Re: New to Group-could be long

[Guest guest]

Your story is actually so common it's tuely terrible and a real

crime. This is just my opinion, but the sooner you get rid of the

endo the better. Endocrinologists, in my opinion are the worst for

treating thyroid disorders successfully. They will usually only

prescribe Synthroid or Lavoxyl and they rabidly adhere to the TSH

test and keeping patients tightly in test ranges no matter how they

feel. They tend to totally ignore the patients assessment of their

situation or they send them to a shrink for antidepressants. It has

to do with their training and the influence of the Synthroid

manufacturer.

From my own experience, I think that you have adrenal fatigue, which

is very common in hypothryoidism and this adrenal fatigue is what is

making the doc think you are overmedicated, when in fact you are

very likely undermedicated for your thyroid condition and it also

sounds like you might be on the wrong medication for your thyroid

conditon and the Synthroid is not effective for you.

All the joint and muscle pain are probably the adrenal fatigue. The

thyroid controls the size and output of the adrenals. So, in

hypothyroidism that has been around for a while, the adrenals shrink

and drop their production of hormone. As long as you are hypo, this

allows the body to hang on to adrenal hormones longer because of the

slowed metabolic rate reducing their breakdown. But, the moment you

take thryoid hormone and increase your metabolic rate any, Adrenal

hormones are suddenly more normally removed from the body and the

increased metabolic rate increases the demand for new hormones. Your

adrenals quickly become depleted of their stores and because they

are small and weak, they cannot make enough hormone to meet the new

demands of a higher metaboic rate. The Adrenals produce about 40

hormones. Probably the most important one is cortisol. Without

enough cortisol inflammation gets out of hand, the immune system

cannot work properly, you get all kinds of pain and misery,

allergies get out of control, you get a kind of fatigue that limits

you from doing anything. Even things that make you happy use too

many of these precious hormones and cause you to become sick. You

will have no excercise tolerance at all, and probably insomnia or

not being able to stay awake if it is bad enough. You will have

mental disturbances such as depression or mood instability and

irrational anger. Also, you will develope muscle weakness and

wasting. This is what happened to me. Your doctor neglected to read

the material that comes with synthroid that gives dire warnings

about prescribing thyroid in the presence of adrenal hypofunction.

He should have given you cortef or some cortisone when you developed

problems. He really should have given it to you before starting you

on thyroid. But, 90% of the regular doctors don't do this and seem

not to read the drug labels.

The reason that they thought your dose was too high was because,

adrenal hormones control the ability of thyroid to enter tissues in

the body and when they are too low, thryoid hormone builds up in the

blood. Without sufficient adrenal output, you cannot convert the T4

in your synthorid to T3 and so you will not get any energy from your

medication. This buildup of thyroid in the blood will give false

high results on a blood test. If this happens, you get both symptoms

of hypothryoidism and hyperthryoidism. You will get a racing heart,

the shakes, weakness, headache and on and on, but your hair will

fall out and you will have the other hypo symptoms. Adrenal hormones

also play a role in blood sugar metabolism and if you have low

adrenal output for a long time, it eventually leads ot insulin

resistance. Without sufficient cortisol, you cannot get glucose into

tissues and you cannot regulate glucose in the blood.

Your thyroid dose is obviously too low or your hair wouldn't be

falling out and you wouldn't be doing so poorly and gaining a lot of

weight. However, you cannot raise your dose without enough adrenal

hormones. The two must be in balance. About 20% of auto-immune

thyroid patients also have auto-immune attack on the adrenals.

Others just have low adrenal function from being low thyroid and if

they get adrenal support and proper thyroid doses, the adrenal

fatigue goes away eventually. The adrenals take 4 months to 2 years

to heal if they are going to heal.

