I just found out on Thursday that I’m hypothyroid. I’d gone to the internist because my carpal tunnel was playing up REALLY badly, and one thing she decided to check for was thyroid. She didn’t say exactly what my levels were, but she said they were fairly low and she was therefore not going to start me out at the lowest dosage, as she usually would. (I’m on 75mg of Levothyroxine/day.) I’ve been taking it for three days now, and I haven’t noticed many changes, but, it’s only been three days. She thinks it’s postpartum thyroiditis, but looking back, I’ve had lots of symptoms of hypothyroidism for years (thinning hair starting in mid-20’s, fatigue, depression, irritability, difficult to lose weight or even just stay at a stable weight, cold intolerance, exercise intolerance, etc.) I was always reluctant to bring up my suspicions of thyroid problems because of the nasty sneering about “looking for excuses” that usually occurs whenever an overweight person suggests anything might be wrong with their thyroid. (My nightmare experience in this regard was with a nutritionist, but I’m still leery of all medical/quasi-medical types in regard to this.)
I’ve looked up things on the internet, but what I can’t seem to find is anything telling me what it’s like when the drug works. How will I know if this drug is working? I understand from my googling that it’s nearly identical to the natural hormone that my body should produce but for some reason isn’t, so I wouldn’t expect a lot of weird side effects. People who would know for whatever reason-- when can I expect certain things to clear up? I know fatigue is supposed to start getting better in 1-2 weeks, but what other things does taking thyroid usually improve? I never seem to get real satisfactory answers to these sorts of questions from my doctors. They always seem pretty busy. I always seemed to get the dumbed down explanations of everything, when really I could handle something a lot more technical. IANAD, but I’ve got a lot more understanding of physiology and pharmacology than the average layperson. (I’ve only really ever had one doctor that picked up on that. But then again, he spent most of his time doing research and only saw patients 1 day a week; he remembered a lot more about his patients because he had so few.) I get these dumbed down explanations and think “Well, I could have just read a pamphlet or something and found that out.” Plus, most doctors haven’t had to take thyroid and can’t really tell you from a personal perspective what it feels like when the stuff kicks in.