Thyroid Med
Hi Ladies,
First of all, let me say I love my gynocologist. She is the only doc who really "takes care" of me. She deals with the whole of me.When I go in and tell her "I'm not quite right, something is off," she deals.
I have been feeling crappy then fine. Up and down. After a full work up, my Free T3 is quite low. My thyroid is always "borderline," always suspect. Anywho, she started me on 5 mcg of Cytomel/day. I know Marianne has thyroid issues...anyone else? Anyone take this med? How do you do on it? The doc says it should help my energy and my overall sense of well-being. Here's hoping! Thanks for any input!
Love--LP
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Hi LP-
Cytomel was added to my synthroid in the late fall. Cytomel is also T3. The active thyroid hormone. Synthroid is T4 , which is the inactive hormone which our body converts to T3. Normal thyroids produce more t4, and small amts of T3.
I feel better since they added cytomel to my meds. I am a little different in that I was born without a functioning thyroid gland, and very lucky my pediatrician picked up, because it was before they did routine screening of thyroid in newborn.
They are still playing around with my doses., but I do feel better. I take the cytomel 2 x/day because it is short acting, and I probably have no more production by my own gland.
Things to look for as far as adverse reaction are signs of overactive thyroid. Increased HR, intolerance to heat, restless, decreased sleep- basically revved up.
For my synthroid, I need to take it separate from any kind of calcium/ iron, vitamin best if on an empty stomach. My Dr said it should not matter as much for cytomel, but I still try to take it on empty stomach.
Hope that helps
Tracy
Thanks, Tracy! That's great info. I'll be sure to keep tabs on any hyper-thyroid symptoms. Based on my levels, seems I really need this. I'll see how it goes!
Hi Gals,
I know this is the women's thread, but I thought I would throw my experience in here. In med school, I had Grave's Disease, which is an autoimmune hypERthyroidism disorder. For years, I had struggled with heat intolerance and excessive appetite. Okay, that is an understatement. Literally, I would eat an entire Papa Johns pizza with 2 beers for dinner all the time and I never weighed more than 135 pounds. There were times I would stand in the snow, barefoot, in Boston to cool off ten minutes at a time. It all came to a head during last year in med school. I started getting episodes when I couldnt move my legs or even cough. I just chalked it up to a bad diet or lack of exercise (which I wasnt doing at all in 2005). Finally one day, I was at a party and I got up to get a beer. Right in front of everyone, I went down like a ton of bricks. I tried to walk, but it was no use, I was completely paralyzed from the waist down.
So off to the ER I went. Turns out I had a very rare form of Hyperthyroidism called Periodic Paralysis. Basically, my overactive thryoid drove my potassium way down, so much so that my muscles couldnt contract. After that I had my thryoid taken out with radiation and ever since then I have been on thryoid replacement hormone.
After 3 years on Synthroid, here are my pearls that I share with patients. You will absolutely feel it if your body does not have enough Thyroid hormone. Your body is designed to function with Thyroid hormone, just like Insulin, and if its lacking, you should replace it. The body is alwasy adjusting how much thyroid hormone it needs, so its important to have regular blood checks to make sure your levels are right. This is especially important for us endurance peeps, because execessive thryoid can cause also cause muscle break down. Not enough, and you''ll be cold intolerant, fatigued, constipated, and gain weight like nothing. After my thyoid was taken out, I went from 135 - 175 in three years. Its the reason I got into running. Last, but most important, when taking your Thyroid medicine, dont take it with anything else if you can, especially food or vitamins. The absoprtion can very easily be thrown off. To make this easier, I put it next to my toothbrush, and I take if when I go to bed.
Hope this helps!
GV
Linda-
another thing, it does take several weeks before you may feel a difference. They just adjust my med in feb, and will check labs again in april/end of march.
Hope you feel better with it
Greg- that paralysis sounds pretty scary! Yikes Glad all taken care of. Thanks for your input. oh and i know what you mean about weight gain. Huge problem with that and motivation over last year. Even though my numbers were WNL, I knew I wasn't right. & I have been living with it since birth, so I know when things are off. Unfortunately, the weight is not coming off as easily as it came on, but no longer gaining if i look at a cookie
Wow, Greg! Thanks so much for that. I will definietly take the med without eating, now that you tell me to do so. I was worried about taking it at night, in case it would keep me awake? Not something I should worry about?
Let me tell you, I have been shivering for about a year. I'm always cold, but this has been ridiculous. I won't go into detail
, but let's just say Benefiber has become my best friend. I gained 5-7 lbs "like that" last year, and no matter what I do, I cannot get them off. And I mean I have been truly trying. I thought it was all "me." My diet, my this, my that. Don't even talk to me about exhaustion! So glad to know it's something I can get a hold of. I'm looking forward to feeling better.
No problem! It shouldn keep you up at night all, but just try and see what happens. Everyone is a little different in their response!
FYI everyone: There is a group of people who have realized the weight losing effects of thyroid hormone. They buy it illegally and take huge doses to shed some pounds. With our hardcore, exercising, super thin personas, we suffer a little from the sterotype in ways that may cause a physician to be suspicious. Heck, I have even been suspected when I was down to 144 before CDA. Moral is, take pills as prescribed and dont lose them. Its always weird when someone calls 2 weeks after they filled their months worth of Synthroid asking for another refill because "their dog ate it." Just trying to save ya'll some headaches!
