# New with a question about synthroid



## nataliek (Mar 15, 2010)

Hi everyone! I have been diagnosed with hashimotos for a few years now and have been on synthroid one time before and I took it for about seven weeks and starter getting hyperthyroid levels and it made me really sick, I lost 10 pounds in a week so I got off and now I need to be back on it. I started back and this is my third day on 50 mcg of synthroid. I think these are side effects I have been having, decrease in appetite, nervousness, weak feeling, headache and my stomach feels weird, it feels like when a virus is just starting. I am just wondering if any of you have had these side effects when first getting on and if it was just because you were just starting and the body has to adjust to the medicine. Any info would be helpful please. Thanks. Natalie


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## Lovlkn (Dec 20, 2009)

nataliek said:


> Hi everyone! I have been diagnosed with hashimotos for a few years now and have been on synthroid one time before and I took it for about seven weeks and starter getting hyperthyroid levels and it made me really sick, I lost 10 pounds in a week so I got off and now I need to be back on it. I started back and this is my third day on 50 mcg of synthroid. I think these are side effects I have been having, decrease in appetite, nervousness, weak feeling, headache and my stomach feels weird, it feels like when a virus is just starting. I am just wondering if any of you have had these side effects when first getting on and if it was just because you were just starting and the body has to adjust to the medicine. Any info would be helpful please. Thanks. Natalie


Hi Natalie,

Welcome to the board, sorry to hear you are not feeling well.

You need to call your doctor and tell them the symptoms you are experiencing, you may be having hypersensitivity to the Synthroid.

Another thought is you may just be on to high of a starting dose. Do you have any lab results you could post?

http://www.rxlist.com/synthroid-drug.htm

Hypersensitivity reactions to inactive ingredients have occurred in patients treated with thyroid hormone products. These include urticaria, pruritus, skin rash, flushing, angioedema, various GI symptoms (abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea), fever, arthralgia, serum sickness and wheezing. Hypersensitivity to levothyroxine itself is not known to occur.

Adverse reactions associated with levothyroxine therapy are primarily those of hyperthyroidism due to therapeutic overdosage (see PRECAUTIONS and OVERDOSAGE). They include the following:

General: fatigue, increased appetite, weight loss, heat intolerance, fever, excessive sweating;

Central nervous system: headache, hyperactivity, nervousness, anxiety, irritability, emotional lability, insomnia;

Musculoskeletal: tremors, muscle weakness;

Cardiovascular: palpitations, tachycardia, arrhythmias, increased pulse and blood pressure, heart failure, angina, myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest;

Respiratory: dyspnea;

Gastrointestinal: diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and elevations in liver function tests;

Dermatologic: hair loss, flushing


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

nataliek said:
 

> Hi everyone! I have been diagnosed with hashimotos for a few years now and have been on synthroid one time before and I took it for about seven weeks and starter getting hyperthyroid levels and it made me really sick, I lost 10 pounds in a week so I got off and now I need to be back on it. I started back and this is my third day on 50 mcg of synthroid. I think these are side effects I have been having, decrease in appetite, nervousness, weak feeling, headache and my stomach feels weird, it feels like when a virus is just starting. I am just wondering if any of you have had these side effects when first getting on and if it was just because you were just starting and the body has to adjust to the medicine. Any info would be helpful please. Thanks. Natalie


Hi there Natalie and welcome. How were you diagnosed as having Hashimoto's? Do you have any labs with the ranges intact that you can share w/ us?

Have you had any antibodies' tests done?


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## nataliek (Mar 15, 2010)

I was diagnosed in 06 with hashimotos. I went to my family dr because I was feeling tired and run down after I had my baby and she did some thyroid blood work and it came out low and she sent me to a thyroid dr. He did blood work, the antibodies test and I know the level was really high and he said I had hashimotos. I have't really been on the synthroid, I tried it a few times but alway got off. My levels are around the low side of normal thats why I haven't stayed on it. I had got pregnant in 08 but had a miscarriage and after that I have been having more symptoms and he put me back on it. I also have 3 cysts on my thyroid not big enough yet to get a biopsy. He also said and I seen this that my thyroid is being eaten up by the hashimotos, the scan they did showed that my thyroid looked all splochy. I don't know the levels but I am going to start keeping track of what they are and will post them. I am starting to research more on hashimotos. These are some of the symptoms I am having from the low level: very dry skin, my skin will hurt sometimes from being so dry, dry hair, straids of hair fall out easy, weight gain, spacy feeling sometimes like I am in a fog, some joint pain, thats all I can think of right now.


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

nataliek said:


> I was diagnosed in 06 with hashimotos. I went to my family dr because I was feeling tired and run down after I had my baby and she did some thyroid blood work and it came out low and she sent me to a thyroid dr. He did blood work, the antibodies test and I know the level was really high and he said I had hashimotos. I have't really been on the synthroid, I tried it a few times but alway got off. My levels are around the low side of normal thats why I haven't stayed on it. I had got pregnant in 08 but had a miscarriage and after that I have been having more symptoms and he put me back on it. I also have 3 cysts on my thyroid not big enough yet to get a biopsy. He also said and I seen this that my thyroid is being eaten up by the hashimotos, the scan they did showed that my thyroid looked all splochy. I don't know the levels but I am going to start keeping track of what they are and will post them. I am starting to research more on hashimotos. These are some of the symptoms I am having from the low level: very dry skin, my skin will hurt sometimes from being so dry, dry hair, straids of hair fall out easy, weight gain, spacy feeling sometimes like I am in a fog, some joint pain, thats all I can think of right now.


In my humble opinion, I believe this is all conjecture. I think that you need to have a radioactive uptake scan to look for hot, cold, solid nodules and vasularity if FNA (fine needle aspiration is not possible.) How do you know you don't have cancer?

In all my years on the forums, while a High TPO is suggestive of Hashi's and typically found in Hashi's (as well as cancer), the only test that would confirm Hashi's would be FNA whereupon if certain Hurthle cells indigenous to Hashi's are present, then yes, the patient does indeed have Hashimoto's.

Interestingly, some Hurthle cells are cancerous so the pathologist has to know his/her stuff for sure.

b.A patient shall be suspected to have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, if he/she has anti-thyroid microsomal antibody and/or anti-thyroglobulin antibody without thyroid dysfunction nor goiter formation.*

Hashimoto's thyroiditis is to be distinguished from nontoxic nodular goiter or Graves' disease. The presence of gross nodularity is strong evidence against Hashimoto's thyroiditis, but differentiation on this basis is not infallible. In multinodular goiter, thyroid function test results are usually normal, and the patient is only rarely clinically hypothyroid. Thyroid autoantibodies tend to be absent or titers are low, and the scan result is typical. FNA can resolve the question but is usually unnecessary. In fact, the two conditions quite commonly occur together in adult women. Whether this is by chance, or due to the effect of thyroid growth stimulating antibodies (or other causes) is unknown.

Reference for the above........
http://www.thyroidmanager.org/Chapter8/8-frame.htm

What does the test result mean?

Mild to moderately elevated levels of thyroid antibodies may be found in a variety of thyroid and autoimmune disorders, such as thyroid cancer, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, pernicious anemia, and autoimmune collagen vascular diseases. Significantly increased concentrations most frequently indicate thyroid autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease.

Reference for the above......
http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/thyroid_antibodies/test.html

Hope some of this info is helpful to you. How are you doing on the Synthroid now? How much are you on?


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