Hi, everybody:

Yesterday, October 26, 2011, I went to my primary care physician to talk about my thyroiditis symptoms. Since October 10, 2011, this doctor started prescribing Synthroid (levothyroxine) for me, at the dosage of 25 mcg (ONE "miserable"tablet daily), but I sincerely feel this dosage is way, way, way not strong enough for me.

When I asked him for an increase in dosage, I had the feeling what I said went in one of his ears and out the other. Does he even believe me when I tell him my symptoms of fatigue, malaise, headache, etc... are sooo, sooo strong, sooo, sooo unbearable and sooo, sooo bad I just cannot stand them anymore. My patience has reached its limits.

What am I to do? Order Synthroid online? If this is the only solution I have left, I will not hesitate to do it. I want everybody (including the moderators) to know I am NOT encouraging others to do the same thing. I do know there are risks when ordering medications online, but I also know there are risks for me to continue living with these unbearable thyroiditis symptoms. You, American citizens living in the USA, are sooo lucky to be able to get Synthroid when you need it and at the dosage you need. After all, Synthroid is not a controlled substance.

I do not know if you read the message I posted in this Auto Immune Diseases section of NT, titled, I think, "Nightmare at the endocrinologist's". If you have read this message, you should understand I cannot go see an endocrinologist anymore. If I went to see another one, he would look at the records from the first one I consulted and ask him why I quit seeing him. I am sure the former endocrinologist will tell him my thyroid is FINE, which is NOT the case. Then I can kiss good-bye to any help from the new endocrinologist. The following link is the one to click on to find the story of my nightmare at the endocrinologist's.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread159141.html

Doctors rely too much on blood test results and not enough on what the patients tell them about their symptoms. If you click on the following link (I hope it works), you will be able to see an interesting article (three pages).

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/wom...e-always-tired

This is the conclusion of one article (three pages) I saw on Yahoo today. I strongly support this conclusion, as a patient who has to stand this disease every single day.

What should I do? I am at my rope's end. Pleaaase help! Please! Thanks.

I hate to say this, but malaise and chronic headache can come from long term opiate use.

Chronic headache is a consequence of using narcotic medications.

Your side effects may be due to drug effects independent of your hypothyroid situation. You need to consider this.

Hi, mrsD:

The thyroiditis symptoms I mentioned are not the only ones I have. I have also all of the following thyroid symptoms, and probably others I forgot, thanks to my poor memory.

-Female infertility, any kind of problems with menstrual cycles
-Poor muscle tone (muscle hypotonia)
-Fatigue
-Cold intolerance, increased sensitivity to cold
-Constipation
-Depression
-Muscle cramps and joint pain
-Thin, brittle fingernails
-Dry, itchy skin
-Thinning of the outer third of the eyebrows (sign of Hertoghe)
-Abnormal menstrual cycles
-Low basal body temperature
-Thyroid-Related Depression
-Impaired memory
-Impaired cognitive function (brain fog) and inattentiveness
-Sluggish reflexes
-Hair loss
-Anemia caused by impaired haemoglobin synthesis (decreased EPO levels), impaired intestinal iron absorption from pernicious anemia
-Difficulty swallowing
-Shortness of breath with a shallow and slow respiratory pattern
-Increased need for sleep
-Irritability and mood instability
-Yellowing of the skin due to impaired conversion of beta-carotene to vitamin A (carotoderma)
-Decreased sense of taste and smell (anosmia)
-Enlarged tongue

I am sooo, sooo angry with my thyroid; I hate it sooo much I want to go to a foreign country to have it removed. It is a totally, completely useless organ for me because it does not make enough levothyroxine for me. It might as well make nothing.

Whenever I have this or that problem, I often hear it is the narcotics' fault. If the narcotics are always guilty, why would the thyroid be innocent?

There is one medication that sort of helps with my strong fatigue, but this medication is practically impossible for most people to get. It is even harder to get a prescription for this medication than it is to get a prescription for strong narcotic (schedule 2 controlled substances). This medication is called dextroamphetamine. When I take one 5 mg tablet of dextroamphetamine, my fatigue magically disappears, as if a magic wand had waved it away. Of course, I understand how doctors can feel uncomfortable prescribing this medication, because it is frequently abused by druggies, who call it "speed". I am not asking for this medication; I just want a dosage of Synthroid high enough to control all my thyroiditis symptoms. I want to ask my doctors: "Is that asking for too much? Is that asking for a gun to kill someone? I just want to feel and be better. Is this a crime?"

I want this thyroid GONE! How does it help me!? By producing levothyroxine? It produces so little levothyroxine it might as well produce nothing. It would be the same for me. I am angry at my situation of being an unrelieved thyroiditis patient. I am not angry at anyone, in this forum or elsewhere; I am just angry at the doctors who knowingly refuse to help me. I am really, really sorry, mrsD, but I feel sooo, sooo depressed that I just want to cry my eyes out. Thanks for your answer and your help.

