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Did you have Graves and residual myxedema from the radioactive iodine treatments or is your myxedema primary?

My endocrinologist here in Nashville much like the one I had in Miami tests usually only for TSH. The pituitary feedback hormone which if too high tells us that my thyroid supplment is low or if the TSH is low then my supplement is too high. I've yet to suffer the latter.

Plus they watch your weight and lipids and insulin etc. I don't think I've had my T3/T4/T7 tested in years. I feel ok...maybe it's because with the secondary post Graves myxedema I have that they don't worry about the T levels so much.

Oddly, Synthroid by Flint has some batch inconsitency at times and I can tell somewhat if that months supply is a bit weak or strong....like if I lose or gain weight for no apparent reason. I just live with it.

Funny....I was hyper for year before I knew when I got super thin 6'5"/180 pounds and my eyes started to bulge...BUT I felt great....lots of big energy and very very sharp and quick but needed lots of naps. Sex drive...off the charts..lol. Then I noticed my eyes and trembling hands and a bit of nervousness. I read up on my symptoms and talked to relatives and we figured that yep I had the family curse too (less in common in men) and I went to the endocrinologist. He put a piece of paper in my trembling hands, looked and my bulging eyes and gaunt figure and swore that if I didn't have Graves he's resign his license to practice..lol

Everything since after the second radio-iodine treatment has felt a but slower....you get used to being hyper and like it...I did. I was 32 or so when I first got diagnosed.

My little brother at the same age started the symptoms last year....I could see it right away and it took me about 6 months to get him to the doc. He now takes syntroid .125 after his first treatment knocked him out.

Good luck...it's a malady to be sure but they've come a long way with it.

Mine is the primary type. No clue as to why my thyroid started to fail, but Hashimoto's seems the best bet.

It is harder to get the dose right when there is an ongoing and gradual failure. I had to go to an endocrinologist when the synthetic t4 replacement, either synthroid or levoxyl, didn't seem to doing much for the symptoms. Family physicians tend to be cautious when prescribing thyroid medication, and even tho he kept gradually increasing my dosage as my tsh kept creeping up, it never seemed to catch up.

What most do not realize is that a failing thyroid affects just about every organ system in the body, and the symptoms mimic just about every illness known to man. Over the years of gradually failing thyroid, with not enough medication to keep up with it, I gained over 80 lbs, and couldn't figure out why. No diet seemed to work to control it, either.

Only getting the cytomel added stopped the constant weight gain, and then after trying all the regular diets, only Atkins seemed to work to get any of the pounds off.

One thing I learned from the endocrinologist is that the tsh has to be a lot lower than the average family physician wants it to be. The latter are happy to get it under the high end of the normal range, whereas the endo wants it just above the low end of the normal range.

Even when my tsh is optimal, I still have days when I feel sub-par, but have learned to live with it.