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Originally Posted by koalove  wow thanks for the replies. its so hard to think theres actually something wrong with me when i hear everyones symptoms and i do t have them~ weakness, dry sking, cold aversion, slow hb. i have the synthroid here and i keep looking at the bottle and i just cant bring myself to take it.
is hypothyroid linked to low breastmilk production? i have never sucessfully bf my babes and have been told i have igt. so i make very little milk but i make it for a long time....for example, i had breastmilk for 3 years after ds1 was born and i never breastfed him even once. my hormone levels are all normal. one thing i cant find the answer to anywhere is about the tsh number. i hear all of you saying 14 is high, and you feel terrible above 4 or 5, but what is the scale? i know what normal is, but i see people with numbers in the 200-500 range, so 14 doesnt seem that high. is it just a very very mild case? or is 14 a severe case and 200 is off the charts crazy dangerous high? my brain operated well on numbers and charts so i feel like i have to get a point of reference for where i am on the scale. thanks for the support!
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Yes, low thyroid can cause milk supple issues. In some women it doesn't, but in many it does. I have exactly what you describe, except that post-partum and in natural remission from hashi's (hashimoto's is where the immune system mistakes the thyroid gland as an invader and attacks it, which means it cannot make enough thyroxine, your brain sees there's not enough thyroxine and makes more TSH to tell your thyroid to work harder and your immune system redoubles its attack - the goiter is caused by the thyroid growing in an attempt to have enough good tissue to make the thyroxine the TSH level is demanding - when you're pregnant your immune system is suppressed, which often leads to a lull in thyroid attack and better function, something which ends somewhat soon post partum) i had good milk supply for about 4 months. Then it began to drop as my TSH climbed. By 7months PP i was able to make about 2oz, once a day (at 5am, it was the last feed i dropped for a bottle of formula). I stopped nursing my DD at 7months and i had a few drops of milk whenever i tried hand expression until i was 10weeks pregnant with this babe, over 3 years later. My research seems to suggest that if i can have my bloods monitored and my levels controlled through the return of my normal (i.e. defective) immune response i should be able to BF for the full 24 months i desire this time. I will be building a good stock of EBM to tide us over through any issues and i have a LOT of supportive careproviders in the wings ready to help me.
The impression i get from my doctors is that the TSH level in NUMBERS is not as notable as the symptoms the patient has. Some people are very sick indeed with a TSH of 7, others can exist for decades (albeit usually pretty miserably) with a TSH of >20. It is possible to have a myxedemic crisis and slip into a coma with a normal TSH level, because TSH is made in RESPONSE to a lack of T4 and T3, and it's not an immediate response by any means. It can take as long as a month for a change in thyroxine dose to "show" in the TSH level. For this reason TSH is very useful for diagnosing a hypothyroid state, but not for prescribing the severity of it.
I totally understand your reluctance to take the meds. When i was dx i was literally the ONLY member of my family not on any kind of medication for some thing, and i was incredibly resistant to the idea of joining them. But the difference between how i felt and how i feel now is indescribable. It was like i was wading through glue every day, and then suddenly it was gone and i could move again. Things which had previously felt like monumental challenges were suddenly so simple. The depression caused by dragging myself through everyday tasks lifted and i was able to enjoy my life again.
There is NO EVIDENCE to suggest that once you commence medication your thyroid won't recover if it was going to (it usually doesn't, but taking the medication won't PREVENT it from doing so if it WAS going to). My TSH has progressively dropped through this pregnancy as my natural thyroid function has improved. If you took the meds and later decided you wanted to stop, you COULD try that. Some people do.
I was undiagnosed from my first symptoms at 19 until i was postpartum at 26. During those years i was about 40lbs overweight despite a healthy diet and a lot of exercise (doctors simply didn't believe i ate well and exercised because, afterall, i was fat), my BBT was low enough that my temperatures didn't appear on the charts i bought from the chemist even AFTER ovulation, and i had repeated miscarriages (which may or may not be directly related). The difference now i am medicated is like night and day.
