Am I hypothyroid? Do thyroid medication effects tolerate with time?

[tweaked]

I have been battling fatigue and lack of motivation for years. I regularly sleep in the afternoon despite 8-10hrs of sleep at night…and I’m still tired. My body average temperature is about 96.5 and varies little during the day.  My heart rate is about 48bpm when not excercising and now that I run it’s about 42bpm (also stable throughout the day). I have trouble loosing weight. I have anxiety and restlessness, lethary, low sex drive, lack of pleasure in anything really. I also have quite severe episodes of nausea. I have such severe constipation/hemroids that I have rectal bleeding and am going in for a colonoscopy tomorrow.
I seem to have all the symptoms of hypothyroidism. On the other hand, I have very oily skin and sweat/urinate a lot, so I don’t know what to think.

I just got my bloodwork done. My “bad” cholesterol is high and “good” is low. I’m waiting for the TSH and T3/T4 tests results still. If they come back negative I’ll have difficulty convincing any medical professional that I have the symptoms but not the disease, and I’ll go on feeling the same. Any other ideas?

On the other hand, if I am hypothyroid and I’m prescribed medication, either natural or synthetic, I’m concerned that if I benefit from it at first, the benefits will wane (like I’ve experienced with so many other medications, like SSRIs ets). Is this the case for those of you on the medication long term? What happens when you go off them, are you worse?

[Jimlow]

Hi Tweaked,  If your thyroid panels comes back normal, I would ask for a thyroid antibodies test. You can feel hypo, if autoimmune (Hashimoto's) is going on, even before thyroid hormone levels drop on labs.
Hypo people need increased dosage from time to time because their hypo progresses, not because they develop resistance to the med. The meds are same as natural thyroid hormone, which our bodies produce life-long.
Some people do have "thyroid hormone resistance", so need very high doses for it to work but is rare.
Hope that helps.

[tweaked]

Thanks. But with the extra external hormone does whatever natural hormone production shut down and you end up in the same situation, but needing external hormone?
Or is it really the case that patients see the same beneficial effects of the same dose for years?

[tweaked]

Not that I'm doubting you, but I can't imagine actually having a magic bullet work for me, since everything has eventually failed over the years.

[meling333]

You sound like you have thyroid problems. These pills you take for ever just like your body should be producing them. Med changes through the years is normal as the thyroid can croak off more in time. You have to start out small and build up so not to through the body into shock. I was sleeping like you and never feeling rested and your other symptoms are not uncommon. Let us know what your labs are and get copies. Dont settle for feeling like ****.        Juanita