Levethyroxine changing my life for the worse

Hi Sunshine,

I went through similar symptoms and finally just stopped taking levo. I changed doctor's and she put me on Armour. At first I refused because I'm vegetarian, but I'm tired of all of this. She started me off with a very low dose, so I haven't noticed a change yet. She promises I will lose the weight though. Will post more as I see changes.

I have been on 25 mg increasing to 50 mg since mid June this year and I have had the same as most on here considerable weight gain, aching joints etc all in only a space of 2 months.  I am due to see the gp tomorrow as I made my own decision on Tuesday to stop taking this awlful med.  Amazing since coming of it day 2 I woke up with hardly any joint pain compared to the last few weeks.  I know it is still probably in my system but I am active with walking, running and swimming and I found this week I couldn't run or hardly swim due to feeling heavy boned anc aching and tired.  Considering I pushed myself and did 2 walks yesterday Iwhich amounted to 7.5 miles I still feel better today than I have in ages.  I know it is not really advisable to stop that was a decision I didn't take lightly and I wouldn't advise others to because at the end of the day I'm back at the gp tomorrow to try and sort this out.  I know at the time they may of jumped in too quick to put me on meds as my thryoid was working but the values were not coming down enough to be at the right level.  I still say that the menopause causes so many life changing things and can have a massive impact on the thyroid hence why I think so many women are diagnosed with this.  I just wish the NHS would recognise that this Levothyroxine may reduce thyroid problems but its at what cost we have to play with our lives with all the other side effects that are not contained within the leafle they produce with it and tend always to blame it on the menopause.

Hi,

I had my thiroid removed 6 years ago and went through hell until recently. Insomnia, aches, muschle spasm, mood swings etc.

The things that worked for me:

- trying different hormone brands. Initialy I took Euthyrox but since I discovered Levothyrox (the brand Levothyrox not the name of the active ingredient) I am feeling much better. Also I tried taking T3 hormones (Liothyroic - T3 brand) and it helped.

- splitting the dose. Originally I took the whole dose in the morning and I was hyper in the day and hypo in the night. Now I am taking 50ug morning lunch and dinner and sometimes 25 before going to sleep depending on my body

- taking some supplements like Selenium and some Liver detox/helper supplements helped a lot

- fresh juices (not too sweet - apple, lemons, grapefruit, ginger)

- less stress in life

- exercise (even if it hurts and there is no eneregy there .. still .. just do it)

- listening to my body. After a few years I now know when I need to take the hormones and to preserve my energy and sleep and etc. Also I noticed that sleeping early and waking up early (5-6) is good for me (maybe a metabolism thing)

Good luck, hope some of these are helpful to you!

One last note: the doctors don't know everything so it's good to listen to your body and try things until you feel better. I visited several doctors that said the same thing as your consultant: that it's not the pills. Well.. they are not the ones taking it.