Hi, mrsD and everybody:

This d*** American web site accepts to ship medications like Synthroid all over the world, including in European countries. Why do they refuse to send Synthroid to French Polynesia? People living in French Polynesia are French citizens and France is an European country. Besides that, French citizens living in French Polynesia are also human beings who have the right to have a life free of the horrible symptoms of thyroiditis. My last, last option is to contact a medication trafficker I know.

MrsD, I think you do not approve of what I am about to do. This morning, I called my American pain management physician (one international call) and I called the fentanyl patch and morphine capsule manufacturers in France (two international calls). They told me the narcotics could not be responsible for ALL the symptoms I am going through, but only for a very few symptoms. They are absolutely sure it is my thyroid that is responsible for all these problems, considering my thyroid blood test results are abnormal.

What am I to do?

Do you know how I could move this whole thread to the Suicide forum so I can get some emotional support from the people there, like I did in the past? I do not know how to do it. Thanks for everything.

Kitty.... you have just started Synthroid at 25mcg dose.

This is done for at least a month or two, and then there is a retest. One cannot start thyroid safely at a high dose, as the body has to get used to it.

You want a high dose now, and that may not be in your best interest. I started at the low dose and it took a year to get to my 75mcg maintenance.

Trying to do this yourself, is not safe or wise. That is just how thyroid treatment is done. You are trying to rush a body system based on YOUR ideas, not on the medical protocols for safety.

Hi, msrD:

Quote: "You have just started Synthroid at 25mcg dose. This is done for at least a month or two, and then there is a retest."

My primary care physician said he would keep me at the 25 mcg dosage of Synthroid for at least three months. Nothing guarantees he will increase the dosage after this period of time. So how long will I have to suffer from some of the most horrible symptoms of my thyroiditis? At least three months? Maybe much, much longer? I do not have the physical nor the psychological strength to suffer that long. I read physical stress is bad for the body, even if I do not remember the reasons why it is bad. I also read psychological stress is bad for the body because it could cause a person to harm herself or to commit suicide.

Quote: "One cannot start thyroid safely at a high dose, as the body has to get used to it."

One day, on October 26, 2011, I took one 25 mcg Synthroid tablet in the morning, on an empty stomach, as directed by my doctor. An hour or so later, I forgot if I had taken or not my Synthroid tablet for the day, so I took another 25 mcg tablet. I later found out I had already taken my Synthroid tablet for the day. Result for that day: I had taken two 25 mcg tablets, instead of one 25 mcg tablet. Nothing bad happened to me at all. On the contrary, I heard my coworkers tell me something like: "You seem to be feeling better today. Your face is not ghostly white anymore and you stopped shaking. I am happy for you." I think this must be related to my taking 50 mcg Synthroid that day, instead of the prescribed 25 mcg. The other days, I continued taking the prescribed 25 mcg dosage and I felt as bad as usual.

Do you think 50 mcg is that high a dose? Some doctor (I think it was my cardiologist) recently told me one of the medications I am taking, Inderal (propranolol), is supposed to prevent the side effects of Synthroid and of taking too much of it. Is Inderal not used, in some cases, against hyperthyroidism?

Quote: "You want a high dose now."

I do not want a high dosage of Synthroid now. I just want the right dosage for me. If the 25 mcg daily dosage still does not help me feel better, is this not proof it is not the right dosage for me?

Quote: "You want a high dose now and that may not be in your best interest."

Is it in my best interest to suffer all day and all night long from some of the most horrible symptoms of my thyroiditis? Is it in my two-year-old baby boy's interest to see his mother suffer like this and not being able to care for him the way a mother should?

Quote: "I started at the low dose and it took a year to get to my 75mcg maintenance."

One of the following two things must be true for you:

1) If it took you one year to reach your maintenance dosage, you must have had a lot of courage to stand all this suffer from some of the most horrible symptoms of your thyroiditis. I do not have this kind of courage. After all, I also have generalized internal chronic RSD, post traumatic osteoarthritis, epilepsy, asthma, etc.

2) If you did not suffer from the symptoms of your thyroiditis, you are lucky. Unfortunately, luck and me make two.

If it takes a shockingly long year to reach one's maintenance dosage, why does the doctor do nothing to help me stand some of the most horrible symptoms of my thyroiditis? There must be something to be done. I cannot stay like this for one year. It is an extremely long time, way too long for me. I know some people have no horrible, unbearable symptoms from their thyroiditis, but not everybody is the same. It is really great for these people not to have horrible, unbearable symptoms from their thyroiditis, but what about the people who do have horrible, unbearable symptoms from their thyroiditis? What is done to alleviate these people's symptoms while they wait for their doctor to take a whole year to find their maintenance dosage? What I know without the shadow of a doubt about myself is that I will never, ever be able to wait this long. Are there no procedures to shorten this extremely long waiting time in special cases like mine? Since I have had the horrible, unbearable symptoms from my thyroiditis, my RSD pain went through the roof and the number of my seizures increased a lot, just because these d*** thyroiditis symptoms are not controlled at ALL.

