Scared to take thyroxine

[inthewoods4]

Hi, I’ve been struggling with what I thought were mental health problems for 18 months, but have just found out my thyroid is under active. It’s classed as subclinical with a TSH of 4.5 and the doctor has given me 12.5mcg to start with.
Stupidly I’ve gone down too many rabbit holes and been told it could make me feel worse, and as anxiety has been my main problem, this has really scared me! Can anyone reassure me?

Honestly, I can barely imagine that 25mcgs is doing anything at all to your body, let alone 12.5.

Levothyroxine can make you feel worse before you feel better and brain fog and fatigue are symptoms of an underactive thyroid. The reason this happens is because when your body is not producing enough T4 your body works overtime to convert what little you have to as much T3 as possible (which is the hormone your body uses). When some artificial T4 is introduced, your body chills out in its rush to convert as it thinks oh it’s ok, there’s more T4 now. So your T3 can actually fall initially as your T4 increases when on very low doses of levo.

As your levothyroxine is increased you should start to feel better though, it’s just a bit of a process you have to get through. Very normal and nothing to worry about.

I felt a difference at 12.5- the palpitations in the morning went quite quickly. I’ve always been really sensitive to medicines though

Thank you