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Posted 10/16/2016 8:03 AM (GMT -5)
I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and Lyme disease. How do you know if symptoms are from my thyroid not at an optimal level or if it is Lyme?

I am gradually increasing the NatureThyroid due to fatigue, weight gain, depression and anxiety, insomnia, and night sweats. From what I have researched, those are all symptoms of low thyroid, but also Lyme.

My doctor relies a great deal on how I feel. (Although he does test F T3 and F T4). I just don't want to over shoot the thyroid hormone.

I am currently off all sex hormones and really feel I need them, but my doctor didn't want to address too many things at once. Of course that could be the cause issues as well. (I had a complete hysterectomy about 10 years ago....wonder if I had Lyme then that caused the need for it.)

Any thoughts? Anyone else experience this? Everyday I ask my body what it is trying to tell me.

I am on Cefdinir 300 mg every 3 days and 1 3/4 grains of NatureThroid.
I am slowly tapering off Xanax because it does very little for me. I see my doctor on Oct. 27th for the next game plan.

Are there questions I should be asking him?
Posted 10/16/2016 9:30 AM (GMT -5)
Is your doc treating you for Babesia? the night sweats could be indicating that. A friend of mine is doing something similar to you, taking Armour and an adrenal bovibe extract for adrenal. he claims the later to be making a big difference him with his low energy.

I think they are all related. you have to treat the lyme, but your body needs to have some strength and function properly to fight so treating the system deficiencies helps your body function better.

I plan to ask my doc for Armour on my next visit.

Did the doc dx you with Babesia (night sweats)?
Posted 10/16/2016 9:36 AM (GMT -5)
Hi Sissy -

I know this is pretty frustrating... You're trying to learn so much, you feel horrible, and a lot of times the MD's conversations are confusing and their approach doesn't alway make sense.

I think your MD is giving you good advice, though. Thyroid tests (even the most comprehensive ones) are not entirely 100% informative. The best measure of what does/doesn't work is how you feel. Yet, this is SO complicated because of so many things that have overlapping symptoms and the treatment for lyme & co can stir up a lot of other confusing symptoms.

I also agree with you MD's approach in tackling one thing at a time. The crazy thing is, your thyroid controls MANY bodily functions that are interconnected; the lyme & co can cause an imbalance 'here', which results in an imbalance 'there'... it's a maze. The idea is to figure out what is causing what --as best you can and start building everything from there.

I have been on 1 grain of the Naturethroid for years and finally decided to try doubling it - kind of cold turkey. I've felt nothing and suspect the dose is still too low. You do want to be careful with your dose but you are still on a pretty low dose. Be sure you are taking it on an empty stomach and are chewing it - the enteric coating is not easily dissolved with stomach acids. It's also been suggested that we need a 12-hr dose, which suggests you should split up your dose. I now dose on 12 hr schedule but again, noticed no difference in increasing. So I'm also in an investigative stage.

Regarding your sx -
They are common hypothyroid symptoms but all of them also overlap with babesia (fatigue, night sweats, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain) and fatigue, anxiety, insomnia can also be due to bart or lyme or high viral load... sorry - this doesn't help but those are common symptoms.

It is awesome that you are tapering off Xanax - those types of drugs tend to suppress symptoms but the underlying cause goes unaddressed, adding confusion when you're trying to treat something as complicated as lyme & co.

Regarding your next appt -
- Have you ever listed your symptoms comprehensively? Do you keep a daily diary?
- What are you doing to detox?
- Have you ever talked w/ him about a comprehensive dx? People who contract lyme from tick bites generally are infected with other microbes (ticks are filthy, it's highly doubtful they carry only lyme).

It's tough to suggest other questions w/out understanding your history of infection, how long you went untreated, what labs you've had done, etc... so that might be helpful to provide to get more input from people.

-p
Posted 10/16/2016 10:48 AM (GMT -5)
I'm a guy......and get night sweats when ever my thyroid is low and during the thy med increase (since '97). It goes away when leveled. So there you have it, it can be from thyroid to not just babs. Confusing, yes. I use natural pig thyroid too, but diff brand.

And when I was on diflucan for candida, I got night sweats. So that was candida herx or the diflucan interfered with thyroid med making me hypo .
Posted 10/16/2016 12:23 PM (GMT -5)

caramba said...
Is your doc treating you for Babesia? the night sweats could be indicating that. A friend of mine is doing something similar to you, taking Armour and an adrenal bovibe extract for adrenal. he claims the later to be making a big difference him with his low energy.

I think they are all related. you have to treat the lyme, but your body needs to have some strength and function properly to fight so treating the system deficiencies helps your body function better.

I plan to ask my doc for Armour on my next visit.

Did the doc dx you with Babesia (night sweats)?

I have not been diagnosed with Babesia yet. I have an appointment on Oct 27th to discuss co-infections and the next steps in treatment.
Posted 10/16/2016 12:45 PM (GMT -5)

Pirouette said...
Hi Sissy -

I know this is pretty frustrating... You're trying to learn so much, you feel horrible, and a lot of times the MD's conversations are confusing and their approach doesn't alway make sense.

