Synthroid Levothyroxine Side Effects & Adverse Reactions

Not everyone can tolerate synthroid and it should not be considered a utopian hormonal intervention; no medication is an optimal fit for every user. If you’ve taken synthroid, share a comment mentioning whether you’ve experienced significant and/or noticeable unwanted side effects. Document the particular side effects as well as their respective severities (on a scale of 1 to 10) and mention when you first noticed them during your treatment. If you’re a short-term user, it is important to realize that many side effects will diminish and/or completely subside after several months of treatment.

• Also, patients reported that the relationship between the patient and their doctor was particularly important in the management of brain fog.
• These include lack of sleep, dehydration, medication side effects, depression, sleep apnea, menopause syndrome, vitamin B12 deficiency, chemotherapy treatment, celiac disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, chronic fatigue syndrome, and COVID-19, among others.
• This raises the question of how much of the symptom complex is actually due to hypothyroidism and/or inadequate treatment.

Based on this, 4 meta-analyses recommended maintaining LT4 alone as standard therapy for hypothyroidism 114, 115, 116, 117. In a very small study on 9 women, exposure to indoor air microbes caused reversible euthyroid sick syndrome with fatigue and cognitive problems 91. “Brain fog” may result from many causes, but some scientists believe nearly all involve inflammation and free radicals damaging the brain regions responsible for emotions, cognitive, and executive function – the limbic system 23, 21, 24. Dr Chen receives support from grant T32 DK07245 from the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

• A high dose may induce an anxious-depression, whereas a low dose may fail to treat the underlying hypothyroidism.
• Symptoms of mild dementia sometimes develop when thyroid levels are abnormal, and they usually resolve with treatment.
• To cope with headaches caused by synthroid, you may want to consider taking an over-the-counter medicine for headache relief (as recommended by your doctor).
• If you’ve been taking synthroid, it is necessary to track whether the therapeutic benefits attained from the medication outweigh side effects and adverse reactions.
• Switching medications may reduce eye dryness and/or visual changes, but you may need to safely utilize an exogenous moisturizer if your eyes continuously dry out from the synthroid.

Thyroid Brain Fog Symptoms

• Anytime appetite increases/decreases are substantial and/or sustained for a prolonged period – they should be discussed with a medical professional.
• Randomized, placebo-controlled blinded studies of LT4 therapy in people with subclinical hypothyroidism have failed to demonstrate improvement in HRQoL, mood, or cognitive measures (34,38–40).
• Researchers used Kendall rank correlation coefficients to measure the association between symptom severity and patient satisfaction.
• In another study, 150 patients with treated hypothyroidism, normal TSH levels, markedly elevated TPOAb titers, persistent symptoms, and elevated fatigue and lower HRQoL scores were randomized to optimal medical therapy or thyroidectomy.
• Discuss all potential interventions with a doctor and consider consulting a sleep specialist.
• A similar process has been proposed for the extreme example of Hashimoto’s encephalopathy (68).

In the most severe cases, the symptoms can be reversed with thyroid hormone replacement 65, 44, 19, 20. Brain fog makes navigating life extremely frustrating and understanding common situations impossible. For some patients, it is so severe that they are unable to participate in everyday conversation. It’s important to get medical advice if you think you have hypothyroidism and start thyroid brain fog treatment as soon as possible.

What does thyroid exhaustion feel like?

It is notable that 46% of participants in the study by Ettleson et al. reported that the onset of brain fog symptoms occurred before the diagnosis of hypothyroidism (4). This could reflect delays in diagnosis or indicate that cognitive symptoms are an early indicator of hypothyroidism. However, it raises the question of whether hypothyroidism was a red herring, diagnosed when an elevated TSH was measured in a patient with pre-existing unrelated symptoms.

Notably, patients taking thyroid hormone may continue to experience brain fog even after their other hypothyroid symptoms have improved and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels are in the normal range. Brain fog often does not go away completely, even with carefully monitored thyroid replacement therapy. Common symptoms of hypothyroidism include feeling tired, cold, and sluggish along with weight bladderwrack synthroid gain, dry skin and constipation. These symptoms often resolve on thyroid hormone replacement therapy and return of the FT4 and TSH back to the normal range.

Most participants reported having brain fog very frequently or all the time and about half reported having this symptom before the diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Over 95% of the patients reported having fatigue, forgetfulness, sleepiness and difficulty focusing when experiencing brain fog. A small number of participants felt better when liothyronine (L-T3) was added to their levothyroxine treatment, but the improvement was a bit more common in those over 50 years old.

The textual data analysis is subject to further selection bias as participants were free to provide additional comments or not. Because the survey link could be shared via email and social media platforms to engage as many patients as possible, we cannot estimate a survey response rate. In addition, the survey was designed to be minimally burdensome to encourage participation and to not restrict the study to a specific location. As a result, survey data did not include medical record information to confirm the diagnosis of hypothyroidism or identify comorbid conditions. Further research is needed to determine the roles of both thyroid function and comorbidities in the character and severity of brain fog in hypothyroidism.

Cognitive Symptoms in Hyperthyroidism

The survey included 2 open-ended questions in which participants were allowed to respond in their own words (no word limit). In the first question, participants reported any factors (eg, behaviors and medications) that made brain fog symptoms better or worse. All categories were framed in the context of improving brain fog symptoms (ie, a behavior that made symptoms worse would be framed as the absence of that behavior improving symptoms).

American Association of Clinical Endocrinology Annual Meeting

The information on this website has not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration or any other medical body. You must consult your doctor before acting on any content on this website, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition. It’s routinely used as replacement therapy for hypothyroidism, with proven evidence of its effectiveness 4.

People with hypothyroidism have an underactive thyroid gland, leading to low thyroid hormone levels in their bodies. Hypothyroidism can occur due to autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, thyroid surgery, radioiodine therapy (to treat hyperthyroidism), iodine deficiency, or other hereditary conditions. Complementing these thyroid-targeted approaches, successful strategies from other disease states include optimizing rest, sleep, exercise, and nutrition, and reducing stress. In some cases, referrals to specialists in occupational therapy, physical therapy, nutrition, and/or stress management may be beneficial. Co-existing medical problems such as obesity, iron deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, and sleep and mood disorders, which are common in the general population and hypothyroid people, should be diagnosed and treated.