Hypothyroid

Hi Everyone,  I had surgery on 1/17/12.  I am hypothyroid and I had been taking my calcium basically at the same time.  My TSH levels have drastically changed from like .3 to 6.4.  My doc reminded me to not take the calcium and synthroid at the same time, so now I am going to take at night before bed and have my levels checked again, then decide on maybe a different plan.  I would like to hear from anyone out there that is also hypothyroid and how are you managing taking your medicine and all the vitamins?  Are your levels doing ok?
Thanks for responding.

 I take my Synthroid (and my other meds) as soon as I get up in the morning and then do not take my first dose of vitamins until I get to work and have my SF hot chocolate with protein powder added (my breakfast).  I have not had to change my Synthroid dose post-op doing it this way.

Lora

how far apart is that?  Non post ops are supposed to wait 4 hours between synthroid and iron/calcium but my endo told me since our digestive system is shorter and things go through faster now, we only have to wait to wait 2 hours now. 

Unfortunately, I have had to adjust my dose6 to 7 times over the past 3 plus years.  I just had my synthroid increased again last week and I was put back on cytomel again about a month ago.

 It is about 3 hours between the meds and the first dose of vitamins.  I actually DID have my dose increased  sometime after my first year postoperative, but then decreased right away again to the previous dose when we re-checked the labs 6 months later... So I really don't count it since I am still taking the same 175mcg I was taking before my RNY.

Lora

wow, that is a huge dose.  I started on 25, then 50, 75, 88 then added cytomel 5mcg, then increased cytomel to 7.5, then when I was in the hospital they took me off the cytomel (stupid doctors they said since my levels were good I didnt need it, I tried to tell them they were normal because I was on the meds but they wouldn't listen, so they took me off) - so my levels were okay for about 1 year and then I had to go back on the cytomel 5mcg and now my synthroid up to 100mcg.    It seems like I keep increasing. I keep hearing of people going on less and I keeping needing more

I don't think that dose is huge.  I am on 224 mcg per day and maintaining good levels.  My doc had me on cytomel for a while to help bring my levels up but she does not like her patients on that drug long term.  She prefers to keep levels up using higher doses of levothyroxin.  That could have something to do w/ the fact that I am a thyroid cancer patient and not just suffering from an underactive thyroid, though.

 I had Graves Disease in 1989 and had the thyroid oblation with the radioactive iodine (then have needed the Synthroid since then).   I was told a couple of years ago that I should not take the Cytomel.  My levels are stable with the Synthroid, so it has never been an issue, and therefore I did not ask for details, but since you mentioned the doctor not wanting you to have it because of the cancer, I am wondering if there IS something about having had a serious thyroid issue other than just generic hypothyroidism that makes that drug undesirable for us.

Lora

that could be.  Even when I have good TSH levels, I have low T3 levels and my exhaustion gets out of control and the use of cytomel which is T3 really helps me plus cytomel is supposed to help synthroid work better.   Several times when my TSH was a little on the high side, she increased my cytomel dose and my TSH immediately went down rather than having to increase my synthroid.  For me, the cytomel gives me more energy than then  increase synthroid - this last time, she had to do both.  I had gone off the cytomel last winter when I got sick and sure enough my T3 plummetted so about a month ago, I went back on the cytomel but it wasnt enough, 2 weeks ago, I also had to increase my synthroid.

My thyroid is a little trickier to control than most because I am hypothyroid, hypopituitary and I have a little bit of adrenal insufficiency but not bad enough to be classified as addisons.  So, I am difficult to treat.

Hmmm... Not sure about what a "typical dose" is, but I know a number of people whose doses are >100mcg per day.  I guess I never gave any thought to it, since whatever I need is whatever I need and I have been on pretty stable doses for over 20 years. I started on 50 way back in 1990 right after having the radioactive iodine to treat the Graves Disease, but we very quickly had to double it.  I then took 150mcg for probably 15-20 years before we bumped  it up to the 175 and I have been on that since then.

Lora

I recently read a post of someone saying the doctor wanting them to take there synthroid 3 times per day and that makes no sense to me.  Synthroid is  a once per day medicaiton in all literature and if a higher dose is needed then just increase the dose but not more often plus a WLS patient how can you possible get in 3 doses of synthroid, 3 or 4 dose of calcium and 1 dose of iron and take them all 2 to 4 hours apart - do I hear 48 hours in 1 day?