I think for now, you would feel worlds better with some adrenal

support. You can get this over the counter. You can purchase

Nutri+Meds Adrenal glandular or IsoCort off the web. Good healthfood

stores may also have an adrenal glandular. You can also use licorice

root in a tea, 1 teaspoon 4 times a day evenly space. Licorice root

slows the breakdown of the cortisol you make keeping it in the body

longer. Typical adrenal support done by the enlightened doctors is

10 to 20 mg of cortisol a day divided up into 4 doses equally spaced

out in the day. The healthy adrenals produce 35 to 40 mg of cortisol

a day. So, it is not possible to have any cortisone overdose

symptoms at this dose. Anything you take below what healthy adrenals

make, your adrenals will drop production by that amount to make

blood levels right. So, if you order Nutri+meds adrenal, you will

need about 4 to 6 tablets a day or 1 to 1-1/2 tablets about every 4

hours. If you get Isocort, it contains 2-1/2 mg of cortisol per

tablet and you will need 4 to 8 tablets a day or one or 2 every 4

hours. Most patients feel best at 20mg of cortisol a day, or the

higher dose. You continue taking these during the time you are

making thyroid adjustments. Every time you raise thyroid, you are

really putting a stress on the adrenals. Adrenal support can be

taken for up to 2 years. You actually can take for life without any

harm if you need it, as long as the dose is below what a healthy

adrenal makes. (Read Jeffries, " Safe Uses of Cortisol " )

My other advice is to look into switching to Armour thryoid. Check

out Gail's Thyroid Tips at:

http://personal.bellsouth.net/w/u/wurmstei/. Armour contains all the

7 thryoid hormones that the thyroid makes. All have important

fucntions in the body.

My last advice is that you probably need to get your thyroid dose up

more especially since you have gained weight and have many hypo

symptoms. The healthy thyroid makes 4-1/2 to 5 grans of thryoid a

day or about 333 to 370 mcg of synthroid equivelent a day. In a

healthy person, it is not possible to overdose on thryoid untill it

exceeds 4-1/2 to 5 grains or 333 to 37 mcg. This is because the

thyroid drops production by whatever is taken to keep blood levels

right. Healthy people can tolerate quite high doses of thyroid

without symptoms because they have the adrenal reserve to handle it.

But, in cases of adrenal fatigue it is not possible to take thryoid

without adrenal support or without going extreemly slowly-raising

doses in tiny amounts and waiting 4 weeks or more between raises.

This gives the adrenals time to recover from each raise. You must

also really rest and take it easy and avoid stress. Cut out sugar

and simple carbos (big adrenal stressors) and east several small

meals a day (blood sugar control).

Typical thryoid doses before the TSH test were 3-5 grains of Armour

or around 300 to 400 mcg of Synthroid. Often low doses of thyroid

will make the patient more hypothryoid. This has to do with about

40% of thyroid patients having pituitary dysfunction. This pituitary

dysfunction causes low doses of thyroid to overly suppress it and

then the pitutary does not tell the thyroid to make up the

difference between what you are taking and what the body needs, 4-

1/2 to 5 grains... This is why thyroid doses often need to be higher

to overcome this problem.

Here is my last suggestion. Find another doctor. Your's is a jerk

(my opinion) and has not treated you properly and allowed your

health to take a nose dive. Check out Sammon's site and take a

look at her top doctor list. See if you can find one that doesn't

treat by the numbers and that uses Armour.

http://www.thyroid.about.com/

Or you can go to the Armour site and find a prescribing doc there.

http://www.armourthyroid.com/

The 's Syndrome site often have enlightened doctors on their

list. http://www.wilsonssyndrome.com/

But, I think you will feel much better if you can get some adrenal

support. If you do this, keep in mind that it can take about two

weeks to notice improvement. If you go on adrenal support double

your dose if you get sick or have a big stress. This should help you

stay healthy. Adrenal demand can double in stress and sickness. Be

sure to taper off them slowly if you reover your health and feel you

no longer need them. This will probably take a long time.

For 73 years before the TSH test, thryoid doses were adjusted to

whatever made the patient feel best. Patients lived long and healthy

lives. The first thryoid patient lived to be 79 and started therapy

in the late 1800s. The most common way to monitor success of

treament was body temperature. Body temperature is a measure of

metabolic activity, which is controlled by thryoid and adrenal. To

read about monitoring your treatment success go the Dr. Rind's site:

http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp Temperature monitoring of

thyroid therapy fell out of favor because it took too much time for

doctors to explain to patients and if they did it wrong there was

error. However, it is still a very valid way of determining success

of treatment and for adusting doses.

