Just wondering..... If the outer third of someone's eyebrows disappears due to low thyroid hormone levels, does it grow back when that person gets 'optimal'?
If the eyebrows haven't grown back, is that a clue that the person hasn't reached optimal yet, and may need to increase thyroid treatment dose?
Just wondering if the eyebrow hair should be somewhat of a clue, or if it's irrelevant and just focus more on the lab numbers?
Like all things thyroid I don't think it's that straightforward or the same for everyone. Mine have grown back but I'm definitely not optimal yet and have lots of other symptoms still. Some symptoms have abated on starting treatment and others haven't at all
I have hair on my head and eyelashes, the outer ends of my eyebrows, and a little pubic hair and that's all-bare legs, underarms, forearms too! I was overactive 40 years ago caused by stress when my Dad died in 1980, took 2 years of Carbimizole to bring it back to 'normal' then was ok until a thyroid nodule in my neck in 2000 meant I had become underactive, and have been on thyroid meds since then. Levo only until last December when I was put on a 3 month trial of T3 (5mcg day) and nearly back to something resembling normal, as the T3 has been added to my 125mcg Levo, but still carrying 6-7 kgs more than I am happy with, but it is going s-l-o-w-l-y.
Well, mine haven't regrown and I've been optimally treated for ten years. But it does happen for some people. We're all different.
So, I don't think eyebrow regrowth is a reliable enough symptom to base dosing on. Other symptoms plus blood levels are more reliable. 
Mine have definitely improved with optimal thyroid medication… but not as long an arch as I used to have & definitely not as thick.
I didn't lose too much eyebrows, and more the middle than edge weirdly. Mine did grow back after my hair in general stopped falling out. Also, I didn't lose hair for that long, maybe 4-5 months.
Once your general health improves, things like eyebrows and hair should get better. Be patient, take care of yourself.
Mine have not grown back. It may be something to do with how long it was before getting treated optimally. In my case I went 16 years with no treatment.
my eyebrows have never grown back and what is left is not as thick. Likewise my hair is no longer as thick.
can I ask what do you mean with optimal treatment?
I suppose, in a nutshell, optimal levels are those at which you feel your best, symptoms are subsiding and your blood levels … well, that’s trickier because some people feel their best when thyroid hormones are middling and others feel good only when they’re very high. In the case of the pituitary hormone, TSH, lower seems to be the order of the day
Same applies to nutrients except to say that there seems to be a more prescriptive idea of what optimal is. Unfortunately many doctors don’t seem to worry about nutrient levels being low. This is also the case with thyroid hormone levels. Hence the need for this forum
I would consider myself optimally treated for the past few years, but my eyebrows have never grown back. Neither did the hair I Iost, but we are all different.
My head hair grew back ok but eyebrows not, they did thicken a little bit in the middle but on the outer third i have about 4 hairs on each side. I get them tinted every 3 months or so and in between I draw them on with a brow pencil. 🌱 and yes optimal everything vits, thyroid etc etc. it’s individual as others say.
mine grew back
Mine is starting to look reasonably normal, lol. But I don't think that's much of a guide to your actual levels. I'd go much more by lab results.
I never really lost mine but 14m in and mine are now awful. I am blonde haired anyway but I have what I can now describe as awful coarse white wiry things that grow amongst the normal ones. Others seem to grow against normal the direction.
Whether this is to do with thyroid or age related hormones (68) is a thought though.
It seems entirely reasonable to expect them to grow back if adequately treated.
But the truths are:
We do not know why the outer third is affected. It is not as if other hair isn't affected but this is a specific peculiarity.
We see lots of people who have never fully recovered their outer thirds whatever thyroid hormone treatment they receive.
If we actually knew why it happens - in detail - we might then understand why they do not tend to fully return to their former glory! And identify if some extra factors exist which also need to be addressed.
I went untreated for hypothyroidism for decades. My eyebrows were mostly unaffected, but as I've got older I have coarse hairs in my eyebrows which grow in random directions and won't lie down. Other eyebrow changes have occasionally been noticeable - small gaps appear in them and having bald bits in my eyebrows is quite embarrassing because I think they are very noticeable. They haven't really improved much with thyroid treatment.
There are other long-term symptoms of untreated hypothyroidism that rarely get mentioned but which, for me at least, did disappear after I started treatment for hypothyroidism in my 50s, having had the problem since childhood.
One of those symptoms is known as "dirty elbows", but in my case it affected both elbows and knees. As a teenager moving from wearing socks to wearing tights I remember I would tear tights frequently on the skin of my knees which were discoloured, extremely dry, very, very rough, and the skin seemed to be thicker than normal skin. I read a passing description in a novel that said such skin could do justice as a nutmeg grater, but the author clearly thought it was a sign of old age. It isn't - it is a sign of hypothyroidism.
After a while of my hypothyroidism being treated my knees and elbows returned to "normal".
Another fairly common symptom that rarely appears in lists of symptoms and isn't mentioned by doctors is plantar fasciitis (PF). But it is mentioned quite often on this forum.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant...
My PF did disappear fairly quickly after starting hypothyroidism treatment, and I did notice it disappearing, unlike the "dirty elbows". I must admit, getting rid of the almost permanent sore feet was wonderful.
Mine grew back - one is pretty normal and the other grows hair vertical to my face. Nothing will flatten them. I look like a mad professor.
Now I have started growing hair right down to my eyelids, and dreadlocks in each nostril. Its such fun growing old!
Oh, thank you to everyone for all your replies! It is great for me to read the variation in people's experiences here. Thank you for your honesty, and for giving me some perspective. I really enjoyed reading the responses, and had a laugh at a few. I guess the eyebrows are not necessarily the thing to look at when trying to get optimal.
Thank you also to @Noelnoel for answering the query regarding 'optimal'. You did it much better than I would have!
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Do the eyebrows ever grow back?
