thyroid problem

I would be willing to bet a lot of folks on here have thyroid problems. I myself have had some serious thyroid issues so I am not sure what you think might be a problem for you specifically. If you think you have a thyroid issue but are not sure I would encourage you to see your doctor right away and not wait. I ended up having such serious issues that I needed surgery and it has significantly affected my weight and overall health. If you can be more specific as to what support you want, I am happy to tell you what I know.

Hi there

There are some supplements that claim to help with thyroid function, but I would be incredibly careful with this. If your doctor does the blood tests and finds that your thyroid function is fine and you're just looking to maintain normal thyroid health, your doc might look to see if you're getting enough iodine in your diet (most of us get enough from iodised salt, seafood and seaweed). The problem is that you can't play around with iodine - if you're getting too little or too much, it can really mess with your thyroid function, so you *have* to get your doctor's advice on this. (You might remember some years ago that folks who took a seaweed supplement ended up giving themselves thyroid problems!)

If your thyroid isn't functioning properly (underactive or overactive), no dietary change is going to make a real difference - only medication will address that. It's a case of getting the blood tests done, then finding the right level of medication to get you back in the normal range. Your doc will do blood work each time (for me, that's usually about six weeks after the medication dose has changed) to see where you're at.

That said, while I can't speak for everyone with thyroid problems, once you've got hormone levels under control there's no reason why you can't lose weight, if you stick to a healthy eating plan and do some exercise. I've found MFP hugely helpful.

Good luck!

I have been hypothyroid (underactive) since I was 18. I am 43 now. I take one pill a day, levoxyl. You need to have this monitored through your doc. Blood tests will be done to determine your TSH levels. I get mine checked once a year now, but have been on the same dose for the last 20 years.

Well I heard someone talk about how it controls your metabolism. So i looked it up and did some research on it, I have so thing that would point to a (don't know the word) low working tyroid. For so long I've always felt tired( I could sleep all night and still wake up to want to sleep another 4 hours), out of the blues I get the shakes, light headed, loss of hair, ( wash my hair and every time I would get a hand and a half of hair), always over weight, hardly ever loss any weight, a normal body temp for me 97.3, recurrent sinus infections, always bad headachs, forgetful, ect...
I've had these signs for awhile,I just never thought to put them together.

So this sounds a lot like what I have - Graves' disease. The weird thing about Graves' is that it is actually an overactive thyroid but the symptoms are a lot like underactive in my opinion. I actually had the low body temp too and never realized that could be related. That is so interesting - perhaps I had this disease longer than I thought. I went untreated for about 4 years until finally I had enough symptoms that I went to the doc with irregular menstrual cycles. She thought it was nothing but did a thyroid test anyway. Guess she was wrong because it was pretty serious when they found it with me. I also have not found any supplements that have been shown to be helpful. I have been able to lose some weight once my hormone levels got figured out. I was not able to lose any weight on Tapozole with was a med that prevented my thyroid from working. Once I went off that - and had my thyroid taken out completely - I was able to lose some weight (I think about 5 lbs). Now I am back to struggling a little with being too hungry to keep within my calories. I don't know that this has helped you at all, but hey - I tried.