Tish

[Guest guest]

Your story is actually so common it's tuely terrible and a real

crime. This is just my opinion, but the sooner you get rid of the

endo the better. Endocrinologists, in my opinion are the worst for

treating thyroid disorders successfully. They will usually only

prescribe Synthroid or Lavoxyl and they rabidly adhere to the TSH

test and keeping patients tightly in test ranges no matter how they

feel. They tend to totally ignore the patients assessment of their

situation or they send them to a shrink for antidepressants. It has

to do with their training and the influence of the Synthroid

manufacturer.

From my own experience, I think that you have adrenal fatigue, which

is very common in hypothryoidism and this adrenal fatigue is what is

making the doc think you are overmedicated, when in fact you are

very likely undermedicated for your thyroid condition and it also

sounds like you might be on the wrong medication for your thyroid

conditon and the Synthroid is not effective for you.

All the joint and muscle pain are probably the adrenal fatigue. The

thyroid controls the size and output of the adrenals. So, in

hypothyroidism that has been around for a while, the adrenals shrink

and drop their production of hormone. As long as you are hypo, this

allows the body to hang on to adrenal hormones longer because of the

slowed metabolic rate reducing their breakdown. But, the moment you

take thryoid hormone and increase your metabolic rate any, Adrenal

hormones are suddenly more normally removed from the body and the

increased metabolic rate increases the demand for new hormones. Your

adrenals quickly become depleted of their stores and because they

are small and weak, they cannot make enough hormone to meet the new

demands of a higher metaboic rate. The Adrenals produce about 40

hormones. Probably the most important one is cortisol. Without

enough cortisol inflammation gets out of hand, the immune system

cannot work properly, you get all kinds of pain and misery,

allergies get out of control, you get a kind of fatigue that limits

you from doing anything. Even things that make you happy use too

many of these precious hormones and cause you to become sick. You

will have no excercise tolerance at all, and probably insomnia or

not being able to stay awake if it is bad enough. You will have

mental disturbances such as depression or mood instability and

irrational anger. Also, you will develope muscle weakness and

wasting. This is what happened to me. Your doctor neglected to read

the material that comes with synthroid that gives dire warnings

about prescribing thyroid in the presence of adrenal hypofunction.

He should have given you cortef or some cortisone when you developed

problems. He really should have given it to you before starting you

on thyroid. But, 90% of the regular doctors don't do this and seem

not to read the drug labels.

The reason that they thought your dose was too high was because,

adrenal hormones control the ability of thyroid to enter tissues in

the body and when they are too low, thryoid hormone builds up in the

blood. Without sufficient adrenal output, you cannot convert the T4

in your synthorid to T3 and so you will not get any energy from your

medication. This buildup of thyroid in the blood will give false

high results on a blood test. If this happens, you get both symptoms

of hypothryoidism and hyperthryoidism. You will get a racing heart,

the shakes, weakness, headache and on and on, but your hair will

fall out and you will have the other hypo symptoms. Adrenal hormones

also play a role in blood sugar metabolism and if you have low

adrenal output for a long time, it eventually leads ot insulin

resistance. Without sufficient cortisol, you cannot get glucose into

tissues and you cannot regulate glucose in the blood.

Your thyroid dose is obviously too low or your hair wouldn't be

falling out and you wouldn't be doing so poorly and gaining a lot of

weight. However, you cannot raise your dose without enough adrenal

hormones. The two must be in balance. About 20% of auto-immune

thyroid patients also have auto-immune attack on the adrenals.

Others just have low adrenal function from being low thyroid and if

they get adrenal support and proper thyroid doses, the adrenal

fatigue goes away eventually. The adrenals take 4 months to 2 years

to heal if they are going to heal.

I think for now, you would feel worlds better with some adrenal

support. You can get this over the counter. You can purchase

Nutri+Meds Adrenal glandular or IsoCort off the web. Good healthfood

stores may also have an adrenal glandular. You can also use licorice

root in a tea, 1 teaspoon 4 times a day evenly space. Licorice root

slows the breakdown of the cortisol you make keeping it in the body

longer. Typical adrenal support done by the enlightened doctors is

10 to 20 mg of cortisol a day divided up into 4 doses equally spaced

out in the day. The healthy adrenals produce 35 to 40 mg of cortisol

a day. So, it is not possible to have any cortisone overdose

symptoms at this dose. Anything you take below what healthy adrenals

make, your adrenals will drop production by that amount to make

blood levels right. So, if you order Nutri+meds adrenal, you will

need about 4 to 6 tablets a day or 1 to 1-1/2 tablets about every 4

hours. If you get Isocort, it contains 2-1/2 mg of cortisol per

tablet and you will need 4 to 8 tablets a day or one or 2 every 4

hours. Most patients feel best at 20mg of cortisol a day, or the

higher dose. You continue taking these during the time you are

making thyroid adjustments. Every time you raise thyroid, you are

really putting a stress on the adrenals. Adrenal support can be

taken for up to 2 years. You actually can take for life without any

harm if you need it, as long as the dose is below what a healthy

adrenal makes. (Read Jeffries, " Safe Uses of Cortisol " )

