I have being taking thyroid medicine since 1994. I was diagnosed ...

I agree to the bad side effects. I had RAI on 8/30/2007 - that week my life changed. None of my friends/family and my boyfriend understand how terrible I felt and am still feeling. My friends think Levoxyl is like an antibiotic and in 3 weeks I am done with it. It's hard to explain the joint aches and pains, stomach pains, acid reflux, blurry vision, thinning hair, burning skin, headaches, tiredness, etc., and it's all over my entire body. One doctor told me that I have transient pain.

I had to change my diet and what I can eat and when. I have alot of trouble going to sleep and getting up in the morning. My Endo also says that I have "other problems" causing these symptoms. Seems like they are there for life. What kind of quality of life is this? I've been reading alot of blogs and everyone has the same group of symptoms and everyone's Endo seems to think it's NOT the Levoxyl. Are there any doctors who take this into consideration?

You are not alone in how you feel. I wish a had an answer, but I am also searching for many answers myself on this.

i went on levoxyl a year ago and I feel I have aged 30 years. I am 46 and recently diagnosed with hasimoto. I have gained 50 pds in 3 years. I am trying armour (natural pig thyroid) next week. I read reviews and it is very positive.
Take iodine drops daily with thyroid problems. Also adrenals get fatigued and I take extra calcium and potassium due to pain and cramps I am experiencing.
Synthroid and levoxyl do not have both the t3 and t 4 hormone. Armour does. Your doctor will tell you that you will convert it, but it is baloney.
My father has been on synthroid for 30 years and he can hardly walk and just got diagnosed with Parkinson's which someone posted that a lot of people get that is on these meds.
Do not listen to your Dr on these meds. There is research done in the 70's due to so many side effects on synthroid. It was almost pulled by fda. they will tell you armour is hard to regulate, but the studies say the opposite.
I will post how I am feeling in a few months after trying synthroid.

What doctors dont tell people that are taking synthroid is that they should also take calcium because the synthroid interfers with the bones, mass, and density. So start taking calcium with magnesim and Vitamine D for good absorbtion, it really helps good luck.

I will be off synthroid for about 5 weeks and then will be trying the Armour. I was suffering from very deep leg cramps and cramps in strange places - e.g. spine, groin, etc. The doctor lowered the dosage and it did help with the cramping but the thyroid is still very inactive. I am almost 200 lbs. and climbing. I stayed on a diet for 6 weeks and lost 1 lb! I am always hungry. It is been a steady weight gain since I became menopausal about 5 years ago.
I am desperate to lose the weight. I can't stand to see pictures of myself. I do yogo every morning and weight training 2 x a week. I don't want to focus on this stuff and want to get on with my life. I am really hoping the Armour will work. I too was told that it wasn't used much today because it was inconsistent. However, currently my doctor is willing to work with me.
So I hope for some better results during the following months.

I am having all of the same symptoms on Levothyroxin. When told I had "slightly low levels" by a doctor, I told him I do not want anything synthetic and I want very low levels because I am very sensitive to medicines. Instead he gave me Levothyroxin at 50MCG.
After four months on Levothyroxin my naturally blonde hair has gone from long and thick to short and very very thin, I wake up sometimes with legs cramps so bad I can hardly bare it, and my body has aged horribly. I AM GOING OFF! I am so angry over this. But I need help doing this. My plan is to wean myself off (every other day; every three days and so on) -be VERY strict with my diet and supplements and I have added a thyroid helper supplement from the health food store. I do not want to go on Amour-people; it is made from pig thyroid-that can not be good. I also have noticed a reaction in my family over milk products so that will be a part of my regiment. I live in the Dallas area ( but am willling to travel)and need a good holistic MD to help me wean myself. As has been stated, it does no good to go to most thyroid specialists. Any knowledge out there on this process?

This is crazy reading all of this, I am 29 and am taking well was taking Levothyroxin to regulate my period so me and my husband can have a baby. Let me tell you I am miserable was going diarrhea at least two times an hour, Most of my day I feel nausea, lots of terrible cramping in my legs side and back....I feel like an old lady. The worse part is I am a newlywed....my husband asks me everyday if I love him. I have no energy to have fun with him and feel to sick to leave the house for more than an hour.
Spoke to my doctor he says take it at night. So instead of my day being all bathroom trips my early mornings became miserable woke up usually between 4:30am and 6:00am with more nausea and diarrhea. That just made me tired all day. Spoke to him again he made it seem like it is normal. Decided to stop taking it, my relationship was falling apart and my whole life really. Now I feel better I can leave and not have to worry if I can make it to a bathroom.....
Spoke to my grandma tonight and she was yelling at me, telling me you can't just stop taking a thyroid medicine and pretty much scared me into taking it again.
Like another person who commented on this I am angry too. I am so scared and all I want is to be a mommy.
Can someone please help me with this, what should I do?
thanks a bunch

