Hoshimoto's Syndrome And Autoimmune Disorders

After being exhausted for 3 weeks I went to the doctor to find out what was wrong with me-i surfed almost every day before that. After I had a thyroidectomy, I was diagnosed with hashimoto's disease - I gained 15 pounds in six months and have not had the energy to surf yet- it's depressing- let me know what you find! I need help too!

Does having "low thyroid" mean the same as having hypothyroidism? My family doctor told me my thyroid level was too low and put me on 50 mg of synthroid. About 5-6 weeks later, I had to go back and she did more blood work and increased the synthroid to 75 mg. I am still feeling very tired, sleepy and hungry. My body hurts upon awakening in the am. It is all I can do to get to work on time and I just don't want to do anything that I don't have to do. What is the dose that you guys are taking? And how long did it take for you to get to that dosage? I am very curious because, like you; I am tired of feeling this way. I am scheduled for blood work again 6 weeks from date of last increase. It has been a month and I feel no better - tempted to call and ask to have blood work done early. Is 4 weeks long enough to know if increase has evened out the thyroid hormone? Thank for any replies.

I was diagnosed at 24 im 26 first it was epstein barr virus then 6 weeks later the hashimotos and 6 weeks after that fibromyalgia(chronic fatigue)i am always tired,if I do get a bit of
energy and do a little I am wiped for a week or two. I am on 100 of synthroid every day. I would ask your doc about additional diagnosis the fibro really has a big affect on me. I am in pain every day as well, I just ache and get all kinds of pain. I am thinking about having my last child too. But I dont know if I can go without all my med. And how I will feel . So I guess well see.

Hopefully this helps :d

Hello,

i have hashimoto's, sjogren's, and fibromyalgia.

My endo prescribed synthroid and told me that people with hashi must take thyroid replacement for the rest of their lives. The research i've done supports that.

If your thyroid level is too low (hypothyroidism) you have one set of problems, and if it's to high (hyperthyroidism) you get a different set of problems.

If your levels are too high, you get all revved up and your heart gets overworked and can even become damaged. So your endo might be taking a cautious approach.

You need to know why your symptoms persist if your blood tests say all is well and why your endo doesn't want to up the dosage. You may need to push for the answers. Sometimes a slight increase in dosage can make all the difference in the world. And sometimes people do better on one thyroid drug than they do on another, and switching to a new drug does the trick. I strongly recommend a book called "living well with hypothyroidism" by mary shomon. She also has a web site - are we allowed to post them in thie forum? Just in case we're not allowed to post urls, I can tell you that if you do a search on the author's name, you'll find a link to her thyroid site.

Best of luck,
zoe12

Hi,

my husband was diagnosed with hashimoto's thyoiditis and encephalopathy about a year ago. He ended up having a total thyroidectomy. He suffered from some of the same problems that some of you listed in your earlier postings. His antibodies were so high that they started to cause brain damage. Luckily our family doctor took care of us. I strongly suggest that if you are still having problems and you are on thyroid replacement that you have an ultrasound and a ct scan done of your thyroid. When your thyroid antibodies are high, they are destroying your thyroid. His thyroid was so diseased that it was oozing and growing around his esophogous. My husbands antibodies are now down to 38. His endo recently had to add cytomel t3 replacement because of some recent mild depression and fatigue. The endo thinks the cytomel should take care of this. Please send me messages if you have questions.

Thanks,

deanna

Hi, i'm 42 and was just diagnosed with hashimoto's this year and it looks like i'll be on synthroid forever. They have been upp'ing my dosage, but i'm not there yet. What I wanted to say was that a couple of years ago I started gaining weight, I couldn't figure it out and I am very active (my husband and I biked over 400 miles in 5 days and I still gained weight). Plus I was tired a lot. I radically changed my diet, I switched to eating at least 6 times a day (especially breakfast), a few hundred cals per meal. I didn't change much else, other than making sure I balanced proteins, carbs and fruits/veggies. I also varied my workouts, nothing too weird I added weighs and swimming. It took over a year, but I finally lost the extra 50 lbs I gained. This was before I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I've stayed at my current weight for almost 2 years. I'm still tired and the synthroid has made me break out (yuk!), but what I have found that works for me is to not get hungry during the day, not to be on a diet, just graze. Hang in there!

I have just been diagnosed with hoshimotos and am going to see an endocrinologist next week. I am so tired when I get out of bed that when my feet touch the floor I literally tip backwards and almost fall over. Currently, I am on 42 pills a day for my combined ailments. I have had 2 colonoscopys, a sterotactic biopsy of my breast with removal of seven calcifications, several lower gi's, catscan, mri, connective nerve study, and at least 15 workups of blood taken from me. Guess what.... They still aren't done with me. I have to go for another colonoscopy. I'm due another breast check and now, I have hemmangiommas on my liver that need to be checked.

