Increased Thyroid Tsh With Florinef?

[Always hoping]

Has anyone had issues with their TSH numbers drastically increasing while taking Florinef? My numbers have always been fine and have now gone up significantly enough that they want me to take thyroid medication. The only thing that I can attribute it to is that I started taking Florinef 4 months ago. Interested to hear if anyone else has had any issues.

Thanks!

[fitnesskelly]

Here's my not so scientific understanding as to why this would happen. Florinef contains Florine. Florine is a halogen, as is Iodine. The halogens compete against each other in the body, or at least they compete with and deplete iodine. I'm not sure about the other halogens, but our bodies need some iodine (the thought is that the RDA is way too low for what women need). If you are a woman, you've probably noticed that your breasts are getting sore and lumpy as well. Everything in the body uses iodine, but the thyroid and breasts are the biggest users (the thyroid being the biggest user of iodine). Fibrocystic breasts (painful, lumpy breasts) have been linked to breast cancer. My theory is that breast cancer rates might be lowered if women supplemented with more iodine...but I'm not a scientist or in the medical field. Just a strong hunch. I took florinef for a month and I had a terrible flare of breast pain, so I increased my iodine to build my stores of iodine back up.

Supplementing with iodine is very controversial, but I will say that it is very hard to get enough from our diet (unless you live in Japan). I'd say read up about it and talk to your doctor (although most doctors always ask me why I take iodine and tell me it's unnecessary, but I swear that it has improved my thyroid and keeps the breast pain away...the one doc who has never questioned me is the endocrinologist, probably because he knows the thyroid needs lots of iodine).

[Always hoping]

Thank you FitnessKellly.

I'm going to print your reply out and take it to my appointment with me next week. It sounds very possible. Like most of us, I am very sensitive to any type of medication. I only take .1 of Florinef a day at this point because when they increased it to .2 I stopped my cycle. While I would normally think that is a good thing (lol), I also felt as if I was going to explode. They lowered me back to .1 and it seemed to resolve that issue. I had seen that an irregular period could be a side effect of this medication, but couldn't find anything on the thyroid being effected. Funny that you bring up the Fiberous breast. Never had that problem until about a year ago. I think an Endocrinologist may be my next new doctor!

Thanks again!