When does too much thyroid medicine kick in?

I’m having a dilemma discerning between medication and LymeCo flare ups. I started NP thyroid last month. Started at 15 mg. In a few days my fat neck feeling went away and my hair wasn’t falling out nearly as much. I also held off my period for 28 days whereas it had been coming 2 or 3 weeks early before.

A week after, I started getting jittery and panicky, but only at night. It happens weekly only for 2 or 3 nights. I have heart palpitations but not particularly fast HR. Air hunger, panic, hot/cold spells, insomnia (but no night sweats). Classic Babs flare. I also had recently ramped up my Mepron and Artemisinin.

I thought it was Babs, my doc suggested it could also be too much thyroid. How can I be sure it’s not too much thyroid? The symptoms of hyperthyroid and LymeCo and abx side effects are all exactly the same.

I cut down to 1/2 a thyroid pill in a desperate attempt to get rid of the panic and get some sleep, and not have to resort to Xanax. Since then, I skipped my period and my hair is clogging up the drain again. Now I’ve got a lump in my throat. It seems super obvious to me the panic was Babs and not hyperthyroid so I’m about to start the full 15 mg again.

I’m just panicking because all my symptoms are piling up, new junk is happening, and after a pretty awesome couple of weeks I’ve regressed into a panicked fearful teary mess.

So can someone verify how a thyroid “overdose” would feel -wouldn’t I feel jittery all the time and not just a few days a week? Would it have taken a week of thyroid pills to suddenly overshoot?

PS I was negative for Hashimoto’s so I shouldn’t be autoimmuning (new word) the desiccated thyroid.

astroman said...


Its not uncommon when starting any additional T3 to feel hyper untill the body adjusts. You are on a very small (smallest) dose at 15mg, so I am very surprised that you feel so hyper. As reference, I'm on a med-high dose of 150mg a day. Your experience is sometimes a sign that adrenals are off, or low feritan (per stop the thyroid madness site). ***But that would be every day-as you were thinking.** I've been there, dont that many times.

Adrenals can react differently a little day to day.. They overreact directly to stress, like RIGHT NOW. Even if your calm, but have a lot to do in one day will "trip out" fatigued adrenals.

As far as a Babs flare- I dont know.

Yeah, it didn’t sound like a thyroid reaction to me- I wasn’t hyper or had a racing heart at all. It was just night time anxiety, palps, air hunger, insomnia, and a few nights. I wasn’t hyper at all during the day.

I was working on my adrenals since before Lyme, and am taking adaptogens so they shouldn’t be too messed up. Just my TSH kept climbing higher and higher since Lyme, and the natural supplements stopped helping.

I’m going to go back to 15mg in the morning. I want my hair back.

Thanks for the feedback

I had a similar issue. I started feeling pulsing in my neck, like my thyroid. Night sweats, extra fatigue, migraine, my period was 20 days late, cold feet, jittery, heart pounding. I went down to half a grain on my Nature Throid and it seemed to help. We'll see how it goes.

I started the NP thyroid at 1/2 for a few days then went on a full 15 mg. 3 weeks into my 15 mg, I got a blood test. Just got the results back- TSH went from 5.2 down to 2.5 . Which is where it should be.

I am now 2 days back on the full pill and not any more jittery or anything- in fact yesterday I felt pretty darn good. Slept better last night, too.

I totally blame Babs for the heart palps and anxiety.