I have followed your journey with interest as have experienced psychosis myself.
Sorry I can't advise on meds as am still on Levothyroxine but just wanted you to know I am really pleased and happy for you.
I hope it all goes a little easier for you now,
flower007
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Hi flower007,
I'm so sorry that you've experienced psychosis too. It's just the most awful thing isn't it. I was supposed to raise my levo to 87.5mcgs from 75mcgs and found my myself terrified at the thought of a recurrence of psychotic symptoms.
My Endo was truly sympathetic. He believes that raising the levo will eventually become much easier as the ratio of dose increases lessens. I am too battered and bruised by all this now. I need a break and so he very sensibly said hold the T4 and let's add some T3. Praise be!!
Something clearly shuts down in the brain when I raise dosages whether it's pituitary, hypothalamus, pineal , serotonin .....who knows?? all I know is that it has been a tremendous up hill battle to get this far.
One interesting thing is that the psychosis also happened with NDT.
My body is hugely sensitive. And slowly is the only way for me but I am hoping that the addition of T3 will allow me to start living my life again. I would have been happy to stick to T4 but my dose increases are so small it will take another year to even function.
I hope you feel some improvement soon. Thinking of you.x
• in reply to
I had a psychotic episode after taking glandulars. I am not doing well on just Levothyroxine but am too scared too add anything else now.
My endo is lovely and works with my nutritionist who has Hashimotos herself. They are doing loads of tests to try and determine why T4 isn't working and why the glandulars had such a detrimental effect.
Joesmum, 10mcg T3 is equivalent to 30mcg T4, so you have had a dose increase. I found the addition of T3 calmed adverse effects I had on Levothyroxine only, I hope it does the same for you.
Adding T3 can actually cause FT4 to drop a bit. Taking oral T3 means there is less need for higher levels of T4 to convert to T3, plus oral T3 can stimulate better conversion of T4 to T3. The 'ideal' top 75% of FT4 range is for people on Levothyroxine only.
T3 doesn't have an immediate effect. You may *feel* a dose more than you would T4, heart rate and pulse may rise an hour after ingestion but should drop back within another hour or so. It takes 24/48 hours for T3 to enter the cells from the blood to start working and up to 6 weeks to get the full impact. Blood test should be 6-8 weeks after starting T3. I found that FT3 responded less quickly than TSH and FT4 to dose adjustments and symptoms lagged behind good FT3 levels by around 7 weeks.
Joesmum, I feel there's a bit of security in having T4 in my system to tide me over should I be unable to take T3 for a couple of days.
Your next blood test will show whether your combined dose of 75mcg T4 + 10mcg T3 is optimal or insufficient. If not optimal, either T4 or T3 will be titrated until you are optimally dosed. Your blood test doesn't care which thyroid replacement you are taking, it just shows the levels.
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