Your Thyroid and the Pill

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2003
Your Thyroid and the Pill
4
Thu, 03-25-2004 - 10:04am
Hello! I was reading Dr. Adkins book the other night. I found an interesting fact in there stating that your thyroid can actually be affected by taking birth control pills and that can be the cause of weight gain while taking the pill. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this fact? Also, do you think you would have to be on the pill only a short time for something like that to happen or would it be over years? Can you still loose weight if you have a thyroid condition? I am not saying I have a condition like that but if I get tested out for it and find out that I have that, can you still loose weight if you have a problem like that? I was considering going back on the pill also beause I am off of it now. Thanks!
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-29-2003
Thu, 03-25-2004 - 1:49pm
I cant comment on whether bcps affect the thyroid. But as far as the thyroid is concerned, there are 2 main types of thyriod disease(though there are other). Hypothyriodism-where your thyriod is underactive. Symptoms are tiredness, weight gain and dry skin. Hyperthyriodism-where you thyriod is overactive. Symptoms are rapid heart beat, loss of weight. If you have either of the 2, there are medications you can take to control it. Hope this helps!
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-04-2003
Sun, 03-28-2004 - 7:29pm
I don't know much about this... But recently about 2 months ago i had blood work done to find out why i was so tired. There was two things my doctor was checking for, Anemia and my thyroid. When they called back with some news, the nurse asked me if i was still on BC pills (talk about a scare, i thought they were going to tell me something else lol) but she said that BC pills can add a point to the thyroid. Nothing to worry about, it doesn't even mean anything just that whatever you thyroid normally is BC will add a point. I'm not even sure how the thyroid is calculated, just what the nurse told me.

Just thought i'd add this little bit of info.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2003
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 10:33am
Hello! thanks for the info.! What does the nurse mean by a "point" though? That is interesting. Did you experiance weight gain while on the pill and if so, did you have a hard time trying to loose it?
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2002
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 2:25pm
From what I remember when I was researching a possible thyroid condition (for myself), I think I remember that synthetic estrogen can make the level of one of the thyroid hormones (T4) appear higher on a test, in some cases, it might mask a low level of T4, but that would depend really on how the test results came out.
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