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Hypothyroidism: Feeling The Effects of Medication
Each patient with hypothyroidism will react to the medication in a different way. While some patients may notice
that their symptoms decreasing within one to two weeks, the full effects of the body’s metabolic response to the
medication often takes a month or more. In order for the patient to begin feeling better after the commencement of
thyroid hormone therapy; the correct amount of medication must be administered. If a patient doesn’t receive enough
thyroid hormone, and the symptoms of hypothyroidism will continue, and too high of a dosage may cause nervousness,
palpitations, and insomnia, all typical symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
Recent studies even have indications that too much thyroid hormone can cause an increase in calcium loss from the
bone, thus increasing the risk for development of osteoporosis. For those patients who have heart conditions or
heart disease, it’s extremely urgent that the correct thyroid dosage is prescribed. For those high-risk patients,
even a slight excess may increase the patient’s risk for a heart attack or worsen angina. Some doctors recommend
stricter and closer monitoring for these patients.
In order for the patients to begin to feel better and to experience the cessation of symptoms, careful monitoring
at least during the first month is necessary. In addition, a patient needs to understand the importance of being
open and honest with the doctor about how they feel. Monitoring a patient’s condition with frequent blood tests is
an alternative, but is customarily only used when discussions with the patient are indicative of a problem with the
medications. The more open and communicative the patient is during the transition period, the sooner the patient
will begin to feel better and thus the thyroid hormone levels will return to normal.
Once that happens, as long as the patient continues on the hormone therapy, the hormone levels will remain normal,
and the patient will feel “normal” again. How quickly that happens depends upon the individual patient and the
severity of the symptoms, but following the doctor’s instructions will ascertain the greatest amount of success.
Not only that, but being open and honest with the doctor about the continuation or cessation of symptoms so that he
knows whether the medicine is working for you also makes a huge difference in the success rate.
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