Pounding heart

My name is Shelly and  I am a nurse in the USA.  I also have Hashimoto thyroid disease.

It sounds like you are not converting T4 (LEVO well enough and it is building up in your system.  I would not go higher in the dose.  It most likely would worsen.

The thyroid gland needs to take the medication Levo and convert that hormone to useable T3 Liothyronine.  In some of us we can't convert it. I had this problem and my TSH was never normal on LEVO and it gave me loose bowels and I was on a low dose.

Please ask for a T4, T3 level along with the TSH and if you can post your lab results so we can see how your blood is.  Also you are allowed a copy by law so you can get a copy by calling the doctor's office up.

You can be classified as Hypo and have Hyper, (too much)  symptoms.  Now an easy fix is to let the level calm down and lower your dose to 75 mcg or by 25%.  You may need to switch off of LEVO but for now let the T4 level (LEVO) come back down.  Hyper symptoms are:  Insomnia, feeling HOT, feeling anxious, losing weight fast, heart that races, palpitations of the heart, Nervous feeling and shaking, headaches.  These are common and you can get that from a hgh dose of thyroid.

Other meds are Armour Thyroid, a natural thyroid med made from a pig's gland, which is close to ours.  Thyrolar a combo of T3 & T4, Liothyronine just T3. Thyroid S another natural one.  In UK some doc's will not prescribe them, as they are not in the forumulary or are not supported by patent.  However they are fine medications.  Some doc's I hear will prescribe T3 on a case by case basis.

If you need to ask any questions you can ask or PM me if needed, I hope Ihelped you.

Shelly

I was still symptomatic on levothyroxine and.unfortunately it doesn't work well for everyone (at least not on its own). Pounding heart usually means you are on too much of something.

Have you had your T3 tested as well as t4 and tsh? If you are in the UK this usually has to be requested by the patient as they won't do it automatically (it wouldn't even cross some GPs minds that this may be the issue). Struggling to lose weight is a hypo symptom - I've had a combination of hyper and hypo symptoms previously and it is confusing to know where you are on the scale!! Best thing to do is get the tests done and it may be that you don't convert t4 to t3 properly and you may need both (liothyonine is a t3 only med and I have been told thyrolar contains both t4 and t3).

Just guessing here but maybe you could be on too much t4 and not enough t3? I found t3 was great in terms of giving your metabolism a boost and controlling weight but I experienced a pounding heart with this so had to come off it. It's very much trial and error sometimes.

Have you had all the usual minerals tested (things that can affect the way your thyroid meds work?)- shelly is a good person to ask for the full list, but it would include things like: iron, ferritin, adrenals/cortisol, foliate, B12, calcium, potassium, vit D, Magnesium and selenium. It helps give a better overall picture of what your body is doing, but I can't stress enough to find a doctor who is willing to take the time to do these investigations as they are apparently expensive tests and I know some people have paid to get them done privately. Im having my cortisol investigated at the moment as the random test camr back very high (so now having the dexamethasone suppression test to gain a bit more accuracy).

The above is something for you to get started on, but if all else fails, NDT is another med which is natural thyroid hormone rather than synthetic and I know some people do better on it. But this isn't available on the NHS and can be pricey, so I would try the other options/investigations first and see what happens!

Keep us posted on how you get on!