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Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone, I was beginning to feel like I was. I am glad to have found this sight – I always felt that I was "cured" of my GD, never realizing that it will continue to affect me twenty years later. I enjoy the outdoors, when it’s warm and sunny, but unfortunetly I live in the most Northeast part of Ohio. It’s beginning to feel like there is many more cold months than warm!
I know what your saying about the exercising, but it doesn’t seem to helping! I just found out that I need to watch my calories and my fat consumption very carefully, because I was getting fustrated about weight gain. I am starting to see the scale move slowly down, not that I am over weight, but I did put on ten pounds and I didn’t feel good about myself.
I want to feel normal – that is if there is such a thing!!!!!!
HELP! I am recently finding myself "taking naps" in the afternoon. I find myself feeling very sleepy and fall asleep for about an hour. I exercise five days a week 50 minutes each time. I have been doing this for over a month now – I thought this would help my fatigue, but it’s not! It’s helping me with physical apperance. I am also experiencing, which I have been experiencing a loss of sex drive, which I feel bad for my husband. I want to but I just don’t feel like it. As for the brain fog, had it for sometime, but never put two and two togather. As my husband say’s "it’s your age dear", I’m only 45! My level is fine, just had it checked.
I would greatly appreciated any thoughts, suggestions, I read a lot about different supplements and one article says yes it works and another says no. I’m fustrated and don’t know what to do. HELP!
When you first start taking replacement thyroid hormone, it can definitely take a while before levels build up enough to feel normal. Remember our watchword, as Graves’ patients: PATIENCE. Everything relating to this disease takes time (except, of course, the beta blockers, which actually do nothing to help our disease, just mask our symptoms. Figures.
” title=”Very Happy” />). Thyroid hormone levels should not be moving rapidly, ever, because that can throw your body into a real tailspin. For that reason, when you go hypo after RAI, it’s a little bit of a dance. You’ll be getting closer to normal all the time, may even dance around it a little bit, but it takes some time.When you first start taking the replacement hormone, chances are that the RAI is also still doing further damage to your thyroid (unless it was completely destroyed in the first six weeks ~ which can happen, but dosing is typically imperfect, and some doctors "low dose" on purpose as well). This means that your replacement hormone dose is an educated guess, based on your latest blood test (really, the only thing they can use), and yet, as you begin taking it, your thyroid function may still ebb further, meaning you’ll need a higher dose. I was told that RAI does the bulk of its work in the first six weeks after dosage, but continues making SOME changes in the thyroid for up to six months. After the first six weeks, the changes are far more subtle, but they can generate a need for more thyroid hormone.
After you start taking replacement hormone, you should wait six weeks before having your blood tested. Yes, it actually takes that long for the body to fully metabolize the dose, and for the TSH to give a truly valuable, useful reading that the doctor can work from. When the blood is tested again, if you are found to be slightly hypo or slightly hyper on the dose you’re taking, then your doctor will typically only change your dose by ONE dosage level. Again, we don’t want to make radical, rapid changes. Then you need to wait another six weeks, and change by one dose level again (if needed). You can see that just taking this a few doses out, you’re already at 18 weeks from the first dose. Remember, please, that at every point along the way, you are feeling better and better. You are approaching YOUR normal, departing from imbalance and fluctuations. It doesn’t mean you feel AWFUL all the time, but you do need to take the time to get to your normal. Once you’re very VERY close, you can actually change by half a dose, by taking two doses next to each other, swapping days. In other words, you could take a .125 Monday, a .112 Tuesday, back to .125 Wednesday, etc. etc. It doesn’t make your body feel up one day, down the next. Our body metabolizes and "averages" our blood levels between the doses. At first, after a dose change, I DO typically feel that way ~ up one day, down the next ~ and that lasts for a week or two. Then I kind of "settle" into feeling the same each day. Let me warn you, it is ALWAYS blood tests that will show where you stand. Our feelings can be radically off base, proven by many many patients I’ve known. I swore I was hypo, a thousand times, and kept getting tested. Nope, nope, nope. I just felt that I was slowing down, and after a long period of time hyper, I just KNEW that was too slow. It wasn’t. I’ve known people who felt fine, and blood tests showed they were extremely hypo. Always rely on the blood tests. After you’ve been level for a while, you can probably always rely only on TSH, but while you’re dialing in the right dose, ask your doctor to check T4 as well, so you can see the relationship between the two. Even at that six-week-change schedule, it’s rather rapid for TSH, and knowing your T4 levels can really help.
And finally, remember that the hyperthyroidism has done a real number on your body. When your levels arrive at normal, and stay there a while, that’s when your body can finally use some of its resources to start getting well, repairing the damage that’s been caused. So give yourself time. PATIENCE.
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