again . Yes it’s a fine line and I definitely don’t want to be ill again , it’s just my T4 was a bit high considering I’m on T3 and loads of inflammation in my joints so will be patient and retest in 8 weeks and see how I feel and see what the numbers say.