General Medicine

» Elaine Moore - Maintenance Dosage of Tapazole

Hi Dana,
The literature lists a maintenance dose of 2.5-10.0 mg daily for methimazole, but many people do fine on only 1.25 mg daily. Studies show the highest rate of permanent remission with long-term (average 4 year) low-dose ATD use. There are several studies showing this with the most well known the Yamamato study from the 1970's.
After only a few months, remission is possible, but you'd want to be sure by first lowering your dose and staying on 1.25 mg for at least 6 weeks to make sure you're secreting TSH normally. This would indicate that you're no longer producing significant amounts of TSI.
Dietary iodine has been listed as an environmental trigger of autoimmune thyroid disease for quite a few years now. Avoiding excess dietary iodine in fast/processed foods eliminates reduces this trigger. Also, thyroid hormone is made from tyrosine and iodine. Reducing the amount of iodine you ingest reduces the amount of thyroid hormone you can produce.
ATDs work primarily by blocking iodine absorption.
I have references cited with most of my thyroid articles that you can use if you need resources. Also, check PubMed for article abstracts. Best, Elaine