Synthroid dosage drop

[jrcaleb]

I've posted here before after expiencing bouts of what felt like hyperthyroidism - anxiety, sinus tachy, insomina, weight loss (more than 10lbs), blood pressure spikes, etc.  These symtpoms have been on and off since last November (07).  Since then my synthyroid dosage has been dropped from 137mcg/day to 100mcg (5 times a week).  I still can not put back on the weight and recently began experiencing the racing heart (usually in the morning) - worse when climbing the stairs to work.  It's not as bad as it has been before the drop in synthroid but it's still noticeable.  

TSH 0.8 in Nov '07 - No T4 test - 137mcg/day - Horrible Hyper symptoms - ER visit
TSH 0.4 in Jan '08 - No T4 test - 125mcg/day - Extremely horrible Hyper symptoms - ER visit
TSH 2.0 in Feb '08 - Free T4 1.8 Reference range is 0.8 - 1.8 - 100mcg/day - Felt better (occasional hyper feeling)
TSH 4.6 in Mar '08 - Free T4 1.5 100mcg 5x's/week - Felt better (some hypo symptoms).
TSH 1.9 in Apl  '08 - Free T4 1.4 100mcg 5x's/week - Felt real good - no symptoms.
TSH 2.2 in May '08 - Free T4 1.7 100mcg 5x's/week - have not taken a dose since Thursday and I do not feel hypo (I'm good at detecting hypo symptoms but feel hyper not hypo).

I have not taken my snythroid in about a week and the racing heart and anxiety is getting a little better, but I feel flush and nauseous in the morning which goes away during the afternoon and my symtpoms are usually better before I go to bed.  Blood pressure has been a little higher lately as well but goes down in the evening and is higher in the morning.

I have taken every test the doc could throw at me.  I've had a MRI and CT of head, thyroid panels, FNA of nodule in thyroid, EKG, ECG, Stress test, ENT eval, GI ultrasound of abdomen (awaiting results), CBC, 2 urine tests 1 blood test for pheocromocytoma, AM cortisol test, H.Pylori, Celiacs, Pancreatic enzymes, etc.  Everything has come back normal.

I have antibodies for Hashi's - obviously.  And I have antibodies for graves disease but they are below the threshold...not sure what the numbers were.

I guess my question is, what can cause my synthroid dosage to drop like this?  It seems like something is speeding up my metaboilsm - worries me that cancer may be doing this.  Any advice would help.  Thank you.

[jrcaleb]

Just bringing this thread back to the top who has experienced the same thing.

[jrcaleb]

Thanks for the response.  My FNA came back negative - only suggesting Hashi's which is what I have had for at least 6 years.  Not sure the size of the nodule.  I was wondering if cancer anywhere else in the body could release hormones that would make my metabolism speed up and cause my dosage requirement to drop.  

I feel like I'm chasing my tail.....everytime I drop my dose I feel fine for a while, then bam, back to the hyper symptoms.  Weight looked like it was finally starting to increase - finally back to up to 151 from 147....but looks like as of the other day I'm still about 149.....so I've been steady since dropping my dosage but before all of this I was consistently 160-164lbs.  I'm a 27 y/o male that is 5'10".  147lbs does not look good on me.

I asked my endo if that nodule or my thyroid could be temporarily working again and she said it could but we can't test until I'm off synthroid completely then we would have to do an RAIU scan to check function.  Now I'm wondering if that might be the way to go.  Thanks again for your thoughts.

[ChitChatNine]

For almost all of us with Cancer our labs were normal and we didn't have fluctuating TSH levels or antibodies, etc.   So, actually, this may be a good thing as far as Thyroid Cancer is concerned.  

But what was the result of the FNA you had on your nodule and how big is the nodule, etc.?

I am wondering if your Dr may suggest alternating dosing as well as the 5X week regime ... it may be worth a try.

I am at 1.8 bcz anything below this causes anxiety .. I was as low as 0.667 and actually had memory issues in word retrieval while speaking that immediatel cleared up with a Synthroid dosage adjustment and TSH over 1.0

Cheryl