[WWWI2]

#1059662

In August I was diagnosed with Graves’. Originally I was very hyperT. The meds made me less hyperT, but still out of the normal range. Then my doctor abruptly dropped my meth and I went very hyperT once again. The dose was increased and I went hypoT. I just heard from my doctor that I’m still hypoT and we are going to adjust the meds once again. So in the last 5 months (not counting the time before the meds started) I’ve been yo-yo’ing.

To be honest, I was glad when I got the call that I was hypoT, only for the fact that I feel like crap and now I know why.

I believe I will, at some point, hit the normal ranges, but having bounced around so much I’m not entirely convince I will actually ever feel better even if this does normalize, because not at anytime in the last 5 months have I felt good. And there had to have been a day or two where my levels were in a normal range, before they once again tanked.

Is there anyone out there who has bounced around and ulitimatly felt good when they normalized? or should I just accept that this is as good as it gets?

Thanks.

[Kimberly]

#1176605

Hello – Some patients do experience significant swings on anti-thyroid drugs, but constantly switching between hypo and hyper is not the norm.

One issue to consider is that some patients are very sensitive to changes in ATD dosing (I am one) and find it necessary to split pills and/or alternate doses on different days of the week to find that “sweet spot”. For example, at one point, I was taking 5 mg of methimazole five days a week and 7.5 mg two days a week (which required a pill splitter to get the extra 2.5). Alternating back and forth using the “standard” doses only might not work for everyone.

Do you have confidence in your current doc, or do you feel that a second opinion would be helpful? If you don’t feel that your current doc is doing all that he/she can to get you stabilized, you might check out the “Looking for a Doctor?” thread in the announcements section at the top of the forum.

You should NOT have to accept feeling poorly as the norm — but we often have to be extremely assertive to get the care we deserve!

[WWWI2]

#1176606

This doctor IS my second opinion lol. And yes, I (think I) do have confidence in him. Long story short, my first doc put me on 20 mg meth, and when my number neared normal, he dropped me to 10 mg. The results were devistating ( body pain I’d never experienced before and then let me hang like that for a couple months until he put me back at 15 mg meth) and I quit him.

This second doctor put kept me on 15 mg and I started to go hypoT and he added back levothyroixine. The first round (.50 mg) wasn’t enough and he upped it (to .75 mgThe tests just came back and I’m still hypoT.

He now wants me to drop the meth to 10 mg and up the levothyroxine to 1. To be candid, I’m a little nervous about dropping the one and upping the other because as mentioned above when I was dropped to 10mg last time I was in terrific pain. My hope is that the drop at the time was just too steep and it will be more managable this round. It better be because I’m out of the vicoden I was prescribed last time lol.

I guess we’ll see how this goes. If it the changes in dose turn out to be one big uhm cluster, I may be onto my next MD. I like your suggestion about altering the dose, the biggest challenge is I have yet to get in normal ranges and the fact that it can take 4-6 weeks to know what’s working, is making this a very extended process. But if this dose puts me back to hyper, at least I’ll have a better baseline with which to work. With that, if 10mg meth isn’t enough and 15 meth is too much, then alternating or splitting may be a very viable option.

Thanks!

WWWI

[Naisly]

#1176607

You can always get 5mg pills instead of 10mg (assuming this is what your getting) Then you can talk to your doctor about taking 12.5mg and go from there.

I’m currently taking 2.5mg. But I have found with me personally, getting out of hypo has been a lot harder than hyper – Maybe this is why they call it hypohell?

[WWWI2]

#1176608

hypo hell? Oh Dandy lol never heard that before…

Well aside from the other symptoms mostly I’m just tired, depressed and unmotivated all the time and can’t drop weight to save my life even @ 1500 calories a day. But in all fairness, HypoT is a whole lot less painful and distressing in some ways than HyperT was.

I’ve got the 5mg, which makes it perplexing why the first (ex)doctor dropped me from 20 to 10 mg. But last week I got a letter in the mail from his practice stating he was no longer going to be a part of that practice, and no forwarding information, so that could have something to do with it. And yes, splitting the 5 mg is most certainly possible.

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