My throat is sore all the time. I choke on my food and can barely stay awake. I've gained 60 pound in the past year. I don't really eat that much.... Except pills. Pills for this, pills for that... Pills, pills, pills, and patchs for pain. I take so many pills, I have to take a pill for my stomach so I don't burn a hole in it. I am so depressed and so tired. This has been going on for almost two years. I had to cut out an article and make my Dr. Read it and tell her I wanted to be tested for this before she would do it and finally diagnosed me. Then she waltzed in and said.... "oh, so you do have hoshimotos... You have to see a specialist." I could scream!!!!

When will I get my energy back and lose weight? Help me if you can i'm feeling down!!!

Mad as heck,

marvella

Hello,
i've been reading a number of the posts here and one of the things i've learned is that synthroid alone may not relieve symptoms. It only contains t4. Supposedly our bodies can convert some of t4 to t3; well, not for me. I needed t3 also.

Options for t3/t4: armour thyroid (dessicated pig thyroid) - works best for me. Synthroid or levoxyl plus cytomel.

And if your doc doesn't check your tsh - demand it. Also make sure s/he is aware of the new numbers for tsh - they're expanded.

Much of this info can be found at the thyroid.About.Com website. I've become my own advocate, fired one endocrinologist, and found another more reasonable doctor. The second one checked for autoimmune thyroiditis - hashimoto's - and I have it.

Hope this helps someone.

Best of health,
c. Tucek

I was diagnosted with a hypofunction of the thyroid ever since I was 19.
Not even a half year later they told me I have the hoshimoto syndrom.
They tried several medicines synthroid might not be the best answer for patients that suffer on hoshimoto. Synthroid contains besides thyroid hormones also iodin and some thyroids have problems with this kind of medicines. My doctor however says that only levothyroxin is enough and it would be a mistake to give synthroid because it would cause much more trouble then it causes advantages.

I also have asked my doctor if I have to get a total thyroidectomy the answer was very clearly no a total thyroidectomy is old fashioned and would cause more trouble. She told me that when the thyroid doesnt work anymore it will just become scar tissue and it will remain there. The only trouble will be to take hormones for the rest of the life but as for me this isnt a problem.

Does anyone has expierence how hoshimoto has effects on getting children?

Get off all those drugs!!!!
Arvella"]i have just been diagnosed with hoshimotos and am going to see an endocrinologist next week. I am so tired when I get out of bed that when my feet touch the floor I literally tip backwards and almost fall over. Currently, I am on 42 pills a day for my combined ailments. I have had 2 colonoscopys, a sterotactic biopsy of my breast with removal of seven calcifications, several lower gi's, catscan, mri, connective nerve study, and at least 15 workups of blood taken from me. Guess what.... They still aren't done with me. I have to go for another colonoscopy. I'm due another breast check and now, I have hemmangiommas on my liver that need to be checked.

My throat is sore all the time. I choke on my food and can barely stay awake. I've gained 60 pound in the past year. I don't really eat that much.... Except pills. Pills for this, pills for that... Pills, pills, pills, and patchs for pain. I take so many pills, I have to take a pill for my stomach so I don't burn a hole in it. I am so depressed and so tired. This has been going on for almost two years. I had to cut out an article and make my Dr. Read it and tell her I wanted to be tested for this before she would do it and finally diagnosed me. Then she waltzed in and said.... "oh, so you do have hoshimotos... You have to see a specialist." I could scream!!!!


When will I get my energy back and lose weight? Help me if you can i'm feeling down!!!


Mad as heck,

marvella[/quote]

I lost everything I just wrote to the girl asking for help on the doses of synthroid and somebody's process. So I started over and created a subject and hopefully she'll find as well as all of you:

i was not diagnosed with hypo-thyroid for many years because the doctors only did tsh tests during normal blood lab testing (not good).



I only found out I was severally hypo-thyroid when a friend who was (and who knew of my symptoms) told me to have my doctor run a t3, t4 and some kind of t3/t4 free test which are not typically run unless tsh comes out abnormal--which often it may not! So how would you know???



Anyway, after I demanded that test from my general internal med doctor (before having an endocrinologist), she found abnormalities in the labs and referred me to the endo. The endo was concerned after running his own similar/same tests and told me that it was a good thing I had been sent to him as it was severe--and here I had been wondering why I was running 7 miles 3-5x week for sanity but all of a sudden gaining weight when I burn way more than I eat and am always lean (5'10 and 125-135)!!!



