Levothyroxine - borderline underactive

Hi lucy, yes I would agree to being put on thyroxine (presuming your first test is your TSH level). Your T4 level is low in the range and T3 (useable version of T3) hasn't been tested so we don't know what know what level it is at. By starting medication now you are likely to have avoided the complications of your body being stressed because it had too little of the thyroid hormones. Itwill take 6-12 weeks for the levels to settle down after taking thyroxine and the blood test to accurately reflect the levels. Best wishes.

Hi Leonie, I'll give you the low-down on thyroid disease, since it sounds like you're just starting out. The outlook can be devestating, but there is hope. While many people who are asymptomatic are treated for years on a low dose of thyroid medication, in your case I would be very proactive in prevention. Here's why: The fact that your thyroid levels are yo-yoing is a huge red flag. This is typical of  Hashimoto's. If you have thyroid disease, you have either Hashimoto's or Grave's disease. Both are anutoimmune and doctors often don't bother diagnosing these because the treatment is the same. Some simple online research should help you get an understanding of these.

I have Hashimoto's, so I know how that progresses... With Hashimoto's, your thyroid starts to give out, as it is attacked by your own immune system. While it is nearing complete exhaustion, the thyroid will often go high, then low, with sporatic results. As this continues, your thyroid becomes less and less able to work, and thyroxin production drops, with sporatic increases. Think of it like an engine sputtering as it tries to start, with a dying fuel pump. Meanwhile, your immune systen keeps attacking your thyroid, destroying more and more of the healthy thyroid tissue. As your thyroid struggles to work, it can become inflamed and enlarged (creating cysts, which are typical with Hashimoto's), which causes further signal to the immune system that something is wrong, and the immune system attacks the thyroid with more attention, which also destroyes healthy tissue. So you end up in this vicious auto-immune /thyroid cycle until the thryoid just gives up.  

So an important key to thyroid health and to preventing further autoimmune dammage, because if left to run it's course, the worse case scenario is that your immune system eats away at your thyroid until it can't function, and cancer can result from the cysts. Thyroid removal is horribly difficult on the body and many people never recover fully.  I've posted various steps you can take to help calm your immune system and curb thyroid disease progression, in the discussions here. So please feel free to read through the discussion on "unacceptable effects of levothyroxin". If you can't find it, I can send you a private email.

Reducing the auto-immune response requires discipline and a lot of research.  But it is worth the effort because thyroid disease can be very disabling and challenging, when advanced. You'll want to start with a very disciplined completely gluten-free diet. In this case, even the smallest amont triggers the immune system. But there are other precautions you can take to heal.

Also, if you're asymtomatic except for the anxiety, your adrenals may be working overtime to try and compensate for the low thyroid. The whole endocrine system works together, and when the thyroid goes down, the adrenals often amp up, which can cause the panic. This can eventually result in adrenal exhaustion. Then you have two problems instead of one.

All this can wreak havoc on your reproductive hormones.  You get the picture, its better to help your thyroid out with medication than go without something so vital to your body. Think of it like diabetes, but instead of your pancreas not producing insulin, it's your thyroid that isn't making enough thyroxin. So not something to mess around with.

I have had some success with natural remedies and diet, but am still on meds. I take the natural dessiccated thyroxin because by the time I was diagnosed, my immune system was so delicate I couldn't handle the synthetic (levothyroxin). This is typical for many people with thyroid disease, to have food and other tsensitivities. Also, thyroid disease healing, if you chose to do it, is very slow, as the disease takes years and often decades to develop. So healing also takes time. I have heard of people having success with naturopathic, homeopathy and other natural approaches, but my disease is extremely advanced, so my healing has been very slow, although I have been able to stop the cyst growth with the natural dessicated thyroxin, and have been able to reduce the cysts without surgery through supplementation, cleansing and acupuncture.

Hope that helps give you some help in how to navigate the thyroid disease.

Catherine