Please tell me about LEVOTHYROXINE

[muppetisacat]

Just started today on 50mg as diagnosed hypothyroid just before christmas. TSH level 12 and T4 level i think around 9 - so not massively bad compared to what some people seem to have been through...

have read on other posts that it is a good idea to avoid iron as it blocks absorption - also that it's a good idea to take the pill first thing on empty stomach. Did i dream that it is also bad to drink tea/coffee shortly thereafter?

Anything else good or bad about the drug?

Also, I have noticed a couple of articles about a possible link between Hypothyroidism and Mitral Valve prolapse (which i have too) has anybody else here got the two together? And if so has the drug made your MVP symptoms (eg.palpitations) any worse?

Many thanks in advance... all advice greatly received!

Bumping for you.

Hi,

I have been hypothyroid for 10 years and am on 150mcg thyroxine daily atm.

You need to make sure your iron levels stay within the accepted range otherwise you will suffer from greater lethargy. So don't avoid it, just be sensible with it. I find it best to take my tablets first thing in the morning about half an hour before I eat.

Iron tablets will only effect absorption if taken within 2 hours of taking your thyroxine.

thanks for that puzzle and silentlywondering. Do you have separate blood tests to check your iron levels? How would you know if they had dropped?

It tends to be a separate test to check iron levels, If I am feeling under the weather I usually ask the gp if they will check thyroid function and iron count just to make sure everything is ok. My levels still tend to fluctuate quite a bit I am hoping they will settle down sometime soon and I will be able to lose some weight and more importantly keep the weight off!

Yes the weight! Did you find it crept up gradually? with me it wasn't a noticeable piling on of the pounds - just an inability to lose much after my 3rd child and then a slow increase little by little - with me really not eating greatly or anything...

Yeap muppet after dd3 I just can't shift the weight no matter what I cut out and I'm on 125 a day

Should be dc3 don't have 3dd's

I noticed the changes from the age of 16 but didn't get a diagnosis till I was 24. I used to swim 4 nihts a week plus other exercsie and noticed that my weight was slowly creeping up and that I was tired and felt low, dry mouth and brittle hair. I was backwards and forwards to the gp like a yoyo but they didn't want to know. I was treated for depression/stress and told to go on a diet as they decided it was just down to the pressure of doing exams. Finally at the age of 24 I broke down in the dr's surgery because I had just been following weight watchers to the letter in an effort to control the weight gain and had actually put on 2 stone. A locum gp did the blood test (although she said it was just to rule it out as I was too young even though thyroid problems run in my fathers family.

In my 1st pregnancy everything luckily went well even though my thyroid wasn't monitored. Second went horribly wrong, third i was monitored more closely and had ds, 4th went wrong and I am now in a mild panic that this 5th pregnancy will go wrong! After each pregnancy I have had difficulty losing the weight at my largest I was a size 24. Had just managed to get down to a size 18-20 before Christmas and now find myself dreading how big I will get this time. I am swelling up round the middle like a balloon already!.

ohh I am currently on 150mcg/day.

oh silently it's a worry - i hope they are monitoring you closely and giving you lots of reassurance that this pg will be just fine. How many stories are there about people (not just thyroid issues) yo-yo-ing to the gp for months/years before something is diagnosed correctly. Isn't depression a really common symptom of hypothyroidism? How many people out there are prolly on ads when they should really be on thyroxine?

I'm with twopeople - I don't see it as a drug exactly (not like taking painkillers or Ads) I see it as replacing something that's missing. I'm on 175mg btw(and probably about to up it too)

I have a family history, my Mum was diagnosed with it in her late 30's. However she has it quite mildly, which is lucky because levothyroxiene gives her heart palpatations, so she takes Iodine supplements instead iirc.

I was diagnosed after having DS2 , put on three stone in 6 months and was so tired I wasn't able to get off the sofa - I used to ring DH in tears because I just couldn't understand why it was so bad.

silently wondering I am on 75mcg thyroxine, in my second pg it wasn't monitored well at all (hospital kept losing tests ) but in the end I saw an excellent consultant endocrynologist and he was very reassuring. so like serenity and twopeople, look on it like a vitamin supplement.

take care and best of luck to you

X

silentlywondering, have you had your dose of thyroxine increased while you were pg? I saw a consultant endocrinologist as soon as I found out I was pg with dc3 (my thyroid basically stopped working after I had dc2) and he immediately upped my dose by 50mcg to support the extra requirements places on the body during pg.

I think by the end I was on 75mcg extra but i had 6 weekly blood tests and appointments with the endo cons until about 28/30 weeks when they were happy my levels were stable.

muppet, i went to the GP when dc2 was 4mo thinking I had raging PND. I had all the symptoms of it but I was incredibly lucky that my GP was on the ball enough to run a few blood tests before he gave me a script for ADs.

I've been on thyroxine for over 25yrs and once reaching my optimum dose of 150mcg it has never changed once, despite two pg's and breastfeeding. Like others, I don't really consider it a medication, more a supplement.

I am interested in the palpitations link, though, as I am now getting some thumpety-thump heartbeats which I assumed was encroaching decrepiteness but maybe they're thyroid related?