Hi all, I've been on thyroxine for about 20 years. Diagnosed overactive at about age 19 then progressed through a goitre and radioactive treatment to being underactive. I take 200mcg of thyroxine a day and generally feel tired, lazy, I have hair loss, heavy periods, various aches and pains etc etc. I work full time but that seems to take most of my energy and I get periods of forgetfulness and foggy thoughts which are frustrating. When diagnosed I weighed 7.5 stone, I'm at least double that now and it sucks!
Forgive the ramble, my question is - would taking Natural Desiccated Thyroid make me feel any better and how would I know how much to take?
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Randomthoughts
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Randomthoughts, Do you have recent thyroid results you can post? Generally people on high dose Levothyroxine who aren't feeling well may benefit from the addition of some T3 from Liothyronine or NDT. 1 grain NDT is roughtly equivalent to 75mcg-100mcg Levothyroxine. Because you don't know how you will react to the T3 in NDT it would be sensible to reduce Levothyroxine to 100mcg and start on 1 grain NDT and hold the dose for a couple of weeks then reduce Levothyroxine to 50mcg and increase NDT by 1/2 grain. Two weeks later cut out Levothyroxine and increase NDT to 2 grains. Hold at this dose for 2 weeks before increasing by 1/2 grain if necessary. Ideally you will have a thyroid blood test to check levels 6/8 weeks after starting NDT.
Hypothyroid patients are often vitamin deficient and low ferritin, vitamin D, B12 and folate can cause musculoskeletal pain, fatigue and low mood so ask your GP to do some blood tests. Post the results with the lab ref ranges (the figures in brackets after your results) in a new question and member will advise whether you need to supplement.
You'll need to find out why you are having heavy periods. If it's estrogen dominance or fibroids or what. Losing a lot of blood every month results in low iron levels and possibly even iron deficiency anemia. Both of these will result in fatigue, aches and pains, poor sleep, and hair loss.
Sometimes doctors will prescribe the birth control pill to be taken continuously in order to entirely stop menstruation for a year at a time to prevent unnecessary blood loss. You'll need a gynecologist to help you with this because most GPs don't feel comfortable initiating this treatment protocol.
If you continue losing so much blood every month, even iron supplements will not be able to bring your iron levels to optimal.
The other things need to be sorted out before you consider changing up your thyroid medication. Thyroid hormone increases metabolism, but if your body does not contain the wherewithall to respond to the hormone, you will not feel any better.
Hi Random, It appears your hormone is not working for you hardly at all so I would personally not be troubled if you stopped the Levo and went directly to a natural hormone, perhaps starting with one grain and gradually up to optimal which may be less than two grains. Yes, T3 is a lot more potent than T4 but there are only 9 mcg in the natural one grain, it is still primarily T4 so I don't think it would cause anything but favorable outcomes since it will work harder for you as you take it.
Many years ago I was on Synthroid and finally made the change to Armour That change was fairly rapid since no one really knew how to do it so I stopped Synthroid which I think was 75 mcgs. and went to half grain of Armour.
The reason I am not as conservative as other people is because T4 remains in your system for quite a while after you stop taking it. It has a half life of two weeks so you have a few weeks of back up as you make the switch. Some people find that just adding T3 to their Levo works so you could do what Clutter suggests.
Those are just my thoughts as it worked out for me.
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take natural desiccated thyroid hormone at night
Natural Desiccated Thyroid 
Natural Desiccated Thyroid?
