Swollen Neck, Lightheaded, Headache, Heavy Limbs, Taken Levoxyl Irregularly, Have Hashimoto's Disease

Posted on Wed, 7 Sep 2011

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 7 Sep 2011 Answered on

Sat, 2 Jun 2012 Last reviewed on

Question : I am a 23 year old female with Hashimoto’s disease…my levels used to be fairly stable, but over the past year they have fluctuated greatly. I take Levoxyl 50mg 6 days a week and 75mg one day a week. I felt great, then recently I started to feel very racy, then as the week went on I felt fatigued in the day and would get very bad headaches. Thinking I was hyper, I stopped taking the dose for two days. The first day my headache disappeared and I felt good, the second day I could feel a goiter and I felt lightheaded. I doubled up to make up for the lost days, and now my neck is very swollen and I feel lightheaded, have a headache and my limbs feel very heavy. I can’t tell if I am hyper or hypo and what I should do to get back to normal. My doctor is hard to get a hold of and I need to start feeling better ASAP because I am completely useless and anxious.

Answered by Dr. V. Kumaravel (11 hours later)

Hello,

Thanks for posting your query.

I do understand that you had been suffering from Hashimotos disease with Hypothyroidism and had been on thyroxine replacement. Your concern now seems to be related to headache and increase in size of goiter.

Hypothyroidism is state where your TSH (Thyroid stimulating hormone is high and your T3, T4 levels are normal. Hashimatos is the most common cause of hypothyroidism.

Whenever we treat hypothyroidism with thyroxine we see to that your TSH, T3 and T4 are with in normal range. Since the goiter size is increasing the possibility is that you are under replaced. I would suggest you to get your thyroid functions tested and titrate the dose as required.

If your thyroid functions are normal, then you headache and other symptoms may not be related to thyroid.

Hope this answers your query. I will be available for follow up queries if any.

Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Radhika