From Mondays to Fridays, in the daytime, I cry my eyes out on my desk at my workplace when my coworker is not in the office with me. Everyday, in the nighttime, I ball up on my bed and I cry my eyes out. I thought I had no tears left from crying so much, but I was so, so wrong. Living with these horrible, unbearable thyroiditis symptoms is not a life to me. You are going to tell me there are worse cases than mine: possibly, but there are also many, many, many better cases than mine. I can see my cup half full or half empty and, at this point in my life, I see it half empty, if not completely empty.

Quote: "You are trying to rush a body system based on YOUR ideas, not on the medical protocols for safety."

Correction: I am trying to rush a body system based on MY HORRIBLE, UNBEARABLE THYROIDITIS SYMPTOMS which, by the way, no one anywhere seems to notice or care about. Maybe people think they are all in my head? In this case, they should have the guts to say so. As for the medical protocols for safety, they should never, ever forget to take into account the patient's suffer because of the horrible, unbearable thyroiditis symptoms. I am not talking about pain, which can be controlled by my opioids and other pain medications, but I am talking about the other symptoms, many of which were listed in one of my messages in this thread.

Thanks for reading me and for understanding I am trying not to suffer, if not for me, at least for my son.

Kitty, You have a lot on your plate. About 15 years ago, a routine blood test indicated I had Grave's disease (hyperthroid). I was unaware of this, thought the stairs were getting harder to go up, sweating, weakness, weight loss, loss of hair. Now it all seemed to fit. My Internist sent me to an Endocrinologist. I hope you are seeing a doctor that specializes in thyroid disease. For a couple of years, I was on meds to lower the excessive hormone output. Unfortunately, the doctor does not know what dosage will work for you until you have taken the meds for a few months; then get another blood test to show your TSH, etc. He then will adjust the meds accordigly.
I eventually went into remission for about 4 years (the endo said that was rare) but had to get blood test every 4 months to check the throid. Once you have had thyrod disease, it is always there and the blood test remain for the rest of your life.
About 3 years ago, the blood test showed I had now gone to Hyperthroid and needed to start Snythroid. Until I took the meds for 3-4 months, the doctor would have no idea whether to increase or decrease the dose. I eventually was on a maintenance dose; but started using a generic. My next blood test showed I needed a higher dose. I had read on the internet that generic for Synthroid should never be used because even if the ingredients are the same, the amonts are not. I asked my doctor to hold off and check "no substitution" on my prescription. Started taking the brand name Synthroid. He tested me in 3 months and everythng was normal again. I am on the same dose you are on at present. Do not use a generic; not the same. After your next blood work for the thyroid, the doctor may give you a prescription that could be a maintenance. You do not necessarily have to go thru a year to get to the right dose for you; but the doctor does have to wait to retest in 3 months; otherwise he cannot know how the current prescription is working. It takes a while to completely get into your system. Because you took a higer dose one time; does not mean that would be good to take for several months. Again, believe me, I understand your frustration; but it is necessary to stay on the dose you are taking for at least 3 months before he can have a better idea how much to prescribe. In fact, after taking the dose you are currently using for a month or more; you might find you are already feeling better. Hyporthroid is usually easier to treat than Hyperthroid (Graves disease). I know because I had both.
I hope the anxiety you are feeling subsides. Actually, I had the most anxiety with the Hyperthroid disease.
Again, I hope you are seeing an endocrinologist. If you are having an overabundance of hormones by taking too much synthroid, that could make the anxiety worse. In fact, some of your symptoms mimic Hyperthroid.The Synthroid adds extra hormones.

I understand the waiting must be unbearable; but if the dose you are on starts to kick in, you could start feeling better very soon. Sending positive thoughts your way.

Hi, ger715:

Quote: "You have a lot on your plate."

You are right. I cannot take it anymore; my patience has reached its limits.

Like you, I was also unaware of my thyroid problem. I just knew I have these symptoms (listed in a message posted on October 27, 2011, in this thread), but I did not imagine an instant that my thyroid is responsible for all these symptoms. I do not remember what later brought me to suspect my thyroid. I had thyroid blood tests done twice. Some of these tests could only be done in France. The blood tests show I have thyroiditis (also called Hashimoto's hypothyroidism).

What is strange is that I have all your symptoms, but I have hypothyroidism while you have hyperthyroidism. My only guess is that these two syndromes share some common symptoms. If someone thinks I am wrong, feel free to correct me.

