what else can it be?

[doll face]

Dr. During the course of tx for hep c,(I am now negative) my thyroid went hypo. I have been on 50 mcg of levothyroxine for almost a year now. During the past two months I have notice that my syptoms (symptoms) have really increased. I am emtremely tired,either sweating or very sensitve to cold,my periods have been abnormal, brittle nails, dry course hair, losing hair, eyelashes and outer eyebrows,increased high cholesterol (even though I follow a low fat diet and exercise regularly)brain fog (forgetfulness) and extreme muscle and bone pain. I was finally able to get my doctor to send me for lab work but the results are frustrating.

T3 uptake  normal 30.00      range 25.00-38.00
TSH        normal  1.43      range   .50-6.00

I did NOT take my meds before going in for these tests.

Can you give me your opinion. I can not keep going like this and don't know what to think. Could it possibly be that I don't need the meds anymore? Help.

[Mark Lupo, M.D.]

Often the Hep C tx induces an auto-immune thyroid disease (Hashimotos) -- this may not go away after stopping the hep C tx regimen.

Your symptoms sound thyroid and it may be time to try t4/t3 combo rx such as adding cytomel or changing to armour.

Did you have antibodies tested?

[doodlebug1]

Hi doll face. You know, in my opinion, which is based on experience and observation, T4-only meds simply do not do the job. Sure, you could raise your Levothyroxine, and you may find some relief from those symptoms, but again, in my experience and observation, you will have symptoms related to inferior treatment your entire life. I have found natural dessicated thyroid to be a far superior treatment to T4-only meds, and apparently are thousands of others. Additionally, I have found it important to dose by symptoms, by temps, and use the free T3 as a great complimentary guide, not the TSH, nor a T3 uptake.

[ArmourGal]

NOT NEED THE MEDS?  gal,those are all hypo symptoms.  And getting pretty bad if you're getting the Queen Ann's eyebrow thing going on.  

I would encourage you to ask your doctor to run the newer thyroid tests - the Free T4 and Free T3 to get a more complete picture of where your hormone levels actually are.  Some folks have a in range TSH and normal Free T4, but are still "functionally hypo" with a Free T3 (active thyroid hormone) that is below range.  

This can be especially prevalent among hypos on a T4 med because they may not be converting T4 to T3 well.

It's possible increasing your T4 med may give you some additional relief, but I am an advocate of providing my body with all the thyroid hormones that my own thyroid gland produces so I take desiccated thyroid extract.  But there are other options like adding Cytomel (synthetic T3) and there is even a synthetic T4/T3 combo that perhaps would give you better symptom relief.

[layla]

Sorry you are feeling so bad. I have a friend who was just telling me this weekend she gets all the hypo symptoms even at a TSH of 1 to 2 range. She just feels better at 0.5. Perhaps you could try a dose increase. As you know I don't know much myself but it worked for her so I thought I would mention it. LL

[doll face]

Thanks everyone.(AS you can tell, I am very new to all this) I do not know if I ever had an antibodies test done but will check my records and try to get ahold of the doctor again (this might take awhile) to find out. I was thinking the same thing about adding T3, actually I would like to try Armour. I'll let you know asap.