Since I didn't want to hijack anyone's else's thread..figured I'd pose my question on it's own. To those maintainers who have been diagnosed with having a low thyroid, what medication has been helpful to you? Currently I ask,because I'm not sure I'm happy with Amour. I've recently be I have also been diagnosed with having an under active thyroid as well as Pre-Ovarian failure.I haven't had a normal period pretty much since I was 16..then it just stopped. So needless to say I have ovaries of a 60 year old woman. It effects a lot of things,as my estrogen levels are super low. I'm taking estrogen & progesterone pills to at least get my estrogen to a healthy level for bone health. I also take once monthly testosterone shots. Apparently testosterone is produced in your ovaries so since mine aren't working,no testosterone. This has really helped me build muscle. Needless to say I think my metabolism and my ability to lose stubborn fat has be a struggle. My doctor hopes that once my thyroid is under control,my period might return. This happened to one of his patients. I'd really like to know if any of you found it helpful eating less starches or even whole grains especially in the evening. I personally am just trying to eat pretty much a lean protein, low gi carb & healthy fat at each meal. I have really been struggling lately with the fact that I have to eat around 1500-1600 to maintain. My thoughts are maybe If I found the right medicine/dosage this would help boost my metabolism...any thoughts??

Sorry to ramble.

Tita, how long has it been since you were diagnosed? Are they still adjusting your dosages? It took an entire year for me to get on the correct dosage of thyroid meds, since they set your dose then can't do the blood test for another six weeks. If you're not happy with your medication you should talk to your doctor about it.

What happened with me is that I went undiagnosed for a very long time because my lab tests weren't "off" enough to be flagged and no doctors could put the pieces together. (This seems to be a common story with hypothyroid.) Finally I called my doctor and demanded to be retested. The common test that they use is the TSH test. My TSH had been tested two years earlier and had come back at 2.44 which is considered normal. The second time it was 8.01, which is above normal (but isn't anywhere near as bad as most people who had my symptoms would be). The doctor put me on 88mcg Synthroid every day.

I switched doctors due to the complete incompetence of the ones I had had before, and when my new doctor tested me she tested TSH and Free T4. My TSH had dropped too low, and my FT4 was too high. This means they had me on too much medication, so I had the dosage reduced.

I stayed on that dosage for a few months, but as my TSH and T4 normalized I started having bad symptoms again. This time my doctor tested TSH, Free-T4, and Free-T3. Turns out my TSH and Free-T4 were fine, but my Free-T3 was too low. This is when they started giving me Cytomel (which is a T3 supplement, as opposed to Synthroid which is only T4), 5mcg. I really consider Cytomel to be my miracle drug -- two weeks after I started taking it, all my symptoms started to disappear, even the ones I'd had for the years I was undiagnosed.

In any case, I'm currently on 75 mcg Synthroid 6 days/week and 5 mcg Cytomel every day, and my TSH, FT4, and FT3 have all been in the normal range for the past five months.

Still, losing the "thyroid weight" has been a struggle. I gained about 10lbs very rapidly right before getting diagnosed due to the hypothyroid, and added another 10 over the past year of dosage adjustments. My old techniques for losing aren't working anymore, so I'm still trying to figure out how my metabolism has changed over the past two years.

You definitely need to get the right medication and dosage, because if your thyroid is still underactive, that will slow your metabolism. OTOH, if your labs are normal there's not much that medication can do for you. Doctors don't want to overmedicate because having too much thyroid hormone can also lead to all sorts of nasty things (including death!).

I don't know if that helped at all, but good luck!

Tita, I was diagnosed in 1995 and have only taken synthetic thyroid hormone since then (Levoxyl and Syntroid) so I don't have any experience with Armour. It took a long time to find the right dose with the cycle of trying a new dose, testing in six weeks, tweaking, testing in another six weeks etc. Even now my TSH is checked every six months and the dose is frequently adjusted. Right now I'm alternating 150 and 175 mcg because 150 every day wasn't enough and 175 every day made me hyperthyroid. It really is a delicate balance!

I'm definitely one of those who loses and maintains better with low starches. I shoot for one serving of starchy carbs a day -- usually oatmeal or Kashi GoLean -- and the rest of my carbs are fruits and veggies. As a very rough rule of thumb, I try to eat over 100 g of protein a day and under 100 g of carbs. I think a lot of us who are hypo do better limiting starchy carbs. The way I eat sounds really similar to what you're doing.

Like Jessica, I gain weight frighteningly fast and it's tough to lose again but I never know if it's my age, hormonal status, being hypo, or just trying to keep off a lot of weight.

Jessica's right, we definitely need to get our thyroids normalized in order to successfully lose weight and maintain. It's hard to say what will happen to your metabolism and maintenance calories once your thyroid is correctly regulated, but it certainly might make things easier for you.

Best of luck to you! And I know we who are hypo may have to work a little harder, but we can keep the weight off too.

Tita, I started on Armour about a year ago. I found a doctor who conducts kinetic thyroid function tests as opposed to lab numbers - he will run them but doesn't pay much attention to it. He goes by your symptoms and how you feel. I'm a 2-grainer for the last year. I've been very lucky in that I've required no adjustments. I don't know if my thyroid contributed much to my weight, but I can definitely say that my skin is less dry, and I'm much less sensitive to cold. A few of my gf's have gone to see him as well - one is now up to 4 grains, and the other is getting thyroid support in conjunction with healing her adrenal fatigue.

I've signed up for a full hormone panel blood workup; should have those results in a couple of weeks. I'm in my early 40s, so I want to find out where I'm at now so that I'll know better about future adjustments.

Hey Meg,

Thanks for going into detail about your diet. Yeah,pretty much does sounds similar to mine. Have you heard of Precision Nutrition?? Sounds similar,starches best consumed earlier in the day and after work outs.

Hi ICUwishing (not sure your name..sorry)

I too have experienced to same symptoms,cold hands and feet..skin dryness..so maybe I'll just keep tabs on how I feel on Amour. I guess I wasn't sure what signs to expect that indeed it was working other then having labs done.

Tita, you can look at wikipedia for a list of low thyroid symptoms. For me, before I started getting medicated, I was so cold all the time that at work I was wearing two sweaters and my winter coat and drinking hot tea nonstop, wearing gloves even while typing, and sometimes a hat. (Note that my coworkers were wearing jeans and t-shirts.) My hair was falling out, my weight was shooting up, my nails were breaking off, I was exhausted all the time and sleeping excessively, I was constipated, my knees and wrists ached all the time no matter what treatment I tried (including surgery), and I had zero interest in being intimate with DH. The proper medication has fixed all of that, although I do have lingering repetitive stress issues with my wrists due to my job.

Honestly although I felt like crap, I didn't realize exactly how much the hypothyroid had been making me feel bad until I felt better. It was like, "So THIS is what normal feels like! I forgot!"

As for diet, I do mostly a whole foods-type diet. Right now I'm also doing Volumetrics so I'm focusing on adding more fruits and vegetables. However, I am I think in the minority of the folks around here in that I do not limit my carbs at all and I don't eat a high-protein diet. I get about 60-70% of my calories from carbs, and my staple foods are pasta, rice, and cereal. That's not to say I don't get enough protein -- I definitely meet the USDA guidelines -- but I don't make it a focus.

Hey Jessica!

Thanks for sharing your experience! Too have many of those symptoms..cold hands & feet etc...so hopefully the Amour will help alleviate this problem.

Yes,have read Volumetric..good stuff! I love to bulk up meals like pasta by adding broccoli etc.