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Subclinical hypothyroid temporary?


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hi all! has anyone experienced elevated TSH that has corrected or jumped around during withdrawal or protracted? i keep wanting to wait and re test to avoid jumping on medication if its withdrawal induced.. thank you!
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I was recently diagnosed with sub-clinical hypothyroid. My TSH is 6.3. I have been benzo free 2 years.

 

My doc has started me on levothyroxzine. She wants me to take it for 2 months and then have me retest every 3 months and take only if required.

 

In her opinion, for people prone to depression, sub-clinical hypothyroidism is preferably treated than ignored.

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thats interesting. your number isn't that high. did you have symptoms? does your doc think it is Benzodiazepine related? thank you and congrats on two years!
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Any TSH above a 2 can be hypothyroid.  I've been hypothyroid for decades and if mine gets above a 2, I feel horrible.  6 is high and hypothyroid.
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[03...]

thats interesting. your number isn't that high. did you have symptoms? does your doc think it is Benzodiazepine related? thank you and congrats on two years!

 

Yes, becksblue is right. Anything above 2 is sub clinical hypothyroidism.

 

I'm going through depression for the last few months. Thus.

 

I don't think it is related to benzos. I was fine for 2 years after tapering for 1 year.

 

Even if it is benzos related, the knowledge does not help me. I have no choice but to treat the symptoms. The brain is too complex for us to easily pin cause effect.

 

I'm on antidepressants plus thyroid meds currently. They are helping me enormously.

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I remember when I first realized I was hypothyroid.  I was depressed with low energy and losing my strength.  I kept getting TSH tests done and they were all around 4.  I even had one done at the NIH which was an 8.  I had hypothyroid symptoms all those years, but the docs kept saying it was normal and it was psychiatric.  Then I went to a shrink and he put me on an AD when I should have been on thyroid replacement therapy instead.
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  • 6 months later...

Yes! About 4 months after I jumped from a long taper off benzos, I started to have symptoms of "subclinical hypothyroidism". My thyroid labs had been textbook normal until that time (aside from one high TSH test, 4.73, when I first started to taper in 12/2016, probably too quickly). From that point until I finally "jumped" at the end of 10/2020 my thyroid labs were perfect, right in the middle of the "normal" ranges.

 

I felt pretty good until the end of 2/2021, when one night I had what seemed like a panic attack... anxiety, chills, etc. With COVID just really coming on the scene then, I figured it was just anxiety and by the next morning I seemed OK.  I just happened to have a previously scheduled routine lab appointment that morning (including thyroid labs), so I went in for the tests.  Everything seemed normal... except my TSH had shot up from a "normal" 3.0-3.5 or so to a 5.74 (with "normal" FT3, FT4, thyroid antibodies and iodine).

 

I talked with my GP and my endocrinologist, and they said they just wanted to "watch" the numbers with more frequent thyroid labs. I gave the endocrinologist literature I had seen that indicates benzo withdrawal could cause hypothyroidism, and provided him with my lab results from before, during and after the taper. He was open to the benzos being a possible cause.

 

My thyroid labs since then (every month or two) have showed continuously increasing TSH values, still with normal FT3 and FT4. My most recent labs in mid-Jan 2021 showed the TSH at an all-time high of 9.13... still with normal FT3 and FT4.  The endocrinologist started me on 25 mcg/day of levothyroxine (lowest dose), and I go for my first labs since starting that tomorrow (3/3/21). I think I've been feeling a bit better on the levothyroxine, but I expect the TSH will still be high and he'll probably raise the dosage.

 

I think the effect of benzo withdrawal on the thyroid, and it causing (at least) "subclinical" hypothyroidism (and all the associated symptoms of that) is widely ignored by doctors and even us in the "benzo community".  I think it may very well be the cause of things like the "six-month wave", and could be the reason that many people suffer with "waves" and such long after "jumping" off benzos.

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Happened to me too.

My problem is that the meds made me sick. Tried Levo and then Armour Thyroid and felt worse  :'(

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hi all! has anyone experienced elevated TSH that has corrected or jumped around during withdrawal or protracted? i keep wanting to wait and re test to avoid jumping on medication if its withdrawal induced.. thank you!

 

yes! that happened to me, I am supposed to go to the endocrinologist but I think I will give it one more year to see if it resolves by itself

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