I think your MD is giving you good advice, though. Thyroid tests (even the most comprehensive ones) are not entirely 100% informative. The best measure of what does/doesn't work is how you feel. Yet, this is SO complicated because of so many things that have overlapping symptoms and the treatment for lyme & co can stir up a lot of other confusing symptoms.

I also agree with you MD's approach in tackling one thing at a time. The crazy thing is, your thyroid controls MANY bodily functions that are interconnected; the lyme & co can cause an imbalance 'here', which results in an imbalance 'there'... it's a maze. The idea is to figure out what is causing what --as best you can and start building everything from there.

I have been on 1 grain of the Naturethroid for years and finally decided to try doubling it - kind of cold turkey. I've felt nothing and suspect the dose is still too low. You do want to be careful with your dose but you are still on a pretty low dose. Be sure you are taking it on an empty stomach and are chewing it - the enteric coating is not easily dissolved with stomach acids. It's also been suggested that we need a 12-hr dose, which suggests you should split up your dose. I now dose on 12 hr schedule but again, noticed no difference in increasing. So I'm also in an investigative stage.

Regarding your sx -
They are common hypothyroid symptoms but all of them also overlap with babesia (fatigue, night sweats, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain) and fatigue, anxiety, insomnia can also be due to bart or lyme or high viral load... sorry - this doesn't help but those are common symptoms.

It is awesome that you are tapering off Xanax - those types of drugs tend to suppress symptoms but the underlying cause goes unaddressed, adding confusion when you're trying to treat something as complicated as lyme & co.

Regarding your next appt -
- Have you ever listed your symptoms comprehensively? Do you keep a daily diary?
- What are you doing to detox?
- Have you ever talked w/ him about a comprehensive dx? People who contract lyme from tick bites generally are infected with other microbes (ticks are filthy, it's highly doubtful they carry only lyme).

It's tough to suggest other questions w/out understanding your history of infection, how long you went untreated, what labs you've had done, etc... so that might be helpful to provide to get more input from people.

-p

Thanks!

My doctor has my huge list of symptoms that probably started 20+ years ago and the huge list of doctors, specialists, test, etc I have been through. I also felt like a hypochondriac. From my reading, that seems to be a common theme for those of us at the chronic stage.

I have been told over the years I had fibromyalgia, benign irregular heartbeat, cough endured asthma, anxiety/depression, carpal tunnel syndrome (had surgery and still have issues), and plantar fasciitis, hypothyroidism, and IBS. I had horrible periods that resulted in a hysterectomy. I probably missed some things, but you get the idea.

Thankfully I found a functional medicine doctor who is trying to piecec it all together.

For detox I am taking Epsom salt baths regularly, drinking boatloads of water, taking Milk Thistle and Curcumin.

I don't keep much of a daily diary other than what supplements and medications I took that day.

I am taking Transfer Factor Lymplus twice a day. It needs to be on an empty stomach. I am not sure how to take the NatureThroid twice a day on an empty stomach without having interfence with other supplements.

I have been swallowing the NatureThroid whole.

As probably everyone else on this site experiences....getting well becomes our life. We have to constantly think about what to eat and when, how much water we are drinking, when to take our medication, when to take our supplements. On top of it, I have the Xanax taper, so I am constantly thinking about when to taper again and weighing out pills for the following week.
Posted 10/16/2016 12:47 PM (GMT -5)
I have night sweats because of hot flushes....tricky when you have lyme to figure everything correctly. Lyme is like the chicken and the egg.....ya know.
Posted 10/16/2016 12:48 PM (GMT -5)

astroman said...
I'm a guy......and get night sweats when ever my thyroid is low and during the thy med increase (since '97). It goes away when leveled. So there you have it, it can be from thyroid to not just babs. Confusing, yes. I use natural pig thyroid too, but diff brand.

And when I was on diflucan for candida, I got night sweats. So that was candida herx or the diflucan interfered with thyroid med making me hypo .

Thanks! Did your labs for your thyroid look "normal" and you went by symptoms in knowing how much you need?
Posted 10/16/2016 2:44 PM (GMT -5)
I know what my labs should look like when my thyroid is as optimal as I can get it on a combined t3/t4 med.

So get my thy labs done 3 times a year or when I feel I'm hypo. If I feel hypo, I call and ask for blood draw appt. After 18 years of this, I'm always right LOL.

I have a "deal" with my thyroid Dr. He understands I'm one of the unusual ones who fully understands this by labs and "feel".

I make the suggestions, and kind of bend his arm to comply. At least he will, others failed me on the "TSH test only / T4 med for all" is gold -total rubbish.

Hes getting close to retirement, so I will have to brain wash/educate another Dr on thyroid treatment some time.

Note : what I know is normal, and what Drs think is normal are different. They like to keep us hypo with TSH 3-5 and the T3/T4 in the bottom to mid range. But on desiccated T3 will always be higher than what Dr like to see vs the T4 level. The pig thyroid ratio is just different that way.

Post Edited (astroman) : 10/16/2016 1:47:05 PM (GMT-6)

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