The world is teeming with people having problems with this illness, although treated with thyroxine and within the 'normal range'of the blood test. I was diagnosed 20 years ago and have had constant problems with variable health since. I have had many disheartening interviews with medics who look at a blood-test result and insist that I am euthyroid (normal), so any symptoms must be due to something else. Their usual off-the-cuff diagnosis is 'depression'in spite of having conducted no relevant investigation. I am one of the least depressive people ever and yet I have been offered anti-depressents several times, rather than more/less thyroxine.
I recently discovered 2 important things about thyroxine.
(1) One is that the same dosage is not 'bio-equivalent' from one brand to another. This means that 100mcgs thyroxine from one manufacturer will act differently from 100mcgs thyroxine from another. (I found this info through an internet search).
(2) Secondly, thyroxine is regarded as a 'narrow therapeutic range' medicine. In other words it has to be JUST RIGHT (like Goldilocks' porridge). Too much is as bad as too little.
If you put these two facts together it is easy to see why people have on-going problems. A blood-test showing on a physician's screen could be weeks/months old and taken when on a brand different to the one in current use.
I am presently staying on one brand constantly in order to test this. I have had to go to a private doctor who will prescribe a brand name.
If this makes no difference after perhaps a year, my next step is to try Armour Thyroid, derived from animal thyroid-glands (the original treatment) which contains 5 thyroid-hormones instead of just one. I don't recall hearing any adverse comments about this treatment.
Dr. Joan Gomez' book 'Coping With Thyroid Problems' points out that symptoms can be mis-leading and I have experienced, in the past, symptoms which I attributed to being under-active actually being due to slightly too much thyroxine.(There-fore, in effect, over-active). The person who reported lowering dosage for 2 days because of tiredness and breathing-problems demonstrates the effect of tiny but important 'fine-tuning' and possibly would benefit from a small over-all drop in dosage. I have found breathlessness & tiredness together to be symptomatic of too much thyroxine.
With regard to weight-gain,it is a primary symptom and an on-going problem - and how is one to lose it with no energy to crawl to work, let alone get to the gym?
I will be interested to hear how people get on with Armour (natural) thyroid medication.
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