Small But Mighty: A Thyroid Life

I read something about thyroxine dose and lifestyle when researching the effects of caffiene (post coming soon). The excerpt said that if you have caffiene straight after taking your meds your dose may need to be adjusted (due to the pills not being absorbed). In other words, never drink coffee at breakfast, maybe not even tea. If you already do, stopping may well mean an increase in your T4. You can decide for yourself if you want to go down that route.

Does this mean, then, that your dose of levothyroxine is given to you according to your lifestyle?: whether you eat and drink things that impact absorption of pills; whether you eat and drink things which affect the functioning of your thyroid; whether you are drastically active or amazingly un-active. Does this mean that your dosage requirement will change according to your routine? That, according to what you do, your Levothyroxine needs will switch?

I am currently on an expedition in Borneo. I'm eating different foods, drinking different drinks; being either incredibly active or incredibly more like a couch potato; and I'm running on a different routine; in fact sometimes I'm not even on a routine at all. Should my dosage be changed? Some of the foods I'm eating are those which my body hasn't had (because it couldn't cope with them) in years: chocolate; sugar; fatty foods and greasy foods, and I've started drinking coffee, alchohol and tea which isn't herbal. So, alongside switching from a health-freak to one of the unhealthiest people on the entire island of Borneo, am I mucking up my perfect meds routine and stable thyroid?

Surely this 'LevoSwitch' might explain the reason teenagers, with their constantly changing routines, struggle so much to find the right dosage? In fact, it might explain everyone's struggles to find the right dosage - when energy comes and irritating things scamper away, you are more than likely to change your routine: to do more things; to try more and different things; to take the world in your arms and jump up and down! You change, and you need new amounts of T3 to be converted, or more T4 because all this is new to your body.

If you follow the advice:

• you take your meds first thing in the morning on an empty stomach
• you wait half an hour before eating breakfast
• for breakfast, after only half an hour, you don't eat things which go straight through you and you don't go crazy on the calcium allowance

- you should, by default, be fine.

But 'things which go straight through you' include coffee and include tea. And, surely, it includes any hot things at breakfast - porridge, and surely too, it includes fruit? Or is there a fine line between what does and what doesn't 'go straight through you'? I guess, sometimes, the only way to tell is to wait and see and to have fun meantime.

Because, if you can enjoy your time while your thyroid is going down, the downtime will be alright, and the going-up time even better, and probably faster too.

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Do you have any comments on this?

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Check out two more of my letters, published on the 'Dear Thyroid' website:
http://dearthyroid.org/the-sober-drunkard/
http://dearthyroid.org/reminiscing/