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Originally Posted by erickajm  I initially had gained 18lbs in 16 days and when I mentioned it to my dr.. she just looked at me until I said, Hello? If I had lost that much weight it would throw a red flag! That was in Aug. I went on and had the uptake test, ultrasound and by february I had gained 52lbs and went from a size 3/4 to a solid 14 I finally took it upon myself to make an appointment with an Endocrinologist. At the time I was on soooo many different meds ( another story in itself) I was put on synthroid and slowly I got back down to a size 8. I decided amongst myself that my dr. (not endo) was slowly killing me with all these meds and decided to go off everything and have now found myself right up to a 16... my last TSH levels were 2.57 so I am in my new endo's eyes normal... I am now going to see another doctor who actually treats you on more than the numbers. I retain major water now and have fibromyalgia along with the arthritis that I already had. So... now I am looking for a new dr. that will prescribe the armour or something similar... needless to say, I am pretty frustrated with the whole thing! |
Definately try Armour Thyroid -- I did not do well at all on Synthroid. What many do not realize is that the same meds do not work for everyone. As the one poster mentioned, many get on meds, have their numbers balance and feel fine the rest of their life. Others play a seesaw act going hyper to hypo and back again, never really finding that perfect point where they can feel well and have their numbers look right for the docs. Some have trouble converting the T4 hormone to the useable T3. Synthroid is synthetic T4 only. That is when adding Cytomel (synthetic T3) or switching to Armour (natural T4 + T3) works better for them. I have a conversion problem and Synthroid alone seemed like it was killing me (over exaggeration but that is what it felt like). You can also have a binding problem. Estrogen binds thyroid hormone. It is only usable when it is Free or unbound. You probably have heard of the Free T4 and Free T3 tests.
I also had the fibromyalgia dx, but it is really all thyroid. The more hypo, the more I hurt and the more fatigue keeps me from living life. Endos do not usually like Armour Thyroid. They like the synthetic hormones that seem to do a better job at stabilizing numbers. But I found a doc who was willing to prescribe it and it made a lot of difference for me. I had to do all my own research as my doc willingly admitted not knowing much about thyroids. He did send me to an endocrinologist who said my thyroid gland had to come out. At least that stopped the drastic up and down swings I was having as my sputtering gland tried to occasionally produce. I should not get started on this subject. I have researched so much and know more than I ever thought I would want to know about the thyroid gland and the endocrine system. LOL! It is one of my passions. I even led a thyroid support group for the Florida area for a while, years ago. It was rewarding arming people with information they could take to their docs to check out.