TSH jumped to 23.5

Hi,  Some people need more levothyroxine in the winter as the body needs more to keep warm.  If you have Hashimoto's, the autoimmune form of hypothyroidism, your levels could be swinging, which can happen. 

You also need to be aware that there are some drugs and foods that you shouldn't take with your levothyroxine so, for instance, if you have suddenly started taking vitamins with iron in and you are taking them at the same time,  this could be causing your problem.

Start you research by Googling "Thyroid", "Thyroid Problems", "High TSH" to get a general idea of what is going on with the endocrine system. Get an understanding  of T4 and T3 and what they do. It takes a lot of studying but it is worth it because you are probably not going to get the full picture from your doctor or even an endorinologist. 

It is by educating yourself on this subject that will keep you in control and give you peace of mind.

Let me tell you that many of us have to change doctors many times before we find one who will at least cooperate with us. I travel 200 miles once a year to see my thyroid doc just to get a years prescription of the right stuff. I am just telling you this so that you have some idea of the lengths to which you may have to go to get decent treatment. You may ask, "Why?". That's the next installment!

Emis Moderator comment: I have removed product/company names as we do not allow repeated posting of these in the forums. If users wish to exchange these details please use the Private Message service.

http://patient.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/398331-private-messages

Hello Sthomson:

My name is Shelly and I am a Nurse in the USA.  I have Hashimoto's disease since 1987.

Levo is not working in you.  Many of people have this problem, myself included. I was on LEVO for years and my TSH was bad. I tried them all and then I found Cytomel (Liothyronine) just T3.

Some of us can not convert the T4 (thyroxine) into useable T3 (Liothyronine) so you should ask your doctor if you can have a lower dose of LEVO and get Liothyronine which is just T3.   i take just Liothyronine and my TSH has been good for years. I hear NHS will prescribe Liothyronine. So ask for that first.

Levo is a synthetic drug and they have other meds called NDT's but in the UK, NDT is not supported because NDT is a natural med.  Some brand names are Armour Thyroid, Thyroid S and Thyroid W. They can be bought online.

Levo must be taken without food and you must wait an hour before eating. You should have some blood work done, such as: Potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, ferritin, and selenium levels and Vit D, and B-12.

Many of us need our mineral to be in good shape to help Levo work well. Also many of us, have low Vit D  and B-12 and there is linkage to having low thyroid.

Keep us posted on how you do,

Regards,

Shelly

 

Sorry Sthomson, my comment got censored! I was answering your question, "where to start my research?". 

Moderator: When answering a question as to how someone should start research, how can you answer it without telling them about books? Please tell us all why my comment was censored. I didn't include any links to websites. This is very discouraging.