Do hypertension meds (calcium antagonist and beta blocker), need to be taken 4hours after eltroxin?

[foxglove]

[Jackie]

Hi I have always taken Armour at the same time as my cardiac drugs, well a few minutes apart. I have lots of cardiac medicine including Beta blockers which I have to take at 6 am so I cannot take the Amour at a different time.I do split the armour and the T3 but I have never found timing effected my thyroid results, I have thyroid tests at lease every 6 weeks, so I would know. Also I was having thyroid treatment when I first had all the cardiac drugs, they did not effect my thyroid. However, do not take Beta Blockers before a blood test for thyroid as although it does not effect the thyroid ,it does effect the result of the blood test.I was also on calcium channel blockers for my heart, a horrible drug!I can no longer take it, thank goodness!

Jackie

[foxglove in reply to Jackie]

Hi Jackie, thanks for detailed reply, sorry calcium channel blockers didn't work for you however fine for me, different drugs suit different people as they say- we're all different. THANKS BE!!!

[vajra]

Hi Foxglove. I'm not a reliable source in the sense that while i have done some digging on the topic my memory is fuzzy. (no, not for that reason :)) I too take a range of blood pressure pills including both of the types you mention.

Experience and what i recall suggests that beta blockers do mess with some of the metabolic processes by which we use thyroid and probably other metabolic hormones, but i've not seen anything to suggest that they disturb the absorption of the hormone we take. While it may or may not mean a lot, the various endos i've been under don't seem to regard this as a problem either, and seem perfectly happy that I take them with the thyroid hormone.

My blood pressure seems to be largely adrenal in origin, and as it happens those are the two types of medication that seem most effective to control it. The beta blocker seems to be especially important. I take a couple more types of pill as well, but the effect is much less marked - to my mind stopping them wouldn't matter a lot.

Not too sure how good they are for us in the long run, or how much of this is specific to me - but i find that beta blockers need some care to feel well on. Even a little too much (an extra +1/4 of a 5mg Nebilet) leaves me feeling as though I was hypo. Even a bit too little (- 1/4) is much less effective at controlling the blood pressure. My present dose is 1 1/4 tabs of 5mg daily.

The other brands of beta blocker i've tried were less effective to control blood pressure, but created worse side effects of this sort at similar dosages....

ian

[foxglove in reply to vajra]

Hi varja

thanks for your detailed and interesting reply - very helpful. Hadn't thought about b.p. being related to adrenals but what you say makes sense, to an extent expect it's the usual trial and error route!

much appreciate your sharing experiences and explanation thereof

Cheers

[ritz]

i take the larger part of my armour 2g at night and beta blocker in the morning.

it is the armour keeps my bp low

[foxglove in reply to ritz]

Thanks ritz, this is the answer to my Q!, vajra has gone to a lot of trouble to try to help, but not quite what I was asking - maybe I didn't explain too well. Grateful for new knowledge anyway

[vajra]

Just a quickie on adrenals/thyroid hormone, beta blockers and blood pressure.

There are lots of other causes/mechanisms that control blood pressure, and which can cause high blood pressure/be the basis of means to control it. (although i've always felt very good about the seemingly major disconnect between the apparent understanding implied by all the theory, and the apparently pot luck approach applied by the system in choosing which blood pressure medication to try)

Here's a quick link to presumably informed comment on the fact that beta blockers are (a) used to treat hyperthyroidism, and (b) that they act by inhibiting T4 to T3 conversion but not hormone production: mayoclinic.com/health/grave...

Beta blockers also act to inhibit the effects of too much adrenal hormone, and the raised blood pressure that can result.

Here's a decent piece that Googled up just now that discusses the effect of adrenal hormone on blood pressure in the context of adrenal fatigue and related issues: drlam.com/articles/adrenal_...

