Jump to full replacement dose

[Guest guest]

,

You wrote:

>

> I too know someone who was put straight on 200mcg of thyroxine as by the

> time they were diagnosed they were in a real bad way, and an endo told

> me once that there is no reason why a healthy person cannot be started

> off on the full replacememt dose of 150mcg,...

There have been several recent studies that showed that with high TSH,

it was actually better to jump immediately to a full replacement dose

and adjust from there. With T4, it actually takes more than 10 weeks for

the system to reach saturation, so a blood test at 6 weeks will

intercept a building concentration, long before you would become hyperT,

if the dose was off by very much.

If the TSH isn't so high, say in the single digits, then an intermediate

dose might be more appropriate as a first step, since there may be some

thyroid function left. The point is that you can calculate how smooth a

landing is approaching from the half life and blood tests. The only

catch is that the biological half life can change a bit depending on

thyroid status.

The guidelines for estimating the full dose are on the Synthroid web

site. The appropriate dose per kg of body mass also varies with sex and age.

Chuck