Could Be the Thyroid; Could Be Ennui. Either Way, the Drug Isnt Helping.

[elleng]

WRONG! (Sorry to interrupt, HAVE the condition, I take it, and it DOES work. Recently missed it, fell asleep midday, then took it and )

'“During the past four weeks, have you been tired? Been exhausted? Had difficulty getting motivated to do anything at all?”

These questions — which a substantial chunk of the population probably could answer in the affirmative — appeared on a questionnaire used in a major European study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The authors were researching the effectiveness of a drug that is widely, if controversially, used to treat older adults with subclinical hypothyroidism, better known as a slightly underactive thyroid. . .

True or “overt” hypothyroidism can cause intense symptoms and, if untreated, can lead to heart disease and other threats. People with T.S.H. readings over 10 milli-international units per liter of blood, and who have low levels of other thyroid hormones, generally get a prescription for levothyroxine — and need one.'>>> (Guess I'm one of these.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/health/could-be-the-thyroid-could-be-ennui-either-way-the-drug-isnt-helping.html?

[delisen]

1. Thyroid and Alzheimers/Dementia Framingham Study

Framingham Study had raised some alarms awhile back about neglecting treatment of mild thyroid dysfunction

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2694610/


Whereas thyroid dysfunction has long been recognized as a cause of reversible cognitive dysfunction, more recent studies have related thyroid dysfunction, even within the clinically ‘normal’ range to an increased risk of irreversible dementia. We sought to relate baseline TSH levels in a cognitively normal, community-based sample to the risk of incident AD. To minimize the possibility of inadvertently including subjects with early AD at the time of TSH estimation, we assessed the risk of incident dementia only among persons who remained free of dementia for at least 3 years after the baseline TSH estimation. We observed that whereas women in the lowest and highest tertiles of TSH levels were at an increased risk of developing AD, this effect was not noted in men.

Most prior investigations that have explored the possible relationship between TSH levels and the risk of AD have been case-control studies.10, 11 The prospective, population-based Rotterdam study showed that compared to a euthyroid reference group, baseline subclinical hyperthyroidism in the elderly is associated with a three-fold increase in the risks for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease after an average 2-year follow-up.12 Falling TSH levels may precede decline in episodic memory and lower TSH may predict conversion from MCI to clinical AD.23, 24 Some prior population studies25, 26 have failed to demonstrate an association of subclinical hypothyroidism with cognitive function but one of these was restricted to persons over age 85 with a mean follow-up of only 3.7 years,26 whereas the second was a cross-sectional study that used a relatively insensitive test, the Folstein Mini-Mental Status Examination, and suffered from possible recruitment bias.25 Neither related TSH levels to the risk of incident AD. While our results are consistent with prior studies that assessed incident AD as the outcome, the difference in results with studies that looked at cognitive function as outcome may be attributable to differences in study design, the age of the study sample, the ability to control for potential confounders and length of follow-up. Finally, studies with different outcome measures (cognitive function versus clinical AD) may not always yield similar results

[defacto7]

2. I also have hypothyroidism

Last edited Fri Apr 28, 2017, 11:27 AM - Edit history (1)

I was fine one month, the next almost unable to function and my life long perfect blood pressure went sky high.. way up. After tests my TSH was over 12 among ther anomalies so started taking Levothyroxin and had a quick positive reaction. I've slowly increased it over a year and I feel much better. My bp is back to normal as well. It's done a lot for me.
My first diagnosis was Hashimoto's disease (auto-immune hypothyroidism) They recently changed it to Aquired Hypothyroidism. I guess mine came from exposure to radiation or some toxic substance. I'll never know.

On edit: not that anyone is reading this anyway but I thought I would update it is case.
My doctor told me yesterday that the change in diagnosis from auto-immune to aquired is not that different. Aquired is a generic term that covers all possibilities since there's no way to know how I got it. Could be congenital or an unknown auto-immune response or exposure to a toxin. No telling

[SwissTony]

3. SBM article April 20

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/overtreating-the-thyroid/

I have absolutely no expertise in this area, so just putting this article up for those interested.

[Runningdawg]

4. I am 57 and recently diagnosed

with low thyroid. I began taking the med about 8 weeks ago. Before the correct diagnosis, I received many false ones and took a bunch of meds that did nothing, for 10 years! About 3 weeks ago the light came on. 14 meds in the trash, I only take the one now and to think I suffered so long for no reason.

[defacto7]

5. I'm with you.

It's amazing how many organs and physical/psychological reactions are affected by thyroid hormone... pituitary, hypothalamus, liver, kidney, heart, spleen to mention a few.. then there's depression, a type of paranoia, lethargy, anxiety, sudden extreme hypertension... it can be a crazy mix that seems like 20 different possible diseases. For me, it was all low thyroid.