Hypothyroidism Support Group

Tell your doctor that you're still tired. He may have to regulate your meds again.

You need to find out your Free T3 and Free T4 levels together with the TSH to get the complete picture to go with the meds you take.

Take care... :-)

I am on 175 mcg thyroxine a day and must admit i feel much better ,im sure we all have off days but have been diagnosed for about 5 years now and suppose you just deal with symptoms.Hope they get your med sorted and i am sure you will feel much better soon.

Welcome to the group. I was diagnosed in 2005. My dose has changed 3 times for Levothyroxine. I continually complained that I was lacking energy. Then the doctor got a (physician assistant) and he said I was on an awfully low dose, 25 mcg, tht it could be increased. I've been on 50 mcg since 2007 and the weakness in my knees is gone, and dry mouth, dry eyes is gone and, energy got better. I thanked the PA several times so he would know how to treat other patients. The Doctor kept telling me to take vitamins and exercise, but if I exercised it made me sleepy so I would be back in bed 2hrs later after getting up in the morning. I did not know I had a weakness in my knees; I just thought it was due to low energy. The Doctor also told me the dryness in my eyes and mouth was normal. I knew it wasn't normal. I never felt a dryness previously to this disease. I also changed doctors.
Maybe you need to do the same.
I do take a multi-vitamin which sort of helps. My numbers have always shown to be normal but the symptoms were not. Don't let them tell you there is nothing wrong due to your number range. I wish I had been educated on this when I was begging the doctor to change my dose. Now I know that I needed to change doctors. Oh, all my symptoms are gone from the time I was first diagnosed. I'm feeling close to normal again, except for the low energy. I use to have a bunch of energy, which I miss. I find that there isn't much info out there post-diagnosis. The info focuses on symptoms leading to the disease. I hope this info is helpful to you. Good luck

Hi Graceful,

I don't feel good about your doctor putting you on cytomel. Your body should be able to take snythroid and turn it into the same thing cytomel pills are. It is very rare that someone actually needs cytomel. Every blood vessel in your body has the enzymes to break T4 (replaced with synthroid) into T3 (what is in cytomel).

My advice, get a copy of your test results and get a second opinion. You may need a new doctor/thyroid specialist.

I'd go to www.justanswers.com for a cheap way to get someone to interpret your results from your thyroid panel/blood work. Give them T3, T4, TSh... all those numbers.

By the way, synthroid... doesn't.... well - work. It is just a replacement hormone for the hormone your body isn't making.

What synthroid does is it allows you to get your levels of thyroid hormone to right where they should be by replacing them. It can take 4 blood tests - once every two months - to regulate... then you might need every six months to every year after a while.

You don't just take it. You take, measure, adjust... take measure adjust - until you feel better and your lab work looks about right.

What are your lab results? Post them here and ask on justanswers.com

Ben

Justanswers.com has a doctor that specializes in sports medicine and will not know anything about thyroid. Also---taking all T4 which is what levothyroxine and Synthroid is, this is not helping people if their body cannot convert it to T3.

I have said it before---read the book "Stop the Thyroid Madness" it explains about the T4 and T3. I was on Levothyroxine for a year and it never gave me energy and did not treat the depression.

If a person is still having symptoms on the Levothyroxine---which is all T4 then obviously their body is not converting it to T3. Your dr was right in giving you the Cytomel, it is the synthetic version of T3 which your body can absorb right away. Perhaps it needs to be increased, the uaual conversion chart is 25 mcg Cytomel to 100 mcg of Synthroid.

There have been many, many people taken off Synthroid and Levothyroxine because their bodies can't make it from T4 to T3. Your dr will just keep increasing the Levo and it still won't help because it is not the correct med. Find someone (a dr) that understands Thyroid problems. Best Wishes