Another that sets out how beta blockers act to inhibit the effect of catecholamines (the collective name given to the various adrenal/stress hormones): hopkinsmedicine.org/endocri...

ian

[vajra]

PS strategic typo above: '(although i've NEVER felt very good about the seemingly major disconnect between the apparent understanding implied by all the theory, and the apparently pot luck approach applied by the system in choosing which blood pressure medication to try)

ian

[foxglove in reply to vajra]

you've gone to a loy of trouble to try to help - didn't mean to cause this much bother. Agree with the hit and miss, pot luck approach seemed to be employed in deciding meds. Had a nurse tell me once that it was a Q of trying till finding something that worked, felt it was acase of "pick and mix"

[ritz]

although pick and mix sounds bad - how else could you do it? we are all so different and react differently to drugs.

my dr tried all sorts of bp medication on me - none worked and many had weird side effects.....till i saw dr s and he changed me first to t3 then added in armour, 3 weeks into taking armour my bp dropped so low i had to stop all bp meds except the beta blockers = the high bp was being caused by being under treated hypo on levo which i did not respond to at all not any of the usual high bp suspects.

though oddly there was no pick and mix at the gp's when it came to treating for being hypo - it was levo or nothing!!

sha

[foxglove in reply to ritz]

Agree in gen. but I think levo is the best answer to hypo. experimenting with T3( which I consider a dangerous treatment -just my opinion) and armour etc no different than using hit and miss for bp drugs, and the gp usually knows where he's at with levo. If given a chance works for most. Still really pleased you've got a gp who seems willing to offer assorted thyroid meds., seems to be your answer

Comment edited slightly by admin

[vajra]

No prob FG, happy to try to help.

I'm all for sensibly constructed practical trials, and agree that the results often don't fit the theory R.

The trouble to my mind is that the system often wants to have it both ways - to justify actions based on theory and refuse trials and/or poo non-text book reactions (like in the case of the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism using the stock blood tests), or to talk a lot about the theory in a way that suggests the process is well understood - but in practice to have to resort to trials to find a solution. (in the case of blood pressure)

I guess T4 if it works for you is the best deal FG (less volatile, cheaper, once a day etc etc), but some of us do find that we can't use the stuff properly due to conversion issues.

I'd agree that it's best to stay on T4 if it's truly doing the job.

Ultimately it's in the end best too for example if you are a bit hypo not to take hormone at all. In that it tends to be a one way road because the thyroid reduces capability to suit, and you never get off it. Better if you can to get sorted via diet and other healing modes - to for example stop the inflammatory processes that underly a lot of thyroid disease.

Trouble is it didn't work for me - I dragged myself around doctors for 15 years unable to get a diagnosis of hypothyroidism while my health and life went down the tubes as a result of steadily worsening direct and secondary illness. With most of the classic symptoms highly evident.

I even knew what was wrong (bought book copies for my GP), but couldn't get treated because I couldn't get anybody to look past the stock blood test values. i.e. they didn't seem even to understand the possibility that a person can end up hypo because even though they are producing decent amounts of hormone they can't use the stuff. (as in their conversion processes are messed up)

It took serious illness the investigation of which discovered a thyroid cancer - and then suddenly they were dead keen to pump hormone into me. Which (it took luck too) opened the way to accessing some T3....

ian

[foxglove in reply to vajra]

Good of you to share your story and I wish you continued health

I was started on T4 without being told that body would stop its own production of hormone or at least slow down. Just given repeat script and told to have annual blood tests I was only mildly hypo, no symptoms at all,thyroid function checked when having routine bloods done, if I had had full info would have tried diet etc as you suggested. By the time I found out had been on levo for 2 years and doc. threw a right wobbly when I said I felt cheated and was just going to stop (only on 25mcg eltroxin and thyroid is fine, I do stop from time to time,- for about 10 wks - don't feel any different then get frightened and restart. Don't know what bloods are when stopped as I rely on gp for tests and don't have the nerve to be tested when not on levo, afraid to go it alone, I'm 73 and possibly will need doc. more as I get older

