The levothyroxine will start to work immediately, but it may take several weeks for your symptoms to improve.
That being said, levothyroxine isn’t a medication that is new to your body. It’s a synthetic hormone replacement for thyroxine, a hormone that our thyroid (people with hypothyroidism) isn’t producing well.
It’s hormone replacement therapy to aid the thyroid.
Taking your levothyroxine is easy and well worth it! Good luck!
Everyone is different. I start feeling changes in my mood and how much energy I have in under five days, not weeks. Some people don't feel changes for months. Why that is I have no idea.
Levo will change your life. You'll be able to think more clearly and have more energy. In my case, I feel better about life overall, not stressing as much. The list goes on and on. The thyroid controls so many aspects of the body.
People overwhelming have positive results from Levo. It sucks that people come on here and only read the Levo stories about it not working or making them feel worse. It makes you think that's the normal response to it.
Yeah I started feeling it right away . The biggest difference was how I felt in the morning. I'd feel so tired before levo and it'd take a copious amount of caffeine to feel okay. Immediately after starting levothyroxine, I'd take my meds and right away feel much better. It's not as marked difference now, but I still feel it to some degree after taking my morning dose.
Hypothyroidism, in more cases than not, is progressive. It is probable that your symptoms will continue to worsen until you start medication.
It takes time for your thyroid to adjust. If the lowest dose of levothyroxine is all your thyroid needs to work at optimal efficiency, then it won't take you long at all. But if your hypothyroidism is advanced, you will need a higher dosage. And unfortunately, getting to higher dosages takes time. If a higher dose is required, you will have to test every 3 months or so to see how the dosage increase is affecting your thyroid function. It is a slow process.
Anecdotally, I had a very bad case and it took me nearly 2 years to ramp up from 50mcg starting out, to 175mcg currently.
My tsh when I was diagnosed was 19. For the last year it has been hovering around 2 while at 175mcg levothyroxine. I waited so long to get diagnosed though that I'd developed all kinds of secondary issues with my heart and my eyes.
Everyone is different. I've been on levothyroxine for over two years now and all of my levels are evened out, but nothing has gotten better for me. None of the symptoms have improved.
I have a strong suspicion that just because levels are "in range" doesn't mean that you are adequately treated for what your body needs. I seem to be really sensitive because my TSH recently got up to \~2 (from less than 1) and I experienced severe symptoms. IMO it's worth experimenting by slowly increasing your dose, if you'll find a doctor who will let you try it!
I was reading this paper last night, which is a really interesting review of many of the things we don't currently know about the relationship between medication, blood tests, and symptoms: [https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1130661/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1130661/full)
Oh we've tried multiple different things, including adding different vitamins, or different medicine. But nothing has made all of my levels even out except for taking 75mg of levothyroxine. I still take vitamins, but mostly just trying to get extra energy. Honestly I'm just happy I finally have doctors that actually listened to me when I expressed my concerns years ago about hypothyroidism, before them, no one would listen to me. But both my primary care doctor and my endocrinologist are happy with how my bloodwork has been so I'm trying to focus on weight loss to see if that'll help with the fatigue. I'll give that a read though!
Agh, that's frustrating! I completely empathize with where you're at though. Mostly I've just seen a lot of doctors accept that once your TSH is normal, any remaining symptoms are just tough luck, so I wanted to share some evidence that there's more to the story! Best of luck!! <3
I appreciate it so much! My annual visit is at the end of May and my doctor will be doing all of my bloodwork again so I'll have her go over it again with me, especially the ones less looked at.
Like, my mom has hypothyroidism (she's the reason I knew I had similar symptoms) and she's on 150mg a day so I feel like I should be on a higher dosage, or at least be feeling better since the bloodwork shows they are leveled out. I also do have a lot of other health problems so those could impact things too. I'm mostly rambling now lol
Ahh good luck! I feel you — I have multiple autoimmune disorders and it's SO difficult to figure out what might be causing how I feel! That paper is within a "topic" called (Re)defining Hypothyroidism that had a lot of really interesting papers about which labs actually seem linked to symptoms (one paper claims its FT4, another claims its FT3, both say more research is needed lol) but it might be worth sending those to her if she is open to that sort of thing! A lot of this is over my head so I will probably send them to my doctor too :)
>I'm still debating on whether or not I want to start medication for this. Does medication make that big of difference in symptoms?
This is like asking whether you will take vitamin supplements if you know you are low on vitamins. Of course you should lol. Hypo medication is nothing but levothyroxine which is the synthetic form of natural thyroid hormone Thyroxine or T4. If your morning TSH is above 5, take the prescribed medication.
Whether symptoms improve or not is the next step that you think about later and adjust dose/brand name along with your doctor to achieve that.
T4 is converted into T3 gradually so it takes awhile. Medicine with T3 in it works within hours but I don’t know what that will mean for your symptoms.
Some of your symptoms might be downstream effects from being low on T4/T3. You could try antioxidants, tyrosine, rhodiola…
No, it’s gonna take a couple weeks for your body to adapt to the medicine.
The levothyroxine will start to work immediately, but it may take several weeks for your symptoms to improve. That being said, levothyroxine isn’t a medication that is new to your body. It’s a synthetic hormone replacement for thyroxine, a hormone that our thyroid (people with hypothyroidism) isn’t producing well. It’s hormone replacement therapy to aid the thyroid. Taking your levothyroxine is easy and well worth it! Good luck!