He told me for as bad as it was, I should have been extremely over weight and yet I was still 5'10 and 135 lbs (i ran a lot and ate less not knowing what was wrong but not wanting to get big). He also told me that I should feel pretty damm lousy--which I did--but thought I was depressed and figured the fatigue part was from all my running and depression problems. Nope! He told me I musta been working out a lot to have maintained my figure, which is another reason why doctor's may not have suspected thyroid problem--i just fought it even harder and maintained my nice figure (major struggle though).



Anyway, he put me on synthroid, which he told me I would need forever and I didn't notice any side effects--except I started to feeeeeeel better in a kinda centered way and I could eat whatever I wanted (which is the way my metabolism always used to be).

He started me at I believe 25 or 50 and then moved me quickly to 50 or 75 and then called me as he thought maybe I wasn't take once a day as directed as my lab results that he monitored often (not annually until you're leveled out on a dose) were coming out in a manner to indicate to him just how bad off I was. Once he believed me and that I was following his orders, he then told me wow! You were bad off--something about nothing had been being created in me already so how was I managing without synthroid or something like that.



Anyway, then, he moved me to 100, and then to 125. Well, while I could eat more than I ever had before and began to enjoy this (haha), I started also to feel like I was surgin' like out of a rocket with an inner force that was not enjoyable. So, he took me down to 112 (when I was finally brave enough to tell him knowing what it would mean), which then made all my enjoyable getting used to eating habits deteriorate as I would gain if I ate too much (like you're supposed to, I guess), and so I had to get back on a good running routine that I felt so much better I had tapered off of (haha).



Anyway, while sometimes at 112, I can still feel low/fatigue or depressed on occasion, I know that at 125 I am flying high in a not comfortable or normal level--and it's better--as sometimes I fly high without it and am better off a little low on occasion that flying high a lot.



Through the past 2-3 years, my blood labs have consistently shown that 112 mcg synthroid is good for me. And when I feel fat, I make sure I run, and I eat what I want but also healthy and not be a pig. And when I feel low, I understand it's pry cause I need the serotonin release of a good run or the typical life crap hit and i'll live through it and that is normal.



And if absolutely necessary wellbutrin xl (350 mg once/day) can help without sexual side effects like all other anti-depressants. I also take serotonin supps at mother's market/health food store if needed as anti-meds. But if you take wellbutrin, don't take sr or anything but xl as the best and other's are not always effective for various reasons--so make your insurance cover xl!



Lastly, after years of finding what's good for me, here are some helpful natural hints that could help you and your metabolism, keep you nutritionally and emotionally balanced, and just help you feel good:

juice carrots, celery, romaine lettuce, spinach, and apple each day. Juice pineapple, cantalope, strawberries, and cabbage once/week at least.



Take chromium picolinate (400 mcg which is usually 2 each morning). You will notice fat turn to muscle and you can eat more as body sugar helper.



Take alpha lipoic acid (200 mg--i take 3 each morning as it is a powerful anti-oxidant).



Chelated magnesium (250 mg 2/morning--for me anyway).



Co-q10 (jarrow brand)-100 mg/once/day--great for heart and is anti-oxidant!)

drink a gallon of water a day. Drink green tea (decaf) 3x a day.



Take a b6 stress vitamin and make sure you're getting your folic acid and other nutrients through food or supps.



Run, exercise, and do it consistently. Hope that helps!!! Julie

Well I have had hoshimoto's syndrome for about 14 +- years. I'm consently tired, joint pain, depressed and it doesnt seem to be getting better. I fought to try armor thryoid and it seem to work well but the side effect is that it cant be regulated; and some pills are stronger than others and I had to be put back on synthroid. I have went the natural way with accupuncture and massage and chriopractor. I going to start doing that again as it seemed to help. Vitamins and herbs seemed to help too but stopping them was my mistake. I have been taking antidepressents for 8 of the 14 years as it is tiring doing this everyday. I cant say it enough that stress is the worse thing that effects any autoimmune disorders and its 10 fold with hoshimoto's syndrome.

I still am open to suggestions and any help that others have found. Kathy

Received your post. What's been really helping me lately are a couple new things:

1. I found out through a blood lab that my youth producing hormone was that of a 55 year old and i'm muuuuch younger (eek)! I figure it's all my life stress! Anyway, I was told to supplement it with l-argenin, which is a natural youth producing amino acid--and a couple months later, i'm noticing I look better (lol but true). Well, I looked okay before buut....