No problemo Nemo. Yeah, I always check my patient's Thyroid levels on the annual exams, especially women.
@Linda: I know your pain. Just take a look at me before I started taking my Thyroid medicine regularly and correctly.
Dont get me wrong, I was still the ladies man. One time, I had this princess from Alderan chained...
No doubt! LOL!!! Thanks again, Greg. Hugely helpful.
You are so right! This whole situation has made me think a lot about how hard I am on myself. Sure, I could make beter choices in my diet at times, yes the training makes me tired, but I blame myself for everything. It's so easy for me to fall back into "It's me, I can't, I stink at this"--blah, blah, blah. Like you, this was a real phyiscal issue, which I ignored for too long. I'm looking forward to feeling better. How you got through LP is even more amazing!
BTW, my doc suggested taking synthroid in the middle of the night. I put it on my nightstand and take it when I wake up in the middle of the night (which I tend to do). That way, I don't have to worry about iron or calcium effecting the absorption.
Colleen- My mom was visiting this weekend and told me she does the exact same thing.
I sleep like the dead. I take mine before my shower but on an empty stomach, along with bcp. All hormones- I figure it can't be too bad to do it that way since my numbers are good.
Since adjusting my diet to decrease carbs from white flour and processed products, I am feeling a lot better and my weight is very stable. Lots of fruit and veggies.
I am also dead to the world when i sleep, and would not be able to connect the dots if i did wake up to take. I also take mine thyroid before I shower, then have breakfast at work.
FYI for people. One thing i found through my research over the summer last year was the some antidepressants ( SSRIs- prozac, zoloft, etc) interfere with the conversion of T4 to T3 ( prohormone to active hormone). I only saw it in one spot, a small blurb. I asked my endocrinologist about it and she confirmed. Not sure how common that knowledge is.in primary care. Anyway, after many years on a stable dose of synthroid, jan of 2009, a few months after my dad passed away, went to talk to someone, and they said i would feel so much better if i went on an antidepressant, reluctantly, I agreed. As the months progressed, felt worse and worse. So I weaned my self off, Thyroid meds have been adjusted, and feeling better. But man, last summer when i was at my worst, I really thought I was dying of some mysterious disease. One of the docs I work with even told me one day I looked like I needed some coffee
*Should I have my doctor be looking into my thyroid? Another girl at work suggested this just yesterday. She said she was feeling the same way before her doc figured out it was her thyroid. I avoid sugar and caffeine, sleep Ok at night (usally broken 8 hours). I had some bloodwork done earlier in the year and my vitamin D was off a little.
I'm asking because I'm a little worried (ok, more than a little worried) about how tired I am. I don't think I should be!...thanks...
Dana
I would say it would not hurt to have levels checked. Talk to your Dr about it. Iron level ok/blood counts ok?
It seems also there is some controversy on treating subclinical hypothyroidism, it seems especially more with endocrinologists, IMO. Greg can you chime in on that? The reason why I say this, is first- when i worked at VA in Tucson, i worked with endocrinologists who would not treat hypothyroidism until the pts TSHs were over like 8 or 10. Doing the reading i did in summer &fall, it seems like there is a difference of opinion on when to treat in llterature.
I felt like had to prepare a legal defense when I went to my endocrinologist as to why I wanted to have cytomel added to my synthroid, or at least give it a shot. I had a 2nd opinion lined up with a different endocrine person @ hopkins in case. My doc at maryland did agree to try ( although I saw her raise her eyebrows when I 1st mentioned it)
A little run down on labs which may be confusing.
TSH- thyroid stimulating hormone is produced by pituitary gland which acts on thyroid to release thyroid hormone. When thyroid not producing enough thyroid hormone ( T4 & T3) signals are sent . It is a big feedback loop between hypothalmus, pituitary glad and thyroid.
So if the hypothalmus isn't happy with amt of thyroid hormones floating around, it tells the pituaitary to release more TSH to then tell the thyroid to put more thyroid hormone out. So that is why in hypothyroidism you have an increased TSH. Sub clinical, is I believe when TSH is only slight elevated yet, T4 & T3 are within normal limits . In hyperthyroidism, TSH is very low, thyroid hormone elevated or at higher end of normal
So this is a simple explanation of a primary hypothyroidism/subclinical. Thyroid a lot more complicated. Hope this explains some of the labs
I had my thyroid radiated three years ago and was put on Levo. I never felt right and couldn't fit into a closet full of clothes despite training and eating as I had before going hyper, which led to the radioactive iodine to destroy the thyroid.
For the past two years, I've been on Armour, which made me feel better in a week. Armour was recently on backorder, so I have desiccated thyroid capsules made for me at Women's International Pharmacy in Madison. I feel great n it as well.
My key was finding a doc who would not only look at levels and the chart, but who would also listen to me. We theorize that I was functioning at a high level for years and that I was most likely at the high side of any statistical chart.
One really cool thing happened last July. I switched to the Paleo Diet for Athletes, reduced my Armour dosage, and lost 16 pounds of fat. I feel great, have plenty of energy for training, and have started to burn fat for fuel instead of proteins!