The first step in your journey to feeling better is to talk with your doctor. It is important that you accurately describe your symptoms and provide complete detail about your other medical conditions, other medications or supplements that you take, (both prescription and non-prescription) and your diet. Many patients don’t tell their doctors about the nutritional supplements that they take, but as you’ll discover, even the most common dietary items problems for your thyroid medication can make your treatment less effective.

The following tools have been created to help you to give your doctor the information that he/she will need to determine the right hypothyroidism treatment for you:5

Patient history log

A patient history log can be helpful to your doctor in determining if you have conditions such as certain gastrointestinal (GI) diseases or if you use certain drugs that can affect thyroid medicine. Your log should include a record of your currently treated medical conditions as well as the prescription and non-prescription (OTC) medications that you take and the times that you take them.5

Food diary

In a recent survey of over 31,000 patients, only 33.4% reported telling a conventional healthcare provider about their diet and nutritional supplement use.11 Foods such as soy and fiber can affect the performance of your thyroid medicine. Nutritional supplements such as iron (for treating anemia) or calcium (for preventing bone loss) are also known to affect levothyroxine. A food diary can be effective in helping you and your doctor determine whether any of the food, supplements, or vitamins that you regularly consume can affect your thyroid medication.5

Products which can affect your thyroid medication

Product/IngredientIndication
Maalox, Mylanta, Rolaids**GERD*, gastritis
Calcium supplements Osteoporosis, hypocalcemia
Iron supplement Anemia
Chromium picolinateNutritional supplement
Tagamet, Zantac** GERD, gastritis
Prilosec, Protonix, Nexium**GERD, gastritis
SucralfateGERD
Soy derivativesNutritional and dietetic supplement
CoffeeDietary

*Gastroesophageal reflux disease
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