My other advice is to look into switching to Armour thryoid. Check

out Gail's Thyroid Tips at:

http://personal.bellsouth.net/w/u/wurmstei/. Armour contains all the

7 thryoid hormones that the thyroid makes. All have important

fucntions in the body.

My last advice is that you probably need to get your thyroid dose up

more especially since you have gained weight and have many hypo

symptoms. The healthy thyroid makes 4-1/2 to 5 grans of thryoid a

day or about 333 to 370 mcg of synthroid equivelent a day. In a

healthy person, it is not possible to overdose on thryoid untill it

exceeds 4-1/2 to 5 grains or 333 to 37 mcg. This is because the

thyroid drops production by whatever is taken to keep blood levels

right. Healthy people can tolerate quite high doses of thyroid

without symptoms because they have the adrenal reserve to handle it.

But, in cases of adrenal fatigue it is not possible to take thryoid

without adrenal support or without going extreemly slowly-raising

doses in tiny amounts and waiting 4 weeks or more between raises.

This gives the adrenals time to recover from each raise. You must

also really rest and take it easy and avoid stress. Cut out sugar

and simple carbos (big adrenal stressors) and east several small

meals a day (blood sugar control).

Typical thryoid doses before the TSH test were 3-5 grains of Armour

or around 300 to 400 mcg of Synthroid. Often low doses of thyroid

will make the patient more hypothryoid. This has to do with about

40% of thyroid patients having pituitary dysfunction. This pituitary

dysfunction causes low doses of thyroid to overly suppress it and

then the pitutary does not tell the thyroid to make up the

difference between what you are taking and what the body needs, 4-

1/2 to 5 grains... This is why thyroid doses often need to be higher

to overcome this problem.

Here is my last suggestion. Find another doctor. Your's is a jerk

(my opinion) and has not treated you properly and allowed your

health to take a nose dive. Check out Sammon's site and take a

look at her top doctor list. See if you can find one that doesn't

treat by the numbers and that uses Armour.

http://www.thyroid.about.com/

Or you can go to the Armour site and find a prescribing doc there.

http://www.armourthyroid.com/

The 's Syndrome site often have enlightened doctors on their

list. http://www.wilsonssyndrome.com/

But, I think you will feel much better if you can get some adrenal

support. If you do this, keep in mind that it can take about two

weeks to notice improvement. If you go on adrenal support double

your dose if you get sick or have a big stress. This should help you

stay healthy. Adrenal demand can double in stress and sickness. Be

sure to taper off them slowly if you reover your health and feel you

no longer need them. This will probably take a long time.

For 73 years before the TSH test, thryoid doses were adjusted to

whatever made the patient feel best. Patients lived long and healthy

lives. The first thryoid patient lived to be 79 and started therapy

in the late 1800s. The most common way to monitor success of

treament was body temperature. Body temperature is a measure of

metabolic activity, which is controlled by thryoid and adrenal. To

read about monitoring your treatment success go the Dr. Rind's site:

http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp Temperature monitoring of

thyroid therapy fell out of favor because it took too much time for

doctors to explain to patients and if they did it wrong there was

error. However, it is still a very valid way of determining success

of treatment and for adusting doses.

Tish

[Guest guest]

Your story is actually so common it's tuely terrible and a real

crime. This is just my opinion, but the sooner you get rid of the

endo the better. Endocrinologists, in my opinion are the worst for

treating thyroid disorders successfully. They will usually only

prescribe Synthroid or Lavoxyl and they rabidly adhere to the TSH

test and keeping patients tightly in test ranges no matter how they

feel. They tend to totally ignore the patients assessment of their

situation or they send them to a shrink for antidepressants. It has

to do with their training and the influence of the Synthroid

manufacturer.

