Hashimoto’s Disease here. I’ve been on Synthroid for about 2 years now. I have noticed the hair falling out, but I simply clean out the drain and move on with life.
BTW, they didn’t catch my HD for so long, that my own body starting attacking itself. I developed vitiligo, so I have these splotches on my inner thighs (I can deal with that) and a little on my hands (which I keep covered up with makeup). Anyone have any advice on that, short of getting a tattoo to cover the marks?
My fiance has been on it for almost 2 years. He’s still having to up the dosage every 6-8 months. His grandmother had Graves Disease. I’m not sure if he does but I know he’s a high risk.
Since he started taking it, his eyes don’t seem to bulge as much. That was the only on-the-surface symptom he had. He’s not so tired all the time. He’s losing his hair but he’s been going bald since high school so I don’t think it’s the Synthroid.
He used to be very heavy. He was worried about how his weight would be affected by the Synthroid but it hasn’t chanced at all.
The only thing he doesn’t like about it is not being able to eat for an hour after taking it or for 2 hours after eating. He says that it throws off his whole morning.
I’m kind of in the same boat you’re in right now. I’m curious to know what you decide. I have severe reflux and I’m facing surgery. I’d rather take pills for the rest of my life because the surgery just opens up a whole bunch of new problems.
Good luck with whatevery you decide.
WHAT? A while ago I asked if it was possible that taking Synthroid could suppress my thyroid’s activity (I have Hashimoto’s… so my thyroid is partially alive, right?) KarlGauss said “absolutely not.” What’s going on?
I have some vitiligo, too (well, self-diagnosed) - I’ve done some reading on it, and there really isn’t too much that can be done, except maybe skin-bleaching (can you say “Michael Jackson”?). It’s recommended that you stay out of the sun, as that will only make it more prominent looking (I look really strange when my arms get too much sun - a combination of lightly-tanned skin, dark freckles, and white splotches - ugh!).
I was very disappointed when my doc said the outer thirds of my eyebrows would never grow back in. I look like I deliberately overplucked. This is common.
I don’t know. As I said, I had a thyroid cyst. My TSH levels were normal. He put me on Synthroid so that my body would read my thyroid levels as acceptable, stop producing TSH, and therefore stop producing thyroid hormones. He wanted to know if the cyst would shrink when the thyroid stopped, or severly slowed, its functioning.
Now, this is what he said. It may not be what he actually meant.
I’m doing a little searching around online and found this very brief mention of the treatment I mean:
http://www.thyroid-info.com/articles/shames-cysts.htm
I am, obviously, not a doctor. 
I had a nodule that was found on a routine physical about ten years ago and they put me on Levoxyl (levothyroxine sodium). At the time the hype was that Levoxyl couldn’t be substituted for Synthroid. There was a class action lawsuit (see above) and now they are interchangeable. I take 0.15 mg daily.
The biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life was letting my quack endocrinologist do 8 needle biopsies in my neck followed by 4 CT guided needle biopsies that all turned up benign. (Notice how everybody’s needle biopsies in this thread were benign?) Because I’m male they said the odds were very high that I had thyroid cancer and I let them do a thyroidectomy.
Guess what? It was a benign follicular neoplasm. My surgeon told me at the time that if you have to get cancer, thyroid cancer is the one you want because it is so slow to progress and rarely metastasizes. Now I’m stuck taking this stuff that gives you heartburn and robs your bones of calcium for the rest of my life. I hate it.
If I had it to do all over again, I’d just have regular checkups, but that’s just me.
PS I tried to go off of it once. The surgeon left part of one of the lobes that he told me was enough to live on if there ever was nuclear holocaust or something that made levoxyl/synthroid unavailable, but after a month of weaning down I got sick and had to go back on it.
PSS Every year for the rest of my life I have to get ultrasounds and lab tests. Insurance considers it a preexisting and twice now I’ve had to foot the entire bill because I had changed jobs.
Not worth it, IMO.
Sorry I left out a few things because I was in a hurry to do something.
The surgery itself was a piece of cake. I was mowing the lawn 48 hours post op. The only bad thing about the surgery was that it left me with a scar across my neck a la Freddy Kruger.
I still get cysts but I don’t let them biopsy them. Every year the old cyst is gone and a new one appears. The next year, that cyst will be gone and there will a different one…