Hello everyone! I went to my doctor the other day and he told me my thyroid was slow due to scarring from when it had been treated years ago for being too active. Irony. Anyway he said it wasn’t anything we should be too concerned about at the moment, but he prescribed me the medicine Synthroid anyway.
I was hoping if any of you have taken this medicine, can you share your experiences with it? I looked it up and some of the symptoms were…worrying. Namely uncontrollable weight gain despite diet/exercise. I’ve been working so hard to lose weight, both for superficial reasons and to hopefully get rid of the pesky insulin resistance that’s been making things difficult this past year. I’m pretty convinced that if I could get rid of my abdominal fat (arguably that’s where most of my fat goes) I could start taking less insulin instead of more. I’d hate for all that to be ruined by one stupid, tiny little pill that’s meant to help me. I’m planning to ask my doctor about this, but I wanted some other opinions in the mean time.
If it helps anything at all, I am also on Lantus and metformin. My insulin is in the process of being adjusted until we find that magical amount that does the job right. Since insulin has also been known to contribute to weight gain, that just adds to my worry.
Thyroid supplementation is critical to your health. Please take it. Hypothyroidism is related to weight gain, so odd that Synthroid would cause increased weight unless the dose is too low. Since too many doctors only test TSH & not free T3 & free T4, not surprising that doses can be incorrect. Just an aside, but many people do better on Armour because it contains T3 & T4. Synthroid is only T4. Every female in my family is hypothyroid & none have gained pounds from Synthroid.
Insulin is a fat storing hormone & it’s excess insulin that causes weight gain. So, it’s important to take appropriate doses. People who eat high carb with correspondingly high insulin often gain weight.
Gerri, you’re so right about the TSH not being a very good indicator of hypothyroidism. My wife had a full blood work up done my her GP earlier this week, which included testing her TSH level. Her GP’s office called this morning to tell her that her GP wants to Rx her Synthroid since her TSH was 5.4, slightly out of range. The thing is, her Ob/Gyn had done of full thyroid panel a week earlier which included testing for Free T3 and Free T4. Those levels were normal and were within range. It irks me that some doctors are so quick to turn patients over to medications that they may not even need. When dealing with thyroid issues, it really is a good idea to get the right tests in the first place.
Winter, I haven’t had any problems with Synthroid, especially in terms of weight gain. My issues has been more with the condition of hypothyroidism itself. My levels are all within range, yet I still have to deal with symptoms such as chronic fatigue, dry skin, inconsistent sleep patterns, thinning eyebrows, etc. It’s a tough bear to tackle. Anyway, I’m very sensitive to quite a few meds, but I seem to handle Synthroid just fine. If you truly need it, it is something your should consider taking. However, I agree with Gerri, get a full thyroid panel. That way you will be able to see what your thyroid is actually producing instead of what your pituitary gland is producing (TSH). Best of luck.
I’ve been taking synthroid (or generic equivalent) for about 27 years now.
You have to be careful, simply jumping in and reading the list of “side effects”. It’s not that simple. I just did a quick google for synthroid and side effects and you way oversimplified things. In fact the first hit says that a possible side effect of wrong dosage was “weight gain or weight loss”. I think that the list is in fact not a list of the side effects of synthroid in the sense you might think, I think in fact the list is a list of many of the symptoms of both hypothyroid and hyperthyroid.
If you are hypothyroid then your metabolism is messed up at many levels because essentially the thyroid serves as a “master regulator” for many of your body’s systems. Same thing for hyperthyroid.
Getting your metabolism back on track is very important. It will help you feel better and will make you healthier.
Taking too much synthroid isn’t good either. Many of the symptoms of hyperthyroid are not all that different than the symptoms of hypothyroid. This shouldn’t be awful surprising - put the master regulator out of whack and lots of stuff starts going wrong.
As a side point that I think is worth mentioning: excessive worrying about weight to the point where you don’t take necessary thyroid supplements isn’t all that far from diabulimia. It’s not a good place to go, skipping your meds because you think it’ll help you get skinny.