From my own experience, I think that you have adrenal fatigue, which

is very common in hypothryoidism and this adrenal fatigue is what is

making the doc think you are overmedicated, when in fact you are

very likely undermedicated for your thyroid condition and it also

sounds like you might be on the wrong medication for your thyroid

conditon and the Synthroid is not effective for you.

All the joint and muscle pain are probably the adrenal fatigue. The

thyroid controls the size and output of the adrenals. So, in

hypothyroidism that has been around for a while, the adrenals shrink

and drop their production of hormone. As long as you are hypo, this

allows the body to hang on to adrenal hormones longer because of the

slowed metabolic rate reducing their breakdown. But, the moment you

take thryoid hormone and increase your metabolic rate any, Adrenal

hormones are suddenly more normally removed from the body and the

increased metabolic rate increases the demand for new hormones. Your

adrenals quickly become depleted of their stores and because they

are small and weak, they cannot make enough hormone to meet the new

demands of a higher metaboic rate. The Adrenals produce about 40

hormones. Probably the most important one is cortisol. Without

enough cortisol inflammation gets out of hand, the immune system

cannot work properly, you get all kinds of pain and misery,

allergies get out of control, you get a kind of fatigue that limits

you from doing anything. Even things that make you happy use too

many of these precious hormones and cause you to become sick. You

will have no excercise tolerance at all, and probably insomnia or

not being able to stay awake if it is bad enough. You will have

mental disturbances such as depression or mood instability and

irrational anger. Also, you will develope muscle weakness and

wasting. This is what happened to me. Your doctor neglected to read

the material that comes with synthroid that gives dire warnings

about prescribing thyroid in the presence of adrenal hypofunction.

He should have given you cortef or some cortisone when you developed

problems. He really should have given it to you before starting you

on thyroid. But, 90% of the regular doctors don't do this and seem

not to read the drug labels.

The reason that they thought your dose was too high was because,

adrenal hormones control the ability of thyroid to enter tissues in

the body and when they are too low, thryoid hormone builds up in the

blood. Without sufficient adrenal output, you cannot convert the T4

in your synthorid to T3 and so you will not get any energy from your

medication. This buildup of thyroid in the blood will give false

high results on a blood test. If this happens, you get both symptoms

of hypothryoidism and hyperthryoidism. You will get a racing heart,

the shakes, weakness, headache and on and on, but your hair will

fall out and you will have the other hypo symptoms. Adrenal hormones

also play a role in blood sugar metabolism and if you have low

adrenal output for a long time, it eventually leads ot insulin

resistance. Without sufficient cortisol, you cannot get glucose into

tissues and you cannot regulate glucose in the blood.

Your thyroid dose is obviously too low or your hair wouldn't be

falling out and you wouldn't be doing so poorly and gaining a lot of

weight. However, you cannot raise your dose without enough adrenal

hormones. The two must be in balance. About 20% of auto-immune

thyroid patients also have auto-immune attack on the adrenals.

Others just have low adrenal function from being low thyroid and if

they get adrenal support and proper thyroid doses, the adrenal

fatigue goes away eventually. The adrenals take 4 months to 2 years

to heal if they are going to heal.

I think for now, you would feel worlds better with some adrenal

support. You can get this over the counter. You can purchase

Nutri+Meds Adrenal glandular or IsoCort off the web. Good healthfood

stores may also have an adrenal glandular. You can also use licorice

root in a tea, 1 teaspoon 4 times a day evenly space. Licorice root

slows the breakdown of the cortisol you make keeping it in the body

longer. Typical adrenal support done by the enlightened doctors is

10 to 20 mg of cortisol a day divided up into 4 doses equally spaced

out in the day. The healthy adrenals produce 35 to 40 mg of cortisol

a day. So, it is not possible to have any cortisone overdose

symptoms at this dose. Anything you take below what healthy adrenals

make, your adrenals will drop production by that amount to make

blood levels right. So, if you order Nutri+meds adrenal, you will

need about 4 to 6 tablets a day or 1 to 1-1/2 tablets about every 4

hours. If you get Isocort, it contains 2-1/2 mg of cortisol per

tablet and you will need 4 to 8 tablets a day or one or 2 every 4

hours. Most patients feel best at 20mg of cortisol a day, or the

higher dose. You continue taking these during the time you are

making thyroid adjustments. Every time you raise thyroid, you are

really putting a stress on the adrenals. Adrenal support can be

taken for up to 2 years. You actually can take for life without any

harm if you need it, as long as the dose is below what a healthy

adrenal makes. (Read Jeffries, " Safe Uses of Cortisol " )

My other advice is to look into switching to Armour thryoid. Check

out Gail's Thyroid Tips at:

http://personal.bellsouth.net/w/u/wurmstei/. Armour contains all the

7 thryoid hormones that the thyroid makes. All have important

fucntions in the body.