Approximately 9 years ago I had a goiter which made it hard for me to swallow. I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor that a friend recommended. He aspirated the goiter on my first visit. He numbed the area and then took a lot of brownish fluid and cells on the first aspiration. A week or so later, I went back for another aspiration because the feeling of not being able to swallow had returned. I had some radioactive testing done only to find out I had nonspecific cells, hair and other things in the aspirations. No cancer but multi-nodules and an odd shaped thyroid. The doctor put me on Armour Thyro 60 whatever ... can't remember if it was milligrams or micrograms but I was so tired that he raised it to 90. That was good but he raised it again to 120 and once again I was so tired. He went back to 90 and I stayed there for years. I'd go to see him for a yearly visit and basically he was keeping my thyroid at a resting place and I was fine. My sleepiness, fingernail breaks, freezing hands and hair loss stopped. Once I hit my menopausal time ... lovely ... I started to have symptoms again of breaking fingernails and I immediately changed to an endocrinologist. I just wanted to see the proper doctor for my thyroid issue. I would have stayed with the ear, nose and throat doctor but having suffered with symptoms of thyroid disease several years previously was enough of a reason for me to seek a doctor that was a specialist for thyroid disease. He immediately took me off Armour Thyro (pig source and natural, which I always loved) and he put me of Levoxyl. Oh, he also told me I did not have a thyroid problem. I could have smacked him but I was so upset I went home and freaked out instead. I took the new medication. To make this long story short, the Levoxyl has had to be adjusted a few times. It turns out my thyroid is totally asleep which is not good. The thyroid is the switch that turns everything else on. The message is not getting through and he wants to wake the thyroid up. I feel great. No sleepiness and no other symptoms on Levoxyl. The second part of this post has to do with weight gain. I am in my early 50s and know that I am an addict. I am addicted to food. I use it like a drug user. I turn to it for everything. I eat in private. I hate to be interrupted when I eat things I should not eat or even healthy foods. I hide food. I have all the signs of addiction and food is the drug of my choice. It has been like this all my life. As I have gotten older and into menopausal times, I realized that I could not stop eating. Over the years I was able to control my eating. I could get motivated to lose weight and make healthy choices over long periods of time. However, I always went back to compulsive eating. I cannot eat sugar and white flour. My body does not work well on these two things. If I eat them in conjunction it seems my body ferments them and I have all sorts of body function issues. I wake up like I'm hung over. I obsess about food all the time which makes focusing on other things very hard. I absent myself from social functions because I am obese and I just want to be left alone. I'm nasty as all get out. At my last physical I cried about not being able to stop eating. I told the doctor that I could not stop even for 1 hour. I would resolve to not eat compulsively for a day and to make healthy choices. I would plan my food and make sure I had fruit and low fat foods that were appropriate. However, half way through my day, I'd lose my resolve and be eating all sorts of things at work. My doctor told me she could prescribe an antidepressant called Wellbutrin. It is sometimes to help with weight loss. It affects the pleasure center of the brain. At first I said no thank you. She left the room while I got dressed and I thought about the offer. I thought, I deserve a chance to have success around food. I deserve a chance to stop eating compulsively. When she returned I told her I was willing to try this medication. We talked about side effects and I filled the prescription. Well, would you believe it if I told you that for the first time in my life I have experienced a large relief from obsessive thinking about food. I no longer experience that awful nagging hunger that felt like I needed my next fix of sugar/carbs or I'd die. I can and do make healthy choices around food. I have lost nearly 30 pounds in close to three months. I sleep well. I have no acid reflux anymore. I am calmer. I don't snap at my husband. I actually have time to think about what I'm going to say before I jump in and put my foot in my mouth. I am not reaching for food to stuff down the feelings. Yes, they well up and I deal with them. Nothing tastes as good as this new life feels. My endocrinologist finally agrees from test results that I do have a thyroid disease. I don't know if its hypo or hyper but I don't care. I just know that I need medication to keep things even. There are a lot of things that go into getting better. I have to be responsible for what I put in my mouth when it comes to food choices. My thyroid disease did not make me obese. My hand to mouth did. I can finally see beyond the food addiction and I have cultivated poor food behaviors so I'm not completely free from an occasional light desire to eat something extra. But, it's not those sugary, heavy carbo type foods. No more heavy meals. No more fast food. I eat smaller portions. If your weight gain is not caused by overeating, that is something only another person with a different story than mine can possibly help you with. I speak to those people who might identify with my story. Do Not Give Up. I didn't. I honestly thought my life was over and I would painfully go through the next 20 years hating everything and everyone and then die. What I hated was how I felt which was largely caused by the wrong food choices. Food did affect how I felt and it still does. When I make healthy choices that work for me, I feel light spirited and continuously have a chance to make good choices in all areas. I have hope. What is different is that the Wellbutrin stopped the obsession. The only example I can give that might help the reader understand what a change I have experienced is that of a schizophrenic person who hears voices all the time. The medication that is prescribed to this person to stop the voices is what Wellbutrin has done for me. It has stopped the noise in my head around food. Talk to your doctor. Do your research. There is hope. Do Not Give Up.