I went to see an endocrinologist, but my experience with him was a real nightmare, which I posted in the Auto Immune Diseases thread.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread159141.html

I cannot find another endocrinologist who will take me. Good specialists are not easy to find in the small island in which I live.

Quote: "Unfortunately, the doctor does not know what dosage will work for you until you have taken the meds for a few months; then get another blood test to show your TSH, etc. He then will adjust the meds accordigly."

You are saying my doctor does not know what dosage will work for me until I have taken the meds (Synthroid is the only thyroid medication I take) for a few months. If I tell my doctor I still feel horribly, horribly bad on the 25 mcg dosage (one tablet daily), does it not make sense for my doctor to understand this dosage does not work for me? Does it not make sense my doctor should increase my dosage? If the 25 mcg dosage was the right dosage for me, I would feel better, which is not the case.

If I have to take this ridiculously low amount of Synthroid for several months before the doctor knows if it will help me or not (I know I do not feel better on this ridiculously low dosage of Synthroid), can he not give me something, anything, to stand these unbearable symptoms while waiting for the Synthroid to take effect, if it will take effect?

My blood test results are weird. Some of them go from being abnormal to being normal while others go from being normal to being abnormal. So hos is my doctor supposed to make a decision and how long am I supposed to wait and suffer because of these weird results?

Quote: "I am on the same dose you are on at present."

How are you feeling on that dosage? Are you feeling better than before you started taking it? If so, you are lucky!

I am usually against generics. For example, I always refuse generics of fentanyl patches because, to me, they are less effective than brand name fentanyl patches.

Quote: "After your next blood work for the thyroid, the doctor may give you a prescription that could be a maintenance."

I more than sincerely hope it will not be the same dosage or a lower dosage because, otherwise, I will tell him something like: "Stop prescribing this 25 mcg dosage of Synthroid for me. If you will not give me a higher dosage of Synthroid, I prefer not to take anything. What is the use of taking 25 mcg Synthroid daily when it does not make me feel better at all? I might as well take nothing; what would be the difference?!"

Quote: "The doctor does have to wait to retest in 3 months; otherwise he cannot know how the current prescription is working."

I feel the current prescription is not working at all. I do not feel better at all since I started taking it. Does that not count for my doctor? Like I said in a previous message in this thread, doctors rely too much on blood tests while they discount their patients' symptoms, which should be considered more important.

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/wom...e-always-tired

Quote: "I understand your frustration; but it is necessary to stay on the dose you are taking for at least 3 months before he can have a better idea how much to prescribe."

I am not against doing this; I just want something to be able to stand the unbearable, horrible symptoms I feel while waiting during these three months. The pharmacist I saw on Saturday, October 29, 2011, told me there ARE such medications to be able to stand these unbearable, horrible symptoms. So what is the doctor waiting to prescribe them for me, knowing I feel so, so bad?

The ambulance came several times at my workplace because I could not stand these unbearable, horrible symptoms. I do not know what they gave me, but it helped me feel somewhat better.

Quote: "In fact, after taking the dose you are currently using for a month or more; you might find you are already feeling better."

I started taking Synthroid on October 11, so I have been taking it for 21 days. If it has not started helping me in 9 days, the next box of 25 mcg dosage is going straight in the trash can.

Do you know what I am doing as I am typing this message? My computer keyboard is all wet, wet with all my tears, tears of suffer, tears of not being helped...

Quote: "I understand the waiting must be unbearable; but if the dose you are on starts to kick in, you could start feeling better very soon. Sending positive thoughts your way."

Thanks for your information and for being such an understanding, kind, and non-judgmental person. I cannot thank you enough for that. Maybe, in 9 days, I will write a message saying I feel better. I sincerely hope I will.

Kitty, I went from being Hyperthroid for a few years, then remission, then Hyporthroid which is what I am now and will always be.

Have you contacted your doctor about how much worse you are feeling? Even if it is not time for your blood work, he should be aware of your current condition. Would suggest he give you another blood test for your TSH to make sure you are hypothroid and not hyperthroid. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to see a different endocrinologist. As I mentioned before, you sound more like I did when I was hyperthroid. It took several months of using the med Tapazole when I was Hyperthroid to eventually calm down my symptoms. Many individulal require a partial removal of the throid. Not alway surgical; frequently can be done with a procedure I never had any removal of my throid. Used Tapazole at that time, which is not a med to be used indefinitely for hyperthroid.

I am now hypothroid; using Synthroid; but still deal with anxiety issues; but nothing like yours.

synthroid may take some time to bring the levels up so sometimes a low dose of cytomel generic liothyronine is prescribed till synthroid can work its slower work. please be patient with synthroid, and ask about cytomel.