Pro's and con's of thyroid meds

[mamaw/two]

Hi, I'm 8 monthes postpartum with my 4th child. I have always had problems with gaining weight after having a baby, so this last time I started working out at 4 weeks pp thinking I would not gain. Well, by the time he was 4 monthes old I was up 20lbs. This combined with feeling exhausted, continuing to spot and bleed, dry skin, and feeling of tightness around my neck made me suspect my thyroid. I went to the dr and was diagnosed with hypothyroidism (TSH of 3.4 and t4 of 0.81). They wanted to give me med, but I decided to try to fix it with diet and exercice. I have been taking lots of b-complex, adrenal support, thyroid support, d-3, iodine, omega 3's, and a good multi. I have not continued to gain weight, but also haven't lost any, I'm feeling less tired, but am still continuing to spot. I'm starting to wonder if I should just take the meds. Any advice?

[tanyalynn]

For me, a few other minerals were really important, I'm thinking more zinc and selenium than you're getting from your multi. You may want to peek at the dosages on ithyroid.com, not that you necessarily need all of that, but esp for the zinc and selenium, you may not be getting enough.

If you feel bad and really need to feel better and more functional soon, I don't think there's a big downside to meds. Some folks don't feel better, or not a lot better, on Synthroid, but there are things to try to help with that, but you're not a lot worse off than now. But if you want to work on a nutritional approach, it seems like you've got a good chunk, but I found those two minerals, at fairly high levels, to be a key part.

One other thing, in terms of diet, a lot of people seem to have food intolerances, gluten and dairy are biggies, and if you think something like that is possible, removing the offending foods can take quite a bit of stress off your body.

One more thing to consider would be acupuncture, it could help the nutritional support work better, help jumpstart things.