One thing that’s frustrated me for a long time is not knowing what caused my hypothyroidism. Different ideas presented themselves over the years, but it was hard to be convinced that they were the true causes, especially when making changes related to them didn’t make a difference. I believe I may have discovered the cause finally, Bactrim DS, the antibiotic I took for about a decade for my acne.
In December 2021, my TSH was 0.872. In March 2022, it had jumped to 2.42. That seemed like an unusually large shift for me, and at the time, I thought the stress from VRT might have caused it. I stopped doing the VRT exercises and felt better. However, at the end of June, I had thyroid blood work run again, and my TSH was 2.56. Stopping the VRT didn’t make a difference. Thinking about what could have possibly caused the shift led me to wondering once again what actually caused the hypothyroidism in the first place.
I was sitting in front of my computer one day when an idea hit me. I’d considered my long-term antibiotic use as a cause of my other health issues, but I don’t recall it ever being something I’d considered as a cause of my hypothyroidism. When I started searching, just looking for “antibiotics” and “hypothyroidism”, I didn’t find much. I found out about some specific antibiotics causing thyroid problems, but they were ones I don’t recall ever using, at least not for any significant length of time, and the problems they caused were not any that I thought I had. I then decided to search using the specific name of the drug I took and started seeing some interesting results, like this one. The page stated that “Bactrim can precipitate…hypothyroidism.” Web MD had a page that stated the drug could cause “A Condition With Low Thyroid Hormone Levels”. I wondered if I had finally, after all of these years, discovered the cause of my hypothyroidism. I started taking Bactrim probably in 1999 or 2000, and I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2004 or 2005. I took Bactrim until 2010.
I decided to ask my endocrinologist via the patient portal and received this response about a week later.
“Hi Sarah, Interesting. It is possible that Bactrim DS contributed to your hypothyroidism but hard to know for sure. The sulfonamide portion of the drug has been shown to cause hypothyroidism when given in high doses for prolonged periods. The good news is that your hypothyroidism is treated and managed well.
Thanks for sharing your insights.”
The information online along with my endocrinologist’s opinion make me believe there’s a strong possibility that my long-term use of Bactrim DS caused my hypothyroidism. Unfortunately, I’ll never know for sure, but it’s much better than not really having any idea at all. I’m thankful to have found this information and to have a much better idea of how my hypothyroidism may have happened.
If you like this post, please consider subscribing by e-mail and/or grabbing the RSS feed. Feel free to comment on this post or use my contact form to send me a message. Also, please consider sharing this post to your favorite social media sites. Thanks!
RSS - Posts
