I have Hashimoto's, and I lost way more slowly than most MFPers. So please be patient, and keep up the great work!

Do any of you feel that your dosage is too low? That you're still hypo?

I ask because I was recently diagnosed with Hashi's and after very similar frustration (3 months of daily caloric deficit of over 700 and only lost 2.2 lbs whereas a "normal" person would have lost 15-18 lbs), got the diagnosis and medication. After I dosed up o the meds, the weight started coming off like a "normal" person for 4-6 weeks (I lost 8 lbs and this would have taken me 6-9 months previously). But, after that, it's totally stopped. And, I'm wondering if this is a normal plateau for someone with Hashi's (or other thyroid issues) or just a fluid/woosh thing?

Do any of you feel that your dosage is too low? That you're still hypo?

I ask because I was recently diagnosed with Hashi's and after very similar frustration (3 months of daily caloric deficit of over 700 and only lost 2.2 lbs whereas a "normal" person would have lost 15-18 lbs), got the diagnosis and medication. After I dosed up o the meds, the weight started coming off like a "normal" person for 4-6 weeks (I lost 8 lbs and this would have taken me 6-9 months previously). But, after that, it's totally stopped. And, I'm wondering if this is a normal plateau for someone with Hashi's (or other thyroid issues) or just a fluid/woosh thing?

Yes, absolutely. For me, it's gradual, so I always think I'm going crazy.

The weight loss slows, despite keeping a deficit and not changing behavior. At the same time, my other symptoms creep back in: tiredness, weird sleep patterns at night, freezing hands and feet, ringing in my ears, etc. After a couple of months, it finally dawns on me that my dose is probably off. By the time I'm officially tested, I've always been hypo again.

What's aggravating is my doctors only seem to look at one symptom, weight loss, and disbelieve me because I will have lost a bit of weight at the beginning of a dose increase.

"Oh you've lost 4 pounds since I saw you 6 months ago, we might need to lower your dose!"

Me: "What are the lab results? Because I haven't lost anything in 3 months despite a good deficit, plus I feel lousy in all these specific ways and my feet are so cold and purple I could play a dead body on TV."

"Oh. Hmm. Yeah, you are in the normal range, but creeping up toward the top for TSH and your T3 is at the bottom, so I guess we could increase your dose just a bit.... Even though you lost weight and most people should have their dose lowered."

Every time.

It's basically an absurdist comedy, with real-life consequences on my health.

Junebuggzy-- last time it was checked, my TSH was normal -- it was 1.28, but I was still having horrible hypo symptoms. In the past, it's been all over the map. My doc said that with Hashi's, TSH was pretty much useless because when you have the antibodies, it's impossible to know how much of the T3 and T4 is actually being effective -- it could be 20% effective or 80% effective. So, you could have "normal" numbers or even high numbers, but a lot of it is bound up with antibodies (=ineffective), so you effectively are still hypo. So, he tends to put more weight on symptoms than pure numbers. So long as they don't go too high and TSH is still detectable (which means you're not being overmedicated as you're still getting a reaction), he focuses more on symptoms and considers what is the "optimal" range for a patient rather than what are "within range" for the lab tests and standards.