Does anyone with hypothyroidism get exhausting flare-ups linked to their cycle?

[Lottiefranks]

I have hypothyroidism and I’m wondering if anyone else experiences a similar occurrence to me and whether you have any suggestions on how to manage it.

For some background, my condition is well managed via medication according to my blood tests. I do however still experience symptoms daily and sometimes worse than others, flares if you like.

However, the one that gets me is such an accumulation of emotional and physical symptoms that I end up unable to do anything. It starts with headache, and fatigue. My mind races with loads of thoughts, or things I want to do but I can’t settle or focus on any of those thoughts. My body aches, I lose appetite, become sensitive to noise, can’t focus on a conversation and just have an overwhelming urge to bury myself in my bed, close my eyes and hibernate. It will last a day or two and then I come out of it. But during I can’t make simple decisions, what to wear, what to eat etc. It’s debilitating at the time.

Does anyone else go through this? If yes, do you notice any link to your monthly cycle - I’m trying to track that at the moment.

Yes I get similar to this. I have treatment resistant hypothyroidism and I still have a high TSH (12 on the last test) despite taking 300mcg thyroxine.

Near ovulation, and again just before my period starts, I get such an overwhelming tiredness that I just fall asleep mid task sat upright. It comes on so suddenly, usually around 6ish hours after I wake up and I end up going to bed mid afternoon and sleeping through to the next morning. It's honestly closer to passing out rather than falling asleep, I can't fight it at all, and even if I manage to open my eyes it never lasts more than a couple of mins before another wave comes and I pass back out.

I then often get "hyper awakness" where I can't sleep for 20-30 hours afterwards. It makes maintaining a sleeping pattern almost impossible.

I am experiencing this right now. I am hypo too and blood tests are normal. The fatigue and brain fog I get in the week before my cycle is absolutely awful. I also feel cold, skaky, my skin is pale and dry - puffy sore eyes… I basically look and feel as though I am very hypothyroid. Is this an acknowledged medical symptom, it feels different to what people might describe as PMT or PMD

This sounds like something I read linked to endo, and a friend who has had thyroid issues does feel it's linked to cycles.

Forgot to say in my last post, I 100% know it's due to my cycles as when my thyroid results get too out of whack, my cycles stop entirely and I stop getting both the excessive tiredness and the hyper awakeness. I went without having a period for 8 months until I managed to get my TSH back under control (my dose is so high only my endo is able to change it, not a GP, and waiting list times mean I'm often waiting months for a simple dose increase).

During those 8 months I had horrible hypo symptoms but no cycle related ones. My periods started again after my last dose increase 2 months ago and it's happening again.

Yes!!
The overwhelming fatigue where I can be functioning normally then its like the brain just switches off and within 10 minutes I need to sleep.
And the general weakness where I don't even have the strength to hoover and for a few days I live like a slob until it clears.