How do you feel when you thyroid is out of whack?

[Seeker]

Hey Dragonflyc, good point on the TSH levels.  6 mo's ago my doctor did the TSH test for my thyroid.  She said every thing is fine.  Then I pulled out an article from the New England journal of medicine.  It show that my TSH levels were not fine.  Also I gave my doctor articles showing that I was a poor T4 to T3 converter.  I gave her enough information so that she add T3 to my prescriptions. 

I would have preferred being place on Armour Thyroid, but my HMO doe not approve of it.  However the addition of T3 has made a world of difference. 

Seeker

[Patze]

Hi Seeker,

Wow, your doctor said your TSH fine and you had to prove to her that your TSH wasn't "normal"?  Why does that not surprise me anymore (just shaking my head)?

I was on Levoxyl for about five years and I never really got better (the goiter disappeared, the TSH was in the "beautiful area", but still had all the classic symptoms).  Was finally put on T3 and my body went into hyper mode and quickly taken off of it.  Am now on Armour and it's made a difference to me.  Can you ask your HMO if they will allow you to take Armour as an exemption maybe? 

Take care of yourself -

Patze

[DragonflyC]

Go, Seeker!  I had to do pretty much the same thing.   

Doctors hesitate to prescribe thyroid meds b/c people used to use them for weight loss which is a REALLY bad idea.  If a patient is clear that he/she has symptoms, is out of the AACE's recommended range (no matter what a lab may say), and would like a moderate dosage on a trial run, a reasonable doctor should be willing to let you try.  Really, most of us should all have TSH levels around 1 for optimal health and well-being (though, of course, some people are different). 

[Patze]

Ah Dragonfly, if only the medical community would cooperate.  But like you say, people would abuse this as well, and it's no wonder doctors are leary; kind of a no win situation.

Hopefully Seekers doctor will go a step beyond and help with her get authorization for Armour from her HMO.

Take care -

Patze

[tangowhiskie]

Although I do experience the more common side effects of Hashi's like -

- Fatigue (have a hard time waking up/getting out of bed, especially)
- Hair loss, dry hair
- Brittle, dry nails (although now they are just brittle all the time, even with perfect TSH)

I have one tell tale sign of when my TSH is too high -

- Reactive hypoglycemia

Which is actually what made me try and figure out what the heck was going on in the first place.  Within about 15 minutes of eating, I start to feel dizzy, worried that I'm going to pass out, I get a little shakey.  It's worse with foods high in carbs (donuts are the WORST - I am sick for hours).  I actually thought at first that I had Celiacs - so I tried a gluten free diet for a few days.  It helped, but it didn't fix the problem.  Then I thought I had diabetes - but after reading more about it, I realized that wasn't it.  Luckily when I went to the dr's and talked about it, she decided to do some simple bloodwork - and the TSH came back too high.  I ended up getting sent to an endo's (because I also had a tumor on my left adrenal gland) and she confirmed that the dizzy feeling after eating food was linked to high TSH.

So when this starts happening, I know my TSH is in a bad place, and I get myself to the dr's.  There are too many other things that can cause fatigue, hair loss, dry skin and hair that I don't use those as measures for my thyroid's performance.  Although these symptoms always get better once I'm on a higher dosage of levoxyl, haha!

[Babs659]

I have had severe Hashi's since I was 13 years old.  I had all the symptoms: fatigue, dry skin, swollen joints, puffy face, constipation, dyspnea, weight gain, depression, brain fog, messed up periods.

After getting on the right dose of Synthroid I was fine for more than 30 years.  I ran 26 mile marathons, hiked, worked full time.  The only thing was I could never get pregnant, despite Pergonal, etc.
The past few years I really had a hard time keeping my thyroid regulated.  I did feel some fatigue but not major.  I was already on 150mcg for years and suddenly my TSH's were all over the place---2, 8, 12.  The gastro thought celiac but all was negative.   

When I got sick from Sjs, it was a different fatigue.  I had extreme muscle weakness, was dizzy and had to rest every half hour when doing housework, etc.  Of course, since I was seronegative for Sjs (other than 1:1280 ANA homogenous)  the neuro blamed all my symptoms on my thyroid, which at that time was around 2 TSH.

After 1 1/2 years on Plaquenil I feel SO MUCH BETTER!