synthroid no longer working?

[highawatha]

hi,
i feel like im kind of out of places to turn, or i guess just turning in circles.
6 years ago i was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and finally had RAI, and of course became hypothyroid.  After awhile i was finally feeling OKAY with the dose of synthroid i was on. my weight was always maintained and energy levels seemed balanced. that lasted about 3 years.  last june everything went wacko within 3 months i gained 40 lbs and i began to feel terrible all for no reason that i know of, i am watching my diet and excersizing and am active. the past year my dr began increasing my synthroid dosage over several months im now on 150mcg, ive been on that dose for about 5 months now and still feel pretty bad, not to mention unable to move that 40lbs off no matter what .
i dont have any of the other tests but the latest,( last week) my T4 was 8.2 and TSH .22L
dr. mentioned checking the T3 level.(after reading here it sounds like he should)
could all of a sudden synthroid not be working for me?
thanks in advance

[shelbyc051002]

I know quite a bit about alot of the different thyroid disorders.  Mine started years ago, but I didn't have insurance to get checked at the doctors.  I had Hypothyroidism.  After a few years of gaining alot of weight, all of the sudden I lost like 80 pounds in 3 months.  I looked like a walking skeleton.  I finally went to 2 doctors here in the area that I live in.  One told me I didn't have a thyroid issue, the other said I did.  He told me I had hyperthyroidism and put me on a very low dose of medication and told me I would be fine.  After about a year of not getting any better, still losing weight, hair loss, messed up menstrual cycles...I looked like death walking, I went home to Pittsburgh and found out that because of the incompetance of the doctor I was seeing, my hyperthyroid turned into graves.  Which in the beginning, I did a self diagnosis.  I spotted the goiter well before the first doctor told me I didn't have a problem.  I went thru all the nuclear scans, tests, ekg's...got put on heart medication because it was affecting my heart.  Finally it came down to radiation to try to shrink it or thyroidectomy.  I chose the surgery.  The specialist I was dealing with gave me the pros and cons of both options.  What got me was with radiation it could take along time to work, if it did at all.  I wanted to go back to my husband and kids.  And with radiation, i was told you have to stay away from espiecially kids for a certain period of time.  I had already been in Pittsburgh for 11 mos, and they were talking at least another year to see if it would work.  So I did they surgery.  My 2-3 hour total surgery took almost 8 hours, for the first surgery.  I will explain the 2nd surgery in a minute.  With the first surgery, when they got it there they found the goiter had grown all around my vocal chords/box, attached to some of my calcium glands...it was grown almost clear around my neck.  And I turned out to be this doctors 2nd bleeder in a few thousand surgeries.  But they had to slice and dice a calcium gland and reattach it...it was long and drawn out surgery.  Then when they released me the next day, I didn't even make it out of the parking lot of the hospital.  I had a massive hemotoma in my neck.  They had to go back in and re shut me.  I had a major bleeding event go on.  But after everything I went thru, I would suggest the surgery.  Within a few day's I felt so much better.  There is hardly no pain, heals fast...But now that I am back home I am finding it hard to find a doctor again that will deal with this the right way.  I don't think my med's are the right dose because I have gained major weight since coming home. All aspects of Thyroid is complex, it affects your whole body, metabolism...

[hashi]

I too was on synthroid for about 3 years and all of a suddent I started not feeling well,so my doc increased it from.25 to .50 and my blood pressure went sky high. so he thought maybe I had a conversion problem. He put me on straight T3 until my temp. got up to 98.6 for five days and thenstarted to reduce med til I was off it. My temp. is staying anywhere from 98.2 and up. I changed doctors since then for reasons, I won't get into. I feel pretty good but have been having alot of problems with my large joints, tennis elbow, rotator cuff problem, and hip problems. My last tsh was .56. It is checked every 4 months and I'm not on any thyroid meds at all. right now unless my tsh drops. I have hasimoto disease. Hope this helped.

[Rob Z]

I got my test results for ck at 300H. I take synthroid at 88mg. My doctor has been back and forth trying to stabilize. I have a hard time losing weight diet lots of exercise. Can synthroid throw off ck. Rob Z

[highawatha]

i  guess i should have mentioned i was first diagnosed with graves im not sure what is worse being hypo or hyper. :)  when the scan was done on my thyroid one nodule?...was several times the size of the other. this whole ordeal has not been the "simple" easily medicated buisness that 4 or 5 endo's said it would be, yea i went to that many because i didnt want any of this to happen.and wanted that many opinions.
with that said,.. i want to refer to the stress you mentioned. just about the same time exactly my meds started NOT to work i unloaded a great deal of stress., i mean HUGE. not to go into too many details but it involved a loved one with an addiction problem and much financial stress. the moment i let others handle it my stress was gone and then "my" things started to go out of wack. (i always wonedered if the release of the stress had something to do with my condition)
you mentioned muscle aches and migranes....ME TOO! every day, every single one. i wake up with a headache and i go to sleep with one and i even dream and feel them.several times a month its a full blown migrane. the muscle that bothers me most is one going from my shoulder up my neck, dr says its hard as a rock and is treating me for migraines/tension headaches. hopefully i wont have to live like this for my whole life.
i just want to feel better.

[tryall]

I was diagnosed at hypothyroid at 10 years old with the symptom of pressure on my throat. I am now 56 and have taken T4 for all these years in various amount. On 200 mcg I have felt reasonable well until I had my son at age 39. During the pregnancy and since then all the symptoms of hypothyroidism are present with swollen ankles, chronic muscle pain, exhaustion, migraine every day ect. This has gone on for 18 years and no matter which dose of T4 I have taken. I have lowered the dose to 100 mcg and all amounts inbetween but the symptoms have remained. I am at a loss for an explanation. The only thoughts I have are that the thyroid system must change t4 to t3 to be used by the cells in the body and their must be a problem with conversion due to a sudden stress in life. Does anyone have a similar experience or any thoughts on the matter. I am now trying herbs for the thyroid system to see if they help, after one month I haven't seen a big improvement although my temperature has gone up during the day from 97 to 97.8 which I conclude is an improvement.

[Mark Lupo, M.D.]

It's unlikely the synthroid has stopped working.  The TSH looks fine (a little low).  If the T3 is clearly lowish then a trial of synthroid/cytomel combination would be work looking into.  May e that the energy/weight are not related to thyroid.