UKC

Does any UKC suffer from underactive thyroid. The quack says my decreased tolerance of cold and tiredness/low energy might be due to it and I'm going to have a blood test.

Just wondering if I have to go on to medication how soon I might notice a difference. Will it help me on the hills?

In reply to FesteringSore:

They'll start you on a micro dose then up it slowly every 4 weeks with a blood test every 4 weeks until you become normal. Could take a couple of months or more.

Yes. You'll feel better and have more energy.

Assuming that is the problem.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Thanks. I'm guessing it could be. I went on a weekend trip(city break) with some mates just after Christmas and I did feel that I was getting more tired more rapidly whilst we were walking around seeing the sights. My feet seemed to get tired quickly.

In reply to FesteringSore:
took me a couple of years before everything settled down but fine now. Pain having to remember medication but becomes habit after a while! When the dose goes too high it's like an overclocked CPU!

You'll be joining a rather large hidden "club"

In reply to FesteringSore:
Somebody at evening classes I went to had the same thing, and she perked up once on medication.

As somebody on different medication for something else (type 1 diabetes), I image it'd be about allowing taking the medication to become a routine, after which it's just another part of everyday life.

In reply to wercat:


I remember a bit of existential angst processing the realisation that, if I stopped taking the tablets for long enough I would die. I mused to Mrs G that from now on my well-being depended on my remembering to take a pill every morning.

'Instead of just me remembering to take one, you mean' was all the sympathy I got.


Indeed.

In reply to Dave Garnett:

I can remember contemplating that as well! Interesting feeling when exercising while hypo, just like running out of steam while going up hill. Not tired as such but just not enough zip to go up without pausing - heart rate wouldn't adjust for the demanded level so just ran up against a wall. Once experienced you don't forget it.

My father used to describe something similar with beta blockers. I'd rather be on the thyroxin.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Yes. I've had it since my mid twenties, probably brought on by overtraining through virus after virus (basically post-viral fatigue).

The biggest thing I suffered from was tiredness and fatigue, and a noticeable difference in my tolerance to increased adrenaline situations. Suffering more from the cold definitely was noticeable, but to a lesser degree than the wanting to sleep for 23hrs a day. Basically I went from training for 2hrs+ a day as an elite level athlete, to someone who could barely walk to the bus without needing a rest (running up stairs left me seriously out of breath).

It sounds like you might have a good doctor; mine were all terrible until I got a student doctor who was willing to listen. The typical NHS 'normal' range for the TSH test is significantly higher than for other countries which was my bugbear and took countless heated discussions with the specialists to ensure I got a dose that worked for me. I was originally on a 50mg dose per day which helped, and brought my TSH level from 17 down to 4.5 (just within the 'normal' range of 1.0>5.0) which made me feel better in day to day life but still left me feeling absolutely destroyed after any exercise. Bearing in mind the original collapse in my health occurred over a 4 month period, I knew what my body should be capable of when it was normal. The problem with the doctors at my local though was that they considered this to be perfectly acceptable, so I went off and did some research. In the US, the normal range at the time was considered to be 0.5>2.0, with a healthy human normally sitting somewhere between 0.75 & 1.0. So I experimented with a doubled dose to 100mg a day, and this brought my TSH level down to 0.9 which pretty much returned me to normal. Yes, I do still have symptoms compared to what I used to be, but they're absolutely minor and more than acceptable given how I was feeling at my worst.

I find that if I take too much (ie 150mg a day) it's very noticeably too much; sweating, almost a state of anxiety & heart palpitations. Needless to say this isn't a good thing! Get tested, pay attention to the results, and take a view based on that. Don't just take the doctor's word for 'you seem fine now'.

In reply to Cloverleaf:

Yes, I didn't feel back to normal when I got back to within "normal" - it was only when my level dropped to below 2 that I felt I was close to normal and it's a bit lower than that now. As I say, it was 2 years before I got it about right.