Fortunately don't seem to be the least bit affected like a lot of folks who post on TUK, sad that it took areally serious illness for you to be listened to and have some action -all my sympathy

Once again thanks thanks for sharing and giving me lots of info,much more than doc did, and yes I'm fotunate that I trundle along on T4. When my dose was 50 mncg FT3 rose to 9.7 (this caused doc to throw another wobbly, was made to feel it was my fault) and I was extremely out of sorts that's why I'm wary of T3

I did trial NDT for a bit but that was big mistake was so "high" even on a tiny dose. Think I have opposite prob. from most hypos ie convert too well to T3!!!

[vajra]

This in a sense is the issue with 'thyroid' FG - there's so many sorts of illness that it can throw up and docs often don't seem to get it.

It sounds like you might be a classic case of primary hypothyroidism - where your thyroid backed off a bit for some reason, but you weren't ill for long enough for secondary processes like conversion to run down, and for consequent conditions to kick in. (sounds like you have good karma! :))

It's quite possible I think that maybe you started taking some missing mineral (copper or selenium, or topped up your iodine levels, or resolved similar issue - and your thyroid kicked back in. A related possibility is that your gut was acting up, and that you weren't absorbing what you needed or whatever. It's even possible to start down the Hashimotos/auto immune issues road, but for it to settle down again or respond to a change in lifestyle or diet.

Those of us that run for a long time undiagnosed can end up with chronic and horribly hard to resolve (lots of trial and error, time, luck and help from above) secondary problems when processes that needed hormone start to run down and generate all sorts of auto immune, cardio vascular, metabolic, cognitive, spiritual, mental and other problems.

There seem to be some of us too that have genetic tendencies towards one or other of the categories of hypothyroidism.

Then there's diseases that directly attack links in the chain, but with origins elsewhere.

Pardon my waffling, but it's nice to get an excuse to try to set out a picture. The point is just to show that as ever in matters health related the situation is often very complex.

One major problem in this sort of situation as ever is the professional dogmatism, patient conditioning and fear of liability and/or other consequences that prevent us and them using our natural intelligence.

It turns medics into one trick ponies. Especially the variety that fixate on the blood tests as being the only way to diagnose a hypothyroidism - who use a so called 'normal' blood result to claim that other downstream processes are fine when in fact the tests give a highly unreliable indication of what's going on there.

Patients end up in dependency mode, and are blocked from taking responsibility for their own health.

It's always about mixing trials, results and theory in an intelligent and especially in a co-operative (doctor and patient together) way - even in the engineering which is my background..

Great to hear of somebody doing well on T4, although truth be told it sounds like you and your body have it well under control...

ian

[foxglove in reply to vajra]

Lovely encouraging reply, kind of you to suggest I might have good Karma! - must be from a previous life as I have not been the best in this one.

Oddly enough a doc. once said "somebody up there looking after you" my reply "or the Devil looks after his own". Not took it seriously at the time but now I wonder. Was nothing to do with typoT long time before that

Also liked the fact that you did not suggest that I might be undermedicated Most of TUK folks seem to scream more more more - bit like Oliver Twist. Agree that human body is capable of lots of self help given the chance. Do not want to end up in dependecy mode but sometimes feel I'm being pushed that way underneath awareness level

How clever of you to spot that I might be making some life changes... diet etc this was due to another prob and did probably help with thyroid in a subtle way. Doc. wouldn't have this of course, do my best to sort out things but end up upsetting. Our practice has 8 gps, 6 nurses ancilliary staff and I'm running out of folks to upset. Even been told on occasion may be "STUCK OFF" , and only doing my best to be helpful

My turn for a waffle - nothing like it. And love the idea that me and poor old body maybe have it under control. Possibly in better nick than I had thought

Dont know where you are but if it's as cold as here do take care and wrap up warm

From one waffler to another Cheers