A month ago I posted regarding my daughter who is self medicating with T3.
She was taking 100mcg. but when she had her blood test her T3 was over range so reduced the dose. She then started getting hot sweats and panicked thinking she was still over dosed so she kept reducing her dose.
Someone told me the sweats could be hypoglycemia.
All her old symptoms returned so she has been increasing again but has now got up to
75mcg and is not feeling any better. When on this dose previously she was feeling much better. She is taking all the usual supplements and has been on them for many months.
Can anyone offer any idea why the T3 is not having the same effect as it had before.
When she reduced her T3 down to 25mcg. and had her blood tests her T3 level was
2.6 range 3.1 - 6.8
Now obviously this is under range, so the question is, if she had never taken any T3 replacement would her T3 level have been even lower or did it go really low because she had been on a high dose of 100mcg. so reducing the dose drastically made the T3 drop too much.
Her TSH is 0.39 range 0.27 - 4.2 T4 is 1.7 range 12 - 22
Hope I have made myself understood.
Any advice please.
Thank you browny
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lucylocks
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But her T4 is extremely low, so what does her T3 have to work on? I'm seeing an endocrinologist tomorrow who wrote to me beforehand to set out her approach before I got there: she won't consider NDT but will consider adding T3 to the bog standard T4 treatment but only in a tiny ratio, something like 14/1 T4/T3, to reflect the natural ratio. She did also say that she would never prescribe T3 only treatment. So, while I am no expert, and it's debatable that every endo is, I would suggest your daughter does something to address the very low T4.
Plenty of us lead very good lives on T3 only, Dandy. Me included. There is absolutely no point in taking T4 if you cannot convert it - and plenty of people, especially Hashi's people, just cannot convert it. So, it sloshes around in the blood Stream causing mischief. I think your endo's approach is very blinkered.
Thanks, Greygoose. This endo is the first I will have seen after 9 years of not doing well at all on T4, so it's useful to know that there are options that this endo won't even consider, should her treatment not be the answer. I also have Hashimoto's.
Thing is, nobody can know what's going to work before they try it. Endos sometimes pretend they can, but they can't. So, yes, it is good to know there are options. My first endo looked me straight in the eye and said no, there is no other option - Levo is all there is! Talk about discouraging! lol
Thanks, Browny, for educating me on this point. I did know that some people do take just T3 but didn't know that the T4 is then very low as a result. I hope your daughter gets sorted soon.
Browny, can you give us some idea of the time-scale here? By how much did she originally reduce? Upping and downing the dose rapidly is counter-productive. The body needs time to settle on a dose. And I Don't think you can draw any conclusions of any sort until the body has settled. How long has she been on 75? We mustn't confuse thyroid hormone with aspirin. It doesn't work instantly.
When she reduced she stayed on each dose for a few weeks before reducing again.
Now she has started to increase she went from 25mcg to 50mcg and has been on that dose for three weeks then increased to 75mcg a week ago.
She originally used the CMT3 by Paul Robinson as her adrenals were very low so used his method which helps them.
Do you happen to know with her T3 been so low on 25mcg. does this mean it would be even lower without any T3 ?
Of course she is now wishing she had never reduced from the 100mcg in the first place but as I say we panicked because of the over range T3 level and the hot sweats.
Do you mean without any thyroid hormone at all? Or without but T3 but with T4? Actually, I would say yes to both. There must have been a reason she started T3 in the first place - presumably because she needed it. I confess, I'm slightly confused by your question.
But the only solution I can see is to increase her T3 again - by a small amount - and wait a few weeks, and increase again if needed. But it must be by small amounts so as not to stress her body. I think increasing by 25 each time may be too much.
Sorry for confusion, she was originally diagnosed by Dr. Skinner who put her on levo. she worked up to 150mcg. and she did not feel any benefit at all, her T3 level on this dose was 5.1 top of range 6.8.
After Dr. Skinner sadly passed away she started to self treat with NDT (Thyroid-S) which again did not help.
As her saliva adrenal results showed shockingly low 1st and 2nd samples she started CMT3 by Paul Robinson.
On hindsight she should have tested her T3 level before starting on T3 so we would have had a starting point.
So I suppose what I am asking is, before starting on any form of thyroid meds. do you think her T3 level would have been well below range because it was below range whilst on 25mcg. T3
Yes, I do. That's what hypothyroidism is : low T3. It's little to do with the TSH because you can be hypo with a normal TSH if your FT3 is low.
It doesn't matter, really what her FT3 was when she started taking T3 only, what matters is what it is now. It wasn't starting on T3 that made her hypo. If you're thinking she's somehow damaged her gland by over-medicating, then no, she didn't. It doesn't work like that.
No I did not think she has damaged her gland, I was just curious to know if her T3 would have been below range before medicating to sort of confirm her symptoms were from low T3. As she did improve on it then that confirms she really does need it.
Even on 100mcg. T3 her level was 7.6 top of range 6.8 so not that much over really.
As there has been quite a lot in the media recently about Lyme disease it did get me to wonder if this was maybe her problem, hence the questions re T3.
Some people need their FT3 slightly over-range. I do, and I take 100 mcg T3 only (as far as I can tell, but as I've had to change brands several times, it's difficult to know if they're all the same strength!) If you Don't have symptoms of over-medication, then assume you're on the right dose, that's my motto.
Browny, there's a very good link on an earlier post here today about Paul Robinsons blog and links - his book is all about T3 only treatment and he says there's very little point looking at T3 fT3 levels on T3 only and it really should go by how you feel - if your daughter was feeling ok on 100mcg then she probably should have stayed there - if you haven't read his books yet I'd recommend them X
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