In reply to Cloverleaf:


I don't doubt it. I take 150 micrograms!

Does anyone happen to know how to insert a greek mu in replies?

In reply to Dave Garnett:

Just use a u. I'm sure everyone will understand.

I've been shattered recently. I missed 3days dose about 2 weeks ago but also ran a PB half marathon that week and have continued with fairly high intensity marathon training. So suspect it's that rather than the missed doses. The half life is around 2 weeks and I count believe I'd notice it that much. I'm just on 50ug.

In reply to FesteringSore:
Yep, though I started off with an overactive thyroid that got treated with radio-iodine. I take 125ug a day now, it recently got upped as I couldn't stay awake through the day (and I think it might need to be upped again).

It will make a huge difference to your energy levels if you need it. When I was too low, I struggled to even brush my hair and stairs were a nightmare, I would have to stop halfway up the house stairs just to catch my breath. Like others, it took a little time to get my head around the fact that I needed to take a pill every day for the rest of my life just to function. These days I do it without thinking, with my breakfast (some say you should take it at night on an empty stomach but I don't find it makes much difference)

In reply to Dave: if I forget for a day I notice it that day

In reply to lynda:
Mine says to take it an hour before eating in the morning. A lot of people on t'web recommend taking it at night time precisely because of that.

There's also studies about avoiding broccoli and cauliflower. Although they're my favourite veg, so that's not going to happen.

In reply to lynda:
What you're 'noticing' is purely in your head. It takes two weeks for your levels to start to change.

That's why the blood tests are 4 weeks apart.

.

In reply to DancingOnRock:
I've found that having it the night before impacts my sleep, either through real world effect or placebo, so I take it when I get up in the morning. There are a number of things which are suggested to impact absorption so I tend to wait until I get to work before having coffee, or breakfast, which is about an hour away anyway. That said I've not noticed any difference between having tea/coffee when I get up, although I did notice an almost instant difference in my body's tolerance to alcohol has seriously diminished. Not so much that I'm now a lightweight on the night, but I feel the much worse the day after, regardless of how much I've had, whether 1 pint or 10. I know some parts of the world say that if you've had certain virus' such as Glandular Fever that you should basically cease alcohol consumption completely, and given a lot of these things are very similar in their effects on the human body I'd be inclined to believe some of the evidence which suggests you should do the same with an underactive thyroid. In moderation though I don't find anything to really be a problem, other than going away camping for a weekend and forgetting the tablets - on the second/third day of not having them the difference is marked. That's not something I've forgotten to do twice.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

If I miss it seems to catch me out after about 5 or 6 days, really odd feeling.

In reply to lynda:


It's interesting. I don't seem to have any problems other than needing an occasional tweak of my dose. However I do have friends who seem to have a much more brittle response (and certainly a quick Google will find whole belief structures based on bioavailability and whether synthetic thyroxine so can ever be nature-identical).

Most of the theorising is rubbish as far as I can see. The one issue that does interest me is calcitonin, which is also produced in the thyroid. It seems to me that in advanced Hashimo's type autoimmune thyroiditis it might be more than the thyroxine-producing cells that are damaged, and I've not managed to find any papers that address this directly.

In reply to Dave Garnett:
I have a slight suspicion that when dealing with an mild infection (say a cold, but a cold that is losing) my body's immune response is causing my (autoimmune) hypothyroidism to worsen. Before I became hypothyroid, a sniffle would not affect my energy levels, but now it does. Anyone else get anything like this?

In reply to All: Good news; I had a blood test on Tuesday(Thyroid function, Kidneys, Blood/Sugar, Calcium/Bone, Blood Count)

All OK.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Sounds like a good result.

How is the tiredness?

In reply to DancingOnRock:


No worse. Might be that, for some reason, I'm not getting a "perfect" night's sleep. That said it might also be down to some of the bloody boring tv programmes I try to watch post 9pm