My last advice is that you probably need to get your thyroid dose up

more especially since you have gained weight and have many hypo

symptoms. The healthy thyroid makes 4-1/2 to 5 grans of thryoid a

day or about 333 to 370 mcg of synthroid equivelent a day. In a

healthy person, it is not possible to overdose on thryoid untill it

exceeds 4-1/2 to 5 grains or 333 to 37 mcg. This is because the

thyroid drops production by whatever is taken to keep blood levels

right. Healthy people can tolerate quite high doses of thyroid

without symptoms because they have the adrenal reserve to handle it.

But, in cases of adrenal fatigue it is not possible to take thryoid

without adrenal support or without going extreemly slowly-raising

doses in tiny amounts and waiting 4 weeks or more between raises.

This gives the adrenals time to recover from each raise. You must

also really rest and take it easy and avoid stress. Cut out sugar

and simple carbos (big adrenal stressors) and east several small

meals a day (blood sugar control).

Typical thryoid doses before the TSH test were 3-5 grains of Armour

or around 300 to 400 mcg of Synthroid. Often low doses of thyroid

will make the patient more hypothryoid. This has to do with about

40% of thyroid patients having pituitary dysfunction. This pituitary

dysfunction causes low doses of thyroid to overly suppress it and

then the pitutary does not tell the thyroid to make up the

difference between what you are taking and what the body needs, 4-

1/2 to 5 grains... This is why thyroid doses often need to be higher

to overcome this problem.

Here is my last suggestion. Find another doctor. Your's is a jerk

(my opinion) and has not treated you properly and allowed your

health to take a nose dive. Check out Sammon's site and take a

look at her top doctor list. See if you can find one that doesn't

treat by the numbers and that uses Armour.

http://www.thyroid.about.com/

Or you can go to the Armour site and find a prescribing doc there.

http://www.armourthyroid.com/

The 's Syndrome site often have enlightened doctors on their

list. http://www.wilsonssyndrome.com/

But, I think you will feel much better if you can get some adrenal

support. If you do this, keep in mind that it can take about two

weeks to notice improvement. If you go on adrenal support double

your dose if you get sick or have a big stress. This should help you

stay healthy. Adrenal demand can double in stress and sickness. Be

sure to taper off them slowly if you reover your health and feel you

no longer need them. This will probably take a long time.

For 73 years before the TSH test, thryoid doses were adjusted to

whatever made the patient feel best. Patients lived long and healthy

lives. The first thryoid patient lived to be 79 and started therapy

in the late 1800s. The most common way to monitor success of

treament was body temperature. Body temperature is a measure of

metabolic activity, which is controlled by thryoid and adrenal. To

read about monitoring your treatment success go the Dr. Rind's site:

http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp Temperature monitoring of

thyroid therapy fell out of favor because it took too much time for

doctors to explain to patients and if they did it wrong there was

error. However, it is still a very valid way of determining success

of treatment and for adusting doses.

Tish

[Guest guest]

Hi Deb... Welcome!

This is gonna be long.. go grab a glass of water or something and get comfortable... I have some thoughts that I'd like to share with you... try to bear with me and read through all of it... I'm not aiming to make you angry or upset... but I'd like to run some things by you so that you can form your own opinions.

If you're not able to do this, have your hubby do it for you.... stop your feet and scream.... You need to have your TSH, Free T4 and Free T3 AND thyroid antibodies tested.

I strongly suspect that your endo isn't really very good with Hashi's... based on his jumping your Synthroid up and down like that.. this is my opinion..... that he is only checking TSH and not checking the thyroid hormones, antibodies or you adrenals. IMHO.

All the symptoms that you described are all screaming low thyroid hormones and very very fatigued adrenals. Your need for caffeine to try to function bears that out.. unfortunately the caffeine is increasing the stress and damage to your adrenals.

