Overactive thyroid following pregnancy

[Pitstop1986]

I had subclinical hypothyroidism before I got pregnant, which I took 50mg of levothyroxine for. During pregnancy, that was increased to 100mg daily to keep my TSH below 2.5.

About 2 weeks after I'd given birth I had a blood test and my T4 levels were 24, so was told to reduce the dose back to 50. I had another appointment on Friday just gone, with a blood test Wednesday and was told to stop taking the thyroxine for 3 weeks before the blood test. In those 3 weeks I was off it, I felt like crap. The blood tests came back that my T4 was very high ,(despite me feeling like crap). I'm having blood tests repeated, but the endocrinologist is suspecting that it's graves disease.

Has anyone had a overactive thyroid following pregnancy and if so, did it settle after time?

I'm hesitant to be given a diagnosis when I'm suspecting it's just my hormones going a bit mad post pregnancy.

Do you have any other symptoms? I developed graves after my first pregnancy and it was hell. Lost a lot of hair, chronic insomnia, palpitations. Felt really unwell. I went on a block and replace treatment, carbimazole to stop my thyroid producing the antibodies that were attacking my system and then thyroxine to replace the missing hormones. Went into remission after roughly 18 months but the meds helped massively.

As well as thyroid hormones they’ll also test for antibodies to confirm a graves’ diagnosis

Yes, mine was normal before pregnancy and afterwards it went crazy. It swung very quickly from hyper to hypo - or maybe the other way round - I'm not sure now. The doctor wanted to put me on Thyroxine but I felt that it was just pregnancy related so I refused. Eventually it went back to normal. There's a thing called post partum thyroiditis if I remember rightly.

Thanks for your replies. I googled postpartum thyroiditis and it does seem to look like that's what I'm suffering from.

The endocrinologist has tested for thyroid antibodies to see if it is Graves disease so at least I'll know one way or another.

I'm seeing the endocrinologist tomorrow, but had accupuncture earlier this week and feel a little better in myself. I was getting night sweats before, but they've stopped now