Hi everyone, I'm new here and this is my first post......
I started taking NDT about four months ago as I never really got on with Levo, I suffered brain fog, hair loss, weight gain, all the usual joys of being Hypo. I now wish I had never started it! I'm up a stone in weight, have a bloated belly, bloated face, water retention, aches and pains everywhere. I know some people get on with NDT's but for me it's not the answer I was hoping for. My TSH is fine .07 ( I need a low TSH to function) T3 is 4.7 which is fine, but my T4 has plummeted to 8.6! And this is why I have all these problems. I personally need quite a high T4 to feel good ( around 18) and by taking the NDT's I can't get the T4 higher than 8.6, reason being that if I up my medication I get heart palps because of the T3 so I'm stuck! I even tried supplementing with a small amount of levo ( 25mcg) but I think thats had an adverse effect on me by converting my T4 to RT3 and not T3.....So now i'm going back to levo, with the possibility of a Cytomel supplement. To be honest, I wish I'd never started taking NDT it has been nothing but negative for me. If anyone else has had a similar experience to mine, I would love to hear from you.
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lozzypops47
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FT4 usually drops when taking NDT or adding T3 to Levothyroxine. Higher levels of T4 for conversion aren't required when you are taking T3 direct.
Some people have to try 2 or 3 brands of NDT before they find the brand which suits but some people don't do well on any NDT and revert to Levothyroxine.
I did try Armour first which was just horrible, I thought I give NDT's another go but I really don't think it's for me. I may add some Cytomel depending on what my T3 levels are after a few months.....It's just a waiting game now.
Did you check your vitamin d, B12, folate and ferritin first. They need to be at good (not just average) levels.
Like you I found NDT no good when I tried it a few years ago, but i strongly suspect all my vitamins & minerals were way off. Also I wasn't gluten free, had very high antibodies, so T3 fuelled that even more.
If you are in uk get your thyroid and vitamins checked - private tests if GP won't
I had a very similar experience about 9-10 years ago. I transitioned from levo, which I'd been taking for 20+ years, after a delayed diagnosis, on to Armour. I did this under supervision, with a 2 week break between levo and NDT. It didn't work, and I was advised to drop any form of T4 and start T3 alone, building up very slowly.
I have usually suffered with palpitations with each increase in T3 dosage, so the whole process has taken years. I'm still not fully replaced because I appear to have partial tissue insensitivity to T3, so I need an enormous dose. My fundamental difficulty is that I was probably born with hypothyroidism, because there were obvious signs in babyhood which were not recognised. My having started life with inadequate thyroid function (later with Hashimoto's), and no diagnosis until age 22, may partly account for my heart's over-reaction to dose increases. The reasons for my problems may be different to yours though.
Edit: I should have said at the top that I appear to be a very poor converter of T4 to T3.
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Nature throid v thiroyd
nature throid ineffective 
T3 made me worse
