Hypothyroidism and Thinning Hair

Thanks everyone for your advice! She had her levels checked once about 6 weeks after we started the medication and she will have to have them checked again in a few weeks.

I'm actually thinking of switching vets because of how unknowledgable my vet seems about this. About 3 weeks after we started the medication Lilly had her first skin problems. Her skin was really flaky and she was getting scab like things all over her body. My husband took her to the vet and the vet said it had nothing to do with her thyroid or the medication and that she likely had an allergy induced staff infection. We treated her with antibiotics for 21 days and it has since cleared up. The skin on her back, near where her hair looks as though it is thinning, is still a little dry looking but not bad.

I don't know that I really trust the vet's diagnosis because she has never had any skin problems before and it seems weird that it would just so happen to coincide with her hypothyroid diagnosis and the start of medication. We told the vet that she seemed to be way too hyper, was peeing too much, drinking a lot of water and was restless. We did some re-checks on her levels and they said she was borderline high and only brought her down on the medication because of the behavior she was exhibiting based on what we told them.

I think I will see what happens when we do the next set of re-checks and I will talk to the vet about her thinning hair. She is not balding or anything, her hair just seems to be thinner over her back - like I can see more pink skin than usual. Poor girl! I think she feels better though and definitely has more energy and spunk again which we love of course.

beckybc03 said:

Lilly was diagnosed a few months ago as hypothyroid. She is now on thyroxine. We first tried 1/2 pill 2x day but she was out of control hyper and was peeing and drinking a lot so we took her down to 1/2 pill 1x day. She has reacted well and has her energy back which we are SOOOO happy about. She was totally not interested in walking at all and now we are able to take her for her usual 2 mile evening walk! She is a totally different dog now.

But, she has also had some side effects of hypothyroidism such as thinning hair and skin problems. Will the medication eventually reverse the thinning hair? Are there any supplements that we should be giving her to improve her coat? What about foods, are certain foods better for this?

I would love anyone's advice in dealing with hypothyroidism!!

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I would definitely recommend a second opinion with dr jean dodds at www.hemopet.com as that is who we work with as my Dee Dee is hypothyroid. She has thinning of hair and skin and allergy issues. She lost all the hair on her neck but on meds some came back but not all of it sadly. I know melatonin helps with hair growth as dogs with alopecia x take melatonin for this and it works but I would not do any supplementing without consulting on those two things together soloxine and melatonin and you can ask jean and your vet on this.

Dee Dee did not have those side effects you are describing so that is interesting. I went to pick up meds from our vet and the girl put on the bottle to give with food and i said I do not think that is correct as thyroid meds should be given one hour before food or two hours after - and they quickly took it off the bottle and said each dog is different which I think was wrong Dr Dodds is an expert in hypothyroid and Michigan state panel is very accurate as well but i will elaborate more on that in a minute. Thyroid meds are suppose to be given twice a day as it only lasts 12 hrs in the system and dd is 6.7lbs and gets 1/3 of .1 mg of soloxine twice a day 12 hrs a part so not sure once a day is a good thing so you may want to question that further.

Ok so I just took in Lucy another yorkie after my friends death and had her blood work done and heartworm tested since she came from Georgia and since she needs a dental and vet calls and T4 is low so she suggested a thyroid panel from michigan state so I did it as i wanted to see the difference between Jean's testing and msu as heard great things about msu. The symptoms lucy had were her body temp at vet appt was 98.5 which is low as normal is 100-102 i believe and she poops in four spots always goes from one spot to the next which to me shows signs of constipation and she is overweight so three signs of hypot are constipation, low body temp and overweight none of which Dee Dee has but Lucy does so per jean a dog can have hypot with one symptom they do not need all. Results came back from msu and their endocronologist report as had to request it as was not done on initial report so paid extra for it to get vet opinion and endocronologist opinion and then i emailed it to Jean for her opinion as she has been studying hypot in dogs for years. So here is my dilemma - msu says not hypot and Jean says she is as per jean she is low by toy breed standards as msu panel is for large, mix, and toy breed but toy breeds per jean have a higher metabolic rate therefore by that standard lucy is low and based on these symptoms I see I think she might be right but for now I am taking the less is more approach and not medicating her and will test her yearly to see if this changes and keep an eye on it

Also the reason you do not give thyroid meds with food is it binds with calcium and soy and the body is not able to absorb the meds properly so always should be given without food and I have seen a few vets say it is ok to give with food and I think that is inaccurate per jean

I hope this helps as I have learned way more than I ever wanted to learn about hypothyroidism in dogs with these two yorkies.

oh and vet wanted me to give dd 1/2 .1mg twice a day as easier to split pill and jean said NO it is a 1/3 and use a cuticle clipper as that pill is really tiny and oblong and that has been working real well in case your dog is the same size as dee dee.

Dee Dee was t4free .30 and the year prior was t4free .78 so she dropped in half in a year and we did a full 6 panel on her with Jean. Vet kept saying it was her allergies and her thyroid was fine but she kept losing hair so i knew there was something wrong and when she had to have next blood draw I found out jean dodds was close to me so i drove to her to have blood work done on dee dee just to check since vet kept saying thyroid panel was not necessary yet it was and I knew there was something not right so glad I was persistent in finding out or who knows how much more it would have dropped in another year.

here is dd neck before soloxine

DEE DEE ALLERGIES :: IMG_1878.jpg picture by dwerten - Photobucket

and after taking soloxine

DEE DEE ALLERGIES :: PINKTULIPBED16.jpg picture by dwerten - Photobucket