Synthroid is known to be a TSH suppressor.. your if he's only checking your TSH and not checking the thyroid hormones you could be underdosed even with low TSH.. and if he has no idea how to read the numbers and relate them to the ranges AND does not take into consideration how you feel.... well, again, in my humble opinion.. fire the jerk.....

So.. questions for you... How much Synthroid are you on now? What were your previous doses? How long were you on each dose?

Are you taking the Synthroid on an empty stomach?

What other supplements are you taking? Vitamins, herbals, other medications?

What are the 'energy drinks' that you are taking?

Are you eating regular meals? If you were to guess.. how many calories are you taking in a day?

Do you have copies of your previous labs and their ranges for us to look at?

I'll stop with this.. and wait to here your answers... There is the rest of today and tomorrow to see what we can put together for you... in the mean time there are two pages on our web site that you might like to read when you have some time.

One has some basic info on the hormones, tests and meds

www.thyrophoenix.com/thyroid_101.htm

The other is some info on how to check your metabolic rate, to get an idea of how your body is reacting to your current dose:

www.thyrophoenix.com/self_monitor.htm

You may also want to have your Ferritin (storage iron) and your Bs checked.. many of us are finding that we are low on both after long term hypo.

If you endo doesn't want to run the proper tests you have the option of ordering your own through Health Check USA www.healthcheckusa.com . Log on to the site, find your state and then see if there is a Lab One in your area...

If you end up getting totally flubbergusted with the endo and can't find another one or a doc to take care of you, it's also possible to order your own meds and take care of this on your own.. .there are quite a few of us here that have been doing that, me since July of '02. www.thyrophoenix.com/self-medicate.htm A good many of us have gone a decade or more with poor care and we've found out that we can't have to continue like that anymore.. we have options now and folks that can help us to understand what is going on.

When you consider that for more than 50 years before Synthroid was patented and put on the market folks were treated by symptoms with natural thyroid and did very well.

When you consider that Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome only came to be after Synthroid came on the market and doctors no longer paid attention to their patient's symptoms....

oh oh... ranting now.....

Synthroid is NOT the best med for a great many of us that are hypo.... it may be something that you want to look into.. Natural Thyroid (like Armour brand and it's generics) are a far superior source of thyroid hormone....

You can also order tests for adrenal and supplements on your own as well......

I'll be quiet now... I tried to be a good girl....

Holler if there are any questions or comments..

*blush*

Topper ()

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:15:07 -0000 "Deb and " writes:

Hi,I just joined this group. I am 32 and was diagnosed with Hashimotos in April. Already I am very frustrated from my doctor. He IS a very good endogrinologist, but I also think he knows he is. If that makes any sense.Anyway, I have been bounced around to three different dosages of synthroid and none of it has done any good. I feel worse now than I did before I started seeing him. In less than a year I have put on 40 pounds. UGH!!! That totally sucks since I had a really big weight problem in the past several years ago and got that gone. My hair has always been thin and now it is falling out by the handful. It wasn't nearly that bad before I started taking the synthroid. I have the worst acne I have ever had in my life, I never had it as a kid, I can't stay awake at all. Think two pots of coffee plus caffiene filled energy drinks during the day. I sooooo tired, it's unbelievable. My nails break and crack, my skin is funky, I hurt all over. I kind of feel like I have had the flu for a year. My GP diagnosed fibromyalgia because everything just hurts. She's leaving that up to my endo because that's part of this disease.I have too little boys that I really can't play with because I'm either way too tired to move or something hurts so badly that I can't. Also, last weekend I had an all day episode where I couldn't move at all. I was so weak that my husband had to carry me wherever I needed to go. Otherwise all I did was lay on the couch. My boys are 2 and 3, they don't understand why I can't play. Unfortunately, I don't either. I have another appointment with my endo on Thursday. Can anybody offer any suggestions as to how I can MAKE him listen to me? At my last appointment I reported to him that nothing had changed at the dosage I was on of synthroid so he did some blood work. I then got a call that I was being overmedicated and my dosage needed to be dropped. Lovely, now not only are things much worse, stuff I wasn't already having a problem with before, I am now having a problem with.I also have PCOS, insulin resistance and super bad allergies.HELP!! This one I don't know anything about.Hugs,Deb