If you ask to have the blood lab given, most traditional doctors will make light of it--or claim ignorance--so tell them you want your igf1 lab taken--they'll know what that is as that's what shows up on the blood lab and is essentially synonymous with youth producing hormone.

Then, look at your results and to the far right where it will list the age ranges and what level range you should be at. If you're not within range, I encourage your purchasing it. I buy the l-arginine 500 mg solgar brand at mother's market healthstore. It can reduce aging, so also cancer, tumor growth, help repair tissues, etc. It also helps men be more virile too.

Lastly, for depression, I suggest taking serotonin naturally: I take one 5-htp (100 mg) jarrow formula brand each day. That along with my wellbutrin xl (300 mg) once daily has really relieved my depression. Since wellbutrin can cause seizures for some people--especially those with sporadic eating habits--i didn't want to up my dose, so I added the supplement--i am having a great time!!! I'm thinking of weaning off the wellbutrin and if it becomes necessary just taking an extra natural supp. (to be honest, before I added the natural serotonin, I didn't quite feel much better--not like with lexapro--but then with lexapro came the half hour workout to an orgasm! So, it's almost like the natural serotonin gives me the lexapro feeling without any sexual side effects--while giving a boost to the wellbutrin.)

plus, I don't have any sexual side effects--as my boyfriend has been pointing out (lol)! As a matter of fact, he's jealous I think as he keeps asking me gosh how many can you have girl? I told him as many as I want (hee hee). It's true--just that sometimes i'm just not up to having three or more. I think it helps the guy's ego, though, so all's good really.

Oh, and for all the girls out there who are having problems reaching a climax--besides the mind's power, you have to work that pc muscle (remember the kegel exercises?) it's important to squeeze it during intercourse--nearly shoving him outa you--that action in itself will bring you to a quicker climax. I think that's why tight tummy helps as you have to squeeze in at your core and squeeze that muscle. You'll know when you've done it right, and he'll definitely know it!!! : )

anyway, best to you all, julie

I am 20 and have been diagnosed for about 3 years now. My symptoms were also not subsiding. My local doctor perscribed an antidepressant to counteract the effects of the hoshimoto's...My endocrinologist agreed and now its one more daily pill I take. It gave me back my energy, concentration, and decreased my appetite. Im happy to say that it was a life saver. Just thought that this might be of some help.

Hello,

my name is annette I have been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism at 19 years old and have just recently been diagnosed with hoshimotos. My antibody levels are at almost 400, how high were your husbands?

I am 46 years old and the past may diagnose with hashimoto disease.
Mine started with pulling and gland swelling of the ears and a bad inter
ear infections. Then it was like a someone choking me. It would take my wind. My thyroid anti bodies then were over 1000.
I only at a gp and he thinks I don't need a endo. I have to have a recommendation for insurance.
I'm on 75mg of sythroid and feel better only sometimes.
My last blood work my tsh was 1.5 and my t4 11.5. My gp said he
doesn't need to take the anibodies.
I'm not as tired but will have weird stuff. One day might be legs weak or hands tingling or stomach ache. Don't know if this is normal and don't know who to ask.
Also, do you usually get another autoimmune disease or just sometimes.
Please give me advise.

Want to not worry so much!! Mind relief needed.

I AM 16 YEARS OLD!!!!! AND I HAVE THIS AUTO IMMUNE DISORDER HOSHIMOTO.. IT'S TERRIBLE!!!!! a 16 year old girl should NOT have this disorder.. 3 months ago. I went to my family doctor and this doctor put me on birth control to regulate my period cycles.. he said I could keep taking the pills and not the placebo (sugar pills) so go 3 months without a period which was so amazing!!! ... this past month.. I was taking my last packet, and I was in 2 weeks into the pill and started to have black, thick discharge.. and very heavy bleeding and horrible cramps. I was always tired and EXTREMELY FATIGUED.. and fell asleep in school a lot. I went back to the family doctor and he did a blood test and wanted to check my thyroid. couple days later.. test results came back and said that I have hypothyroidism.. my thyroid was "too high in the low" so I went to another doctor and she did a blood test for hoshimoto and celiacs disease.. well.. hoshimoto came back positive and celiacs came back negative.. I was blessed not to have celiacs because I already have Acid Reflux and I am on a pill for that. I'm grateful for the test and actually finally found out what was wrong with me. I now have to take "Synthroid" and I am on a better birth control.. "Yaz" I finally found out the problem. I have experienced all the "low thyroid" symptoms. ALL OF THEM!!!

I have found a lot of answers to these questions in the book
"Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms?" by Datis Kharrazian,DHSc,DC,MS

I am still in the process of healing, but have made a lot of progress so far following his protocol.