Casey Abernathy
Hi guys my name is casey abernathy and i’m a pharmacy student at the ut tyler college of pharmacy and today we’re going to be talking about levothyroxine so you’re taking this medication probably because you have hypothyroidism which just means that your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone which is pretty critical in the maintenance of your body so
Levothyroxine works as a thyroid supplement to sort of increase your body’s supply of thyroid hormone and it may take about six to eight weeks of taking this medication on a regular basis for you to see symptomatic improvement so to take this medication you want to take it on an empty stomach um 30 minutes before eating or four hours after eating you want to
Take it with a full glass of water and you want to take it at about the same time every day it’ll work better if you take it that way and you want to avoid antacids and iron supplements within four hours of a dose so none four hours before and then four hours after that’ll just sort of decrease the effectiveness of the levothyroxine and you want to avoid abrupt
Discontinuation this can just sort of confuse your body and cause a lot of problems and one really cool thing about levothyroxine is no matter where you get it from or who makes it um each of the specific strengths are going to be the same color so no matter where you go or who you get it from your 50 microgram strength levothyroxine is going to be white and so
On and so forth if you do miss a dose go ahead and take that ms dose as soon as you do remember but if it is closer to the time of your next dose than it is to the time of the mist dose then go ahead and skip that mist dose and just resume your regular schedule at the time of your next dose but don’t take any double or extra doses so there are some side effects
That this medication could cause one really common side effect is diarrhea but if you do notice any of these rare but pretty serious side effects let your doctor know as soon as possible and that would be like an irregular heart rate or an elevated heart rate or any symptoms of hyperthyroidism hyperthyroidism would be when your body creates too much thyroid
Hormone and you may experience those symptoms if your dose of levothyroxine is too high and those symptoms could be anything like mood swings or anxiety irritability nervousness or hyperactivity before taking this medication you do need to let them know if you’re pregnant trying to get pregnant or if you’re breastfeeding and this is just because your dose might
Need to be adjusted during pregnancy um if you have a history of previous or any current heart issues such as heart attack or heart disease if you have a history of adrenal insufficiency or if you have diabetes and to store this medication you want to store it at room temperature and you want to protect it from heat light and moisture and of course keep out of the reach of children
Transcribed from video
Levothyroxine Patient Counseling By Drug Information SpecialistliveBroadcastDetails{isLiveNowfalsestartTimestamp2021-07-09T160012+0000endTimestamp2021-07-09T160541+0000}