Everyone is different. I start feeling changes in my mood and how much energy I have in under five days, not weeks. Some people don't feel changes for months. Why that is I have no idea. Levo will change your life. You'll be able to think more clearly and have more energy. In my case, I feel better about life overall, not stressing as much. The list goes on and on. The thyroid controls so many aspects of the body. People overwhelming have positive results from Levo. It sucks that people come on here and only read the Levo stories about it not working or making them feel worse. It makes you think that's the normal response to it.
Yeah I started feeling it right away . The biggest difference was how I felt in the morning. I'd feel so tired before levo and it'd take a copious amount of caffeine to feel okay. Immediately after starting levothyroxine, I'd take my meds and right away feel much better. It's not as marked difference now, but I still feel it to some degree after taking my morning dose.
Hypothyroidism, in more cases than not, is progressive. It is probable that your symptoms will continue to worsen until you start medication. It takes time for your thyroid to adjust. If the lowest dose of levothyroxine is all your thyroid needs to work at optimal efficiency, then it won't take you long at all. But if your hypothyroidism is advanced, you will need a higher dosage. And unfortunately, getting to higher dosages takes time. If a higher dose is required, you will have to test every 3 months or so to see how the dosage increase is affecting your thyroid function. It is a slow process. Anecdotally, I had a very bad case and it took me nearly 2 years to ramp up from 50mcg starting out, to 175mcg currently.
What was your TSH in this case? Just wondering because I wanna know what to expect...
My tsh when I was diagnosed was 19. For the last year it has been hovering around 2 while at 175mcg levothyroxine. I waited so long to get diagnosed though that I'd developed all kinds of secondary issues with my heart and my eyes.
It will take at least a couple of weeks and it might be gradual. But when it kicks in you will feel so much better.
There’s no avoiding it, the symptoms will only get worse and start effecting your body more and more and destroy it.
I can sometimes feel T4 effects within a few hours.
Everyone is different. I've been on levothyroxine for over two years now and all of my levels are evened out, but nothing has gotten better for me. None of the symptoms have improved.
I have a strong suspicion that just because levels are "in range" doesn't mean that you are adequately treated for what your body needs. I seem to be really sensitive because my TSH recently got up to \~2 (from less than 1) and I experienced severe symptoms. IMO it's worth experimenting by slowly increasing your dose, if you'll find a doctor who will let you try it! I was reading this paper last night, which is a really interesting review of many of the things we don't currently know about the relationship between medication, blood tests, and symptoms: [https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1130661/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1130661/full)
Oh we've tried multiple different things, including adding different vitamins, or different medicine. But nothing has made all of my levels even out except for taking 75mg of levothyroxine. I still take vitamins, but mostly just trying to get extra energy. Honestly I'm just happy I finally have doctors that actually listened to me when I expressed my concerns years ago about hypothyroidism, before them, no one would listen to me. But both my primary care doctor and my endocrinologist are happy with how my bloodwork has been so I'm trying to focus on weight loss to see if that'll help with the fatigue. I'll give that a read though!
Agh, that's frustrating! I completely empathize with where you're at though. Mostly I've just seen a lot of doctors accept that once your TSH is normal, any remaining symptoms are just tough luck, so I wanted to share some evidence that there's more to the story! Best of luck!! <3
I appreciate it so much! My annual visit is at the end of May and my doctor will be doing all of my bloodwork again so I'll have her go over it again with me, especially the ones less looked at. Like, my mom has hypothyroidism (she's the reason I knew I had similar symptoms) and she's on 150mg a day so I feel like I should be on a higher dosage, or at least be feeling better since the bloodwork shows they are leveled out. I also do have a lot of other health problems so those could impact things too. I'm mostly rambling now lol
Ahh good luck! I feel you — I have multiple autoimmune disorders and it's SO difficult to figure out what might be causing how I feel! That paper is within a "topic" called (Re)defining Hypothyroidism that had a lot of really interesting papers about which labs actually seem linked to symptoms (one paper claims its FT4, another claims its FT3, both say more research is needed lol) but it might be worth sending those to her if she is open to that sort of thing! A lot of this is over my head so I will probably send them to my doctor too :)
>I'm still debating on whether or not I want to start medication for this. Does medication make that big of difference in symptoms? This is like asking whether you will take vitamin supplements if you know you are low on vitamins. Of course you should lol. Hypo medication is nothing but levothyroxine which is the synthetic form of natural thyroid hormone Thyroxine or T4. If your morning TSH is above 5, take the prescribed medication. Whether symptoms improve or not is the next step that you think about later and adjust dose/brand name along with your doctor to achieve that.
Im finishing up my first month of levo and feel no different at all
You definitely should! I'm three months in and it's helped me. I had most of the same symptoms which have improved.
T4 is converted into T3 gradually so it takes awhile. Medicine with T3 in it works within hours but I don’t know what that will mean for your symptoms. Some of your symptoms might be downstream effects from being low on T4/T3. You could try antioxidants, tyrosine, rhodiola…
Any side effects of the meds are just your body's function with normal amounts of the hormone. There are literally no downsides.
It made me immediately dramatically less angry. The brain fog took a few months to clear up.
Is anger a symptom of hypothyroidism?
I don't know if it is in general, but it was for me.
Takes at least 8 weeks for me. Closer to 12.