A successful thyroid cancer surgery does not mean that the treatment is over. After the surgery, patients still need to take medication for life to meet the thyroid hormones needed by the body for metabolism. At this time, patients have to face a lot of problems in taking medication, such as what medication to take, how much medication to take, how to take it, and so on. Let’s talk about the medication after thyroid cancer surgery. Why do I need to take medication for life? Thyroid cancer surgery will remove all or part of the thyroid gland, because the thyroid gland will not regenerate, which will inevitably lead to a lack of thyroid hormone production after surgery. To use an analogy, the human body is like a factory where an adult worker can produce 20 parts a day to meet production needs. Suddenly a 10 year old child can only produce 10 or less parts a day, and you have to give him another helper to get the job done. Therefore, post-operative patients need to take thyroxine tablets for life to maintain normal thyroid hormone levels in the body on one hand, and to suppress the body’s secretion of thyroid stimulating hormones on the other hand, so as to suppress the recurrence of thyroid cancer. How to take thyroxine tablets? There are many kinds of thyroid hormone supplementation drugs, take Levothyroxine Sodium Tablets (Euthyroxine) for example. Levothyroxine sodium tablets need to be taken early in the morning on an empty stomach, 20-30 minutes before breakfast is best. The exact dose of the medication varies from person to person and needs to be determined based on the extent of surgical resection, the patient’s weight, and the patient’s high or low serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). Patients should follow the advice of their primary care physician to take the medication. The dose of medication is not set in stone, but will be adjusted by the doctor based on the patient’s thyroid function test results. The American Thyroid Society guidelines suggest that by lowering the thyroid stimulating hormone value to less than 0.1 in patients with thyroid cancer, the recurrence rate of thyroid cancer will be reduced. Therefore, many doctors will lower the TSH value of patients by increasing the dose of medication they take, and patients are concerned about the TSH test results. But there are advantages and disadvantages, and increasing the dose of medication may also increase the incidence of drug-related hyperthyroidism. Therefore, we would like to remind you that TSH should be kept around 1.0. The pursuit of a low TSH may lead to hyperthyroidism, which will not be worth the loss. What are the side effects after taking the medication? 1. Accelerated metabolism: Patients who take levothyroxine sodium tablets just after surgery may experience an increase in meal size. This is because the supplemental thyroxine accelerates the body’s metabolism, which can also lead to a situation of weight gain or loss: eating too much and not consuming it will of course make you fat; eating more but metabolizing it faster makes you thin. 2, drug hyperthyroidism: Patients will also have some symptoms of hyperthyroidism, such as excessive sweating, hotness, mood swings, anxiety, frequent hunger, weight loss, rapid heartbeat, panic and shortness of breath, which are manifestations of drug hyperthyroidism. These symptoms need to be rechecked for thyroid function and the dosage of medication should be adjusted. 3. Others: Patients may also experience osteoporosis, liver function damage, and menstrual disorders in female patients, which are inevitable complications that require symptomatic treatment. Liver function damage can take liver-protective drugs, and osteoporosis needs to be regulated by taking calcium tablets. Thyroid hormones have an effect on ovarian function and menstrual regulation, so female patients may experience prolonged menstrual cycles and amenorrhea. Post-operative calcium supplementation may be due to the injury of “soybean” The parathyroid gland, the neighbor of thyroid gland, is most likely to be injured during thyroid cancer surgery (see the picture below). The “soybean” in the picture below). The hormone parathyroid hormone (parathyroid hormone) is secreted by the parathyroid glands and its function is to regulate calcium metabolism and maintain blood calcium balance. Insufficient secretion can cause a drop in blood calcium and tardive dyskinesia, in which patients develop numbness in their hands and feet. The parathyroid glands are sometimes hidden inside the thyroid gland and are not easily detected, so they are inevitably damaged during surgery. Even if they are in other locations, they may not be clearly identified intraoperatively, especially if the parathyroid glands are not identified when the lymph nodes in the central region are cleared, they may be easily removed or the blood flow may be affected. Sometimes, if the tumor is heavily invaded and the lymph nodes in the central region are metastatic and serious, it is not easy to preserve the parathyroid glands intact. If symptoms such as hand and face numbness occur after surgery, the parathyroid glands may have been cut out. Of course, the blood supply to the parathyroid glands may also be affected, resulting in poor blood circulation to the parathyroid glands and lowering the patient’s blood calcium, which requires calcium supplementation. The general principle of taking calcium tablets is to take three to four times a day, two tablets at a time, after meals to facilitate the absorption of calcium. If the symptoms worsen, you can take one more tablet each time, and then gradually reduce the dose of calcium supplementation after the symptoms disappear. Daily life can also be supplemented with calcium by dietary adjustments and eating more calcium-rich foods. Osteotriol can also be added. In addition to the above drugs, patients are not recommended to take too many other drugs, which are sufficient. Follow the requirements of the attending physician: take the medication on time and in the right dosage, and the disease will be well controlled.