# Quick question about post-surgery thyroid hormone levels



## KarenB (Jul 19, 2013)

I am a week post completion thyroidectomy and so far, so good. I had some headaches from the anesthesia, but otherwise my recovery has gone remarkably well.

I started taking 100mcg of thyroxine the day after surgery. Night 3 following surgery, I had a crazy night of sleep. I woke up a few times with night terrors (which I used to have, but not for a while) and some crazy horrible dreams. Also, I had some weird muscle twitches and some cramping in my legs - it almost felt like I had an electrode on my head, and one on my toes, and I had an electrical current running through me. I just felt a little 'wired'.

I'm guessing this is because I had thyroid hormone left in my body from my actual thyroid, as well as the 100mcg of thyroxine on top, and this made me 'hyper'.

My question is, how long does that original hormone created by your thyroid remain in your system after surgery? After 2 to 3 days of the symptoms I have described above, things seem to be evening out a bit. Last night I slept a lot better and the muscle tremors and heart palpitations have eased up a bit.

Also, as the natural thyroid hormone in my body goes, I guess there is a chance the scales will tip the other way and I will go 'hypo'?

Has this been everyone else's experience? What sort of time frame does this usually happen over? I am seeing my endo on 7 August - will the experiences I have had up to this date (just under 2 weeks out from surgery) give her enough valid feedback to know how things are going (in conjunction with blood tests), or does it take a lot longer?

Sorry for all the questions. I am just interested in everyone else's experience.

Thank you!


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## joplin1975 (Jul 21, 2011)

Yup, that sounds like you were temporarily hyper and now are evening out. I felt all out of sorts for about a week, then slowly started to go hypo (I was not started on meds after surgery).

I think it will take a little bit longer than two weeks to figure out how you will fare on that dose, but I would take the appointment and run with it. No harm in extra monitoring. 

Also, if 100 isn't enough and you do go hypo, I would guess it won't be a horrible terrible degree of hypo. 100mcgs is a good starting dose, so it would make sense that you have to go through minor adjustments and might feel a bit off during that time...but I doubt it will be debilitating.


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## Lovlkn (Dec 20, 2009)

I'm leaning toward calcium levels - did they test you after your surgery?


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## DustingMyselfOff (May 17, 2013)

I had a TT on July 16th and they started me on Levothyroxine, 125 mcg, 5 days after surgery. About 3 days ago I woke up from a horrible dream in a panicked, anxious state and it lasted most of the day. The next day I had some anxiety but not as bad, and today hardly any.

I had my post-op with my surgeon and told her about the anxiety, intolerance to heat, and insomnia and she explained that our natural thyroid hormone stays in our system for 4-6 weeks after surgery and touching or squeezing the thyroid (which they have to do during surgery) releases a bunch of the hormone into our systems.

I am scheduled to have blood drawn at 4 weeks but we don't expect that to give us a perfect picture since it takes more like 6 weeks to see how the artificial hormone is regulating things.

Good luck!
Sue


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## KarenB (Jul 19, 2013)

Thank you so much for your responses everyone!

The twitches and heart palpitations have calmed down a little bit today and yesterday. Sue, your information was particularly useful and a good basis for some questions for my endo next week, so thank you for that!

And joplin, your comment RE: the level of my meds is really reassuring - I can totally handle being a bit tired and 'half a degree under', but I was really, really nervous about end up flat on my back exhausted.

Lovlkn, my calcium levels were tested before I left the hospital, and they were okay. I am taking 2 x horse-sized calcium tablets twice a day and I see my GP on Monday to test levels again - hopefully I can drop this to two once a day!


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## Lovlkn (Dec 20, 2009)

> I can totally handle being a bit tired and 'half a degree under', but I was really, really nervous about end up flat on my back exhausted.


My replacement was started 3 days post TT - I literally felt nailed to the floor. The one thing I continued to experience was fatigue which I thought was due to my lack of proper replacement or the anesthesia.

After 6 months of it I decided to get to the bottom of it and unsuccessfully tried adding Cytomel. Next... ferritin levels which were low, then Vit D levels which were low then B-12 which I had been supplementing on my own and they were fine. Alot of us have the deficiencies above which do not seem to surface as fatigue until we remove our thyroid. To be safe, why not ask to be tested for those to be sure.

Iron supplements made me sick and I opted for endometrial ablation which I highly recommend - yea! no more period and I supplement 5K IU of D 6 x a week.


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## KarenB (Jul 19, 2013)

Lovlkn said:


> My replacement was started 3 days post TT - I literally felt nailed to the floor. The one thing I continued to experience was fatigue which I thought was due to my lack of proper replacement or the anesthesia.
> 
> After 6 months of it I decided to get to the bottom of it and unsuccessfully tried adding Cytomel. Next... ferritin levels which were low, then Vit D levels which were low then B-12 which I had been supplementing on my own and they were fine. Alot of us have the deficiencies above which do not seem to surface as fatigue until we remove our thyroid. To be safe, why not ask to be tested for those to be sure.
> 
> Iron supplements made me sick and I opted for endometrial ablation which I highly recommend - yea! no more period and I supplement 5K IU of D 6 x a week.


It seems to be so different for everyone. My GP is testing my Vitamin D and ferritin levels - bloods were taken Friday and I have an appointment with her Monday. I will be sure to check B12 going forward too - all of this is really good advice.

I'm really glad you found something that worked for you Lovlkn - it seems to be patience and persistence is really required through all this. I don't have huge reserves of either, but I will need to learn I think


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