Have you ever missed doses of levothyroxine?

[CrazyPuddin]

Posting here for traffic.

Have you ever missed doses and had effect from this?

I’m currently feeling rather poorly and trying to establish if this is the cause.

I usually take 125mcg daily and realised I’d taken about 5 days worth in 1 month due to forgetting most days.

For the last week I’ve had a constant headache that eases with painkillers but doesn’t go away completely. My heads felt foggy and I feel sort of dizzy. Like when your brain cannot keep up with your eyes.

Also had nausea, felt completely exhausted and some achy muscles.

I’ve now found an app on my phone that hounds me until I mark that over taken my medication and have now managed 5 days in a row but don’t yet feel any better.

I guess I’m not sure if me messing my medication is the cause so wanted to hear others experiences.

I’m also really struggling to get a gp appointment at the moment.

It's funny some people mentioning the morning cuppa. I was going thru a really sluggish phase and had been remembering tablets for quite a while and dh read that having dairy products within 30 mins affects them. I have now been taking my medication as I wake up and waiting for a cuppa and I think it is actually making a difference. I've not been as sluggish and I am starting to (slowly) lose weight despite being on a diet for years and years

I’ve managed 8 days of taking my medication correctly. The app I downloaded really has helped.

Unfortunately I still feel very ill and the symptoms haven’t changed much yet.

It can take 6 weeks to feel well when you are under active - which you will be again if you've missed 75% of your dose in a month. Please please do not under estimate how important thyroxine is to your overall health and well being including mentally.

How did you all get diagnosed? Did you work it out yourself and ask for a blood test?
I think I need to get my thyroid checked... but worried GP just say I am fat and lazy and need to lose weight.

Symptoms are (and have had them for years really)
Never ever feel like I’ve had a good nights sleep. Always wake up with a headache, fuzzy head. Takes me ages to wake up. Could sleep/laze around all day.
If walking uphill I feel faint and breathless very easily
Have anaemia on and off for years
Wake up breathless in the night
Dry skin, scaly skin on shins if I don’t moistures lots
Brittle nails that are always breaking. Have vertical ridges on all nails
Get pins and needles in hands several times a day. Occasionally in feet
Hair comes out in clumps (but I am very hairy so hair not thin)
Always cold, espcially hands and feet. But attempt exercise I over heat very quickly
Only way I can ever lose weight is to literally eat nothing - 500 calories a day. Which obviously isn’t sustainable
Constipated a lot like rabbit droppings
Lethargic and brain fog most of the time

@BrieAndChilli you absolutely do, and ask for the results some doctors are buggers for not prescribing. When you know the results check on thyroid.uk

I'm on 75mg & have forgotten it for up to three days except for once when I lost my tablets & had to wait for my next prescription. I suffer from peripheral neuropathy & have no feeling in my fingers, the tablets are a bugger to get out of the strips & I often lose tablets as I'm getting them out.

Alas, YES. I thought I was doing great, good compliance, been on same (high dose) for years, etcetera. My usual GP even thought so too. He’d written in my notes he didn’t think there was a problem with compliance - another GP read this note out to me. I had a smug moment. Then a few months later GP phoned to say my TSH etc were creeping up. I’d been feeling cold and sluggish. He’d done a count back and reckoned i was missing doses. I began writing the date I started a new box on the packet and all seems well now. Fortunately I can count to 14 so it’s easy to check back. I’ve also begun strictly taking my dose at the same time each day which helps me to remember.

Yes and felt awful, I now take it every day without fail after those very patchy 2 months! I had zero energy, felt depressed, nauseous and achy, it was awful, blood test confirmed my TSH was high.

I take the same medicine and have a little plastic tablet container that I use. I put the tablets into each day's section, leave the container on my bedside table at night with the next day's dose in the first section - then take it in the morning.

I do think a regular routine helps remember.

I take other medicines too, and have strict routines with them (or I would definitely forget).

OP I have been feeling similar symptoms as you and have the associated bad memory right down to appearing stupid when I am not .

I stopped taking Levo regularly in the last month due to being away and busy and I have similar pressure like headaches, extreme fatigue and I’ve lost my get up and go. I’m normally quite motivated and driven so somethings clearly not right. I’m only on 50mg and I didn’t notice a massive difference when I started taking it but perhaps the body doesn’t deal well with losing its regular supply of thyroxine and this is why we’re experiencing the headaches and fatigue.

I do find the pill box I use helps, its labelled mon - sun so I know if I’ve missed a dose and although you are supposed to take it at the same time everyday if I realised I had missed my morning dose I would just take it anytime later in the day.

I’ve been taking it again on and off in the last week but don’t feel any better, glad to hear from other posters that taking it regularly again will help, good luck OP it’s rubbish feeling too tired to function and feeling grumpy all day due to the headaches

I’ve been taking it again on and off in the last week but don’t feel any better, glad to hear from other posters that taking it regularly again will help, good luck OP it’s rubbish feeling too tired to function and feeling grumpy all day due to the headaches

Well taking it on and off for a week is about 3 doses, so no, you won’t feel any better. But if you take it every day for 4-5 week you will feel better. It’s not magic and it doesn’t work overnight.

Just buy some of a plastic boxes. They are £2 from your chemist, £1.50 in Superdrug and £1 from Primark. You can even but monthly ones from amazon.

Put the box somewhere you can’t miss it but out of the reach of young children. It’s not hard.