Levothyroxine is used to treat an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). The purpose of this medication is to normalise Your thyroid hormones.
Some of You, unfortunately, suffer from side effects such as:
Hair loss
weight gain
Increased sweating
sensitivity to heat
mood changes
tiredness
diarrhoea
nervousness
chest pain
headache shaking (tremor)
swelling of the ankles and hands
Now, You may be wondering "Why do I suffer from weight gain or hair loss despite using medication, which is supposed to help me?
The answer is not that simple. In theory, thyroid synthetic medication such as Levothyroxine should help You.
Why? Because although synthetic, the type of hormone replacement inside the medication is identical to the one You're producing in your body.
So why does it not happen? Why do You still suffer while taking this medication?
Well, there are always a few issues that can be the cause.
First one is the type of the brand You're using. More specifically quality of medication that the specific brand is producing.
Although similar, various brands use different fillers and additional ingredients placed in the capsule, together with levothyroxine.
These fillers and inactive ingredients can be problematic for some people.
Here is an example of differences between medications that different brands are offering:
Now, if You look at this table You can see that some brands have more inactive ingredients than the others.
Some of these inactive components can cause a hypersensitivity reaction in patients.
The easiest solution to this will be to choose the medication, which has the least amount of the inactive ingredients.
Good example of such medications is Tirosint.
Now, don't get us wrong. We're not promoting Tirosint because we're getting paid or anything like this. We simply think that it's a better solution for patients who suffer from hypersensitivity reactions.
What's the downside? Well, unfortunately it is a bit more expensive medication than other generic Levothyroxine medications.
The reason for this better quality and only 4 ingredients in the medication. Well, have a look Yourself:
Another option, which unfortunately will work only for some patients is changing dose of the Levothyroxine medication to 50mcg.
Why? Because ONLY the 50mcg tablet is formulated without colour additives. Hence, it works for patients who are sensitive to dyes.
You can understand that, unfortunately, it won't work for all the patients because the dose is very specific.
Some patients may simply need a smaller or larger dose.We still believe that it's a good choice for some patients.
Can be useful for ones who need a dose that is multiple of 50mcg, for example, 100mcg of Levothyroxine. In this example Levothyroxine can be taken as 2x50mcg, instead of one 100mcg dose.
Last option is to work on the conversion of T4 into T3. Why? Because Levothyroxine is the T4 medication and has to be converted by Your body to T3. T3 is the active form of the hormone.
How to do that?
Well, You have 8 ways to tackle this problem and we've described them here:
And if You prefer to listen and watch our video about this, then check it out here:
Let us know,
Are you encountering any negative effects of Levothyroxine?
If yes, have You tried changing the type of brand or kind of medication ?
Have You tried using different dose?
Leave your comment below!
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