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What’s going on guys this is tyler pharmacist with pharmacy update and today i’m going to go over a drug that is used to treat hypothyroidism or low thyroid and that is levothyroxine i’m going to cover why having a healthy thyroid level is so important what some symptoms are of having low thyroid levels levothyroxine side-effects how it works and at the end of the
Video i will give you my advice on how to take this drug so let’s get into it so like i said leave it at that roxana is used to treat low thyroid and keeping a normal thyroid level in your body is extremely important the thyroid hormones known as t3 and t4 help regulate nearly every vital function in your body and this includes heart rate body temperature breathing
Your metabolism and body weight and even things such as your cholesterol levels so as you can imagine if these levels are thrown out of whack either too low or too high this can cause many issues for you so what are some problems you can have if your thyroid levels are too low or hypothyroidism well you can feel tired sluggish all the time you can have a decreased
Metabolism which can cause you to have weight gain you can be more sensitive to cold temperatures muscle aches tenderness constipation hair loss among other things i did not list them all here and this picture here gives you some more possible issues that you could have and as you can see there are quite a few so as you can imagine if you have hypothyroidism
You will want to get this corrected because there are just so many symptoms associated with this how exactly does levothyroxine help with low thyroid well it is actually a synthetic form of one of the thyroid hormones that i talked about t4 or thyroxine now t3 is considered the active thyroid hormone because it has a much higher affair on the sells but the good
Thing about t4 is that it can be converted into t3 by your liver or kidneys when it is needed so t4 kind of acts as a storage for when you need more thyroid regulation now it can take some time to work it can take 3 to 5 days to fill any effects of levothyroxine and it can take up to 4 to 6 weeks to get the full therapeutic effect so if you’re just starting out
Leave with our oxen or you’re changing your dose give it some time to work don’t quit just because you aren’t feeling any effects after a couple days because you may not be getting the full effect yet now side effects of levothyroxine they really just mirror the signs and symptoms of hyperthyroidism or too much thyroid hormone so some things you could get anxious
Nervous you can be hyperactive sensitive to high temperatures or heat you could have hand shaking or trembling heart palpitations and increased pulse basically just the opposite of hypothyroidism so if you start to have some of these side effects you may want to speak with your doctor because your dose might be too high in this case now some monitoring parameters
For levothyroxine so you will want to regularly monitor your thyroid stimulating hormone or tsh levels in your blood and this is usually how they can diagnose someone with hypo or hyperthyroidism as well so what is tsh exactly well it is made by your pituitary gland and response to your thyroid hormone levels and it kind of acts like a temperature gauge would for
An air-conditioner when your thyroid levels are low your tsh levels will increase and these increase tsh levels will normally stimulate the thyroid gland to produce more thyroid hormones but if your thyroid levels are too high your tsh will decrease so basically if your tsh is high your thyroid may not be producing hormones and if it is low it might be producing
Too much so it is important to get this level checked regularly and to see if your current dose is working so when you start levothyroxine or your changing to a new dose get it checked in four to six weeks and once you find the dose that seems to be working well for you get it checked again in four to six months and then after that just get it checked at least once
Yearly besides tsh you will want to monitor for any signs or symptoms that the dose is too high or too low so you’ll want to monitor for the symptoms that we’ve already talked about and in some cases maybe your tsh level is normal but you still have issues the doctor can check your free t4 levels if needed and now my final topic how should you take levothyroxine
This is very important because the absorption i believe it if they rock seen can vary widely depending on how you take it if you take it with food it can decrease the absorption by up to 25% especially foods rich in fiber however my advice is just to be consistent with your dose and how you take it let’s say that you have been taking this drug for years and you’re
Just now finding out that it may be better to take it without food if you found a dose that works for you and you’ve been taking it with breakfast every morning just keep doing that because guess what if you start taking it without food all of a sudden you might be getting 25% more of a drug and you have been getting so this may lead you to have more side effects
So just keep doing what works for you now if you’re just starting out the recommendation to get the most out of your medication is to take it on an empty stomach at least 30 to 60 minutes before breakfast or any other medications and this does include caffeinated drinks such as coffee if this does not work for you maybe you can’t wake up early enough to do that
An alternative is to at bedtime at least three to four hours after your last meal so that is an option either way make sure you take it with a full glass of water and one last note here if you take calcium iron ore in acids make sure that you are separating levothyroxine from them by at least four hours because these can also heavily decrease absorption so that’s
All i have thank you guys for watching please subscribe to my channel for future videos on pharmacy and medical updates and i will also post videos like this covering medications if you have any questions or comments please leave them below or you could always ask your doctor or pharmacist so thank you guys again and have a great day
Transcribed from video
Levothyroxine Overview – Low Thyroid Symptoms, Levothyroxine Side Effects, How to take By Pharmacy Update
