Tired of feeling tired all the time? Extreme tiredness, fatigue, and just feeling wiped out — these are common symptoms of an underactive thyroid gland. The best move you can make to get a bounce back in your step when you have hypothyroidism is to get your thyroid hormone levels back on track.
Hypothyroidism can also cause hypersomnia, or the irrepressible need to sleep or lapses into sleep that occur on a daily basis. Hypersomnia can occur due to an underlying medical disorder, and hypothyroidism is considered the leading cause of hypersomnia due to a disorder in the endocrine system.
The afternoon crash means your blood sugar has dropped too low for your brain and body to function normally, causing you to become drowsy, mentally foggy, tired, and unmotivated. Unstable blood sugar is notorious for making it difficult to manage an autoimmune disease such as Hashimoto's hypothyroidism.
You might feel run down, even if you're taking medication. Yet all too often, “people with hypothyroidism don't get enough sleep, or the sleep they're getting isn't good quality,” Hatipoglu says. Aim for 8 hours of sleep every night.
Thyroid conditions can affect your emotions too
The psychological symptoms of thyroid conditions sadly often go unrecognised. Fortunately, in the great majority of cases, psychological symptoms improve as the thyroid disorder is brought under control by treatment (if the thyroid is the cause of the problem).
General joint and muscle pains are common when hypothyroidism is not sufficiently treated, and your dosage of thyroid hormone needs to be increased. Joint and muscle weakness and pain, especially in the arms and legs, can be evidence that you need an increased dose of antithyroid drugs for your hyperthyroidism.
[1] A large laboratory data-based study by Ehrenkranz et al. showed that there is a significant circadian variation in the TSH levels with peak levels occurring between midnight and 8 am and nadir levels between 10 am–3 pm and 9–11pm.
Hypothyroidism is a common condition where the thyroid doesn't create and release enough thyroid hormone into your bloodstream. This makes your metabolism slow down. Also called underactive thyroid, hypothyroidism can make you feel tired, gain weight and be unable to tolerate cold temperatures.
With proper treatment, your thyroid hormone function will return to normal, thus reversing some of your “aging” symptoms over time. With untreated hypothyroidism, you will continue to experience symptoms that can mimic premature aging.
Signs and symptoms
The most common symptoms of hypothyroidism in adults are fatigue, lethargy, cold intolerance, weight gain, constipation, change in voice, and dry skin, but the clinical presentation can include a wide variety of symptoms that differ with age, sex, and time between onset and diagnosis (table 1).
You feel more tired while taking Levothyroxine because the hormones in your body have been effectively reduced. Thyroxine is produced by the thyroid and is responsible for activating metabolic processes, energy production, and many other functions in your body.
In this case, the condition can gradually become more severe and potentially cause a range of complications. Because your thyroid affects so many areas of your body, untreated hypothyroidism can cause widespread harm.
Some people with hypothyroidism also feel extremely sleepy in the daytime, to the point that it's hard to stay awake. That condition is called hypersomnia.
In individuals affected by hypothyroidism, the thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone, which makes metabolism slow down and causes feelings of low energy and excessive sleepiness.
Eye problems, known as thyroid eye disease or Graves' ophthalmopathy, affect around 1 in 4 people with an overactive thyroid caused by Graves' disease. Problems can include: eyes feeling dry and gritty. sensitivity to light.
Hypothyroidism has traditionally been associated with obesity, whereas hyperthyroidism has been linked to being underweight. However, very few studies have assessed these associations.
Myxedema crisis (also called myxedema coma), the most severe form of hypothyroidism, is rare. It occurs when thyroid hormone levels get very, very low.
While uncontrolled hypothyroidism can be debilitating, controlled hypothyroidism is a treatable condition that typically does not affect someone's ability to work or live. It generally takes far less than 12 months to get Hashimoto's thyroiditis under control.
In very rare cases, a severe underactive thyroid may lead to a life-threatening condition called myxoedema coma. This is where the thyroid hormone levels become very low, causing symptoms such as confusion, hypothermia and drowsiness. Myxoedema coma requires emergency treatment in hospital.
Hypothyroidism can affect the heart and circulatory system in several ways. Lower production of thyroid hormone slows your heart rate. Hypothyroidism also makes the arteries less elastic, and blood pressure rises in order to circulate blood around the body.