Quick question re: T4 & T3 in am...

[purplejuicy]

Is it ok to drink a chicory 'coffee' around half an hour after taking my T3 & T4 dose? I know it doesn't really matter with the T3 but I vaguely remember reading that you should only drink water for an hour after T4? I've been drinking chicory for s while now first thing to help my bowels...

[greygoose]

It does matter with the T3. T3 should be treated exactly the same as T4.

I have no idea about chicory. Do you just add it to water, or what? If you add any milk to it, then the answer's no, best to leave the full hour. But, the actual chicory itself? No idea. Sorry.

[shaws Administrator]

If there is a tendency for food or coffee to affect the uptake of thyroid hormones and because everything is 'slower' with hypo, i.e. pulse, temp, digestion. (I don't know about chicory either) I'd be apt to give my hormones a chance to get the best possible start

[purplejuicy]

Ok so yet more conflicting advice I'm a member of the T3 group on STTM and no one has said I can't eat around my T3 dose!

Chicory is a gluten free caffeine alternative hawthornhealth.com/general-...

It does a a splash of coconut milk in though so I'll just have it black.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to purplejuicy]

I have yet to see any decent research into absorption of liothyronine. A large proportion of the comments are based on what is known about levothyroxine. There are differences but, because so many people have had issues with levothyroxine, a cautious approach seems understandable.

A major ingredient of WP Thyroid is inulin which is (or can be) sourced from chicory. But there might be the world of difference between highly purified inulin and roasted chicory.

[greygoose in reply to helvella]

Isn't the only difference between T4 and T3 an atom of iodine? How would removing that atom make the whole molecule of hormone act differently?

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to greygoose]

Yes - the difference between T4 and T3 is simply a single atom of iodine.

Trouble is that sometimes even seemingly small changes can have a wide range of effects on the properties of the molecules. I am far from qualified to assess the differences but things like solubility, dissociation constants and so on are at least slightly different. How these add up, I don't know but it seems feasible that they do have different interactions with foods and minerals.

PubChem details for them are available here:

pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/co...

pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/co...

[greygoose in reply to helvella]

Thank you, that's rather a lot to take in at this time of night! Not sure that I would understand it all, anyway. But, I think, to be on the safe-side, we ought to assume that we should not take T3 with food, don't you?

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to greygoose]

Wasn't expecting anyone to take it in - but if someone does happen to understand, there is quite a lot of basic substance information.

In my view, what we have to do is consider the implications of the assumptions that we could make - and what if they are wrong?

Same as levothyroxine -

Then taking with food is poor. If wrong, well, pretty much "So what?".Different to levothyroxine -

Then taking with food might be acceptable. But so too would taking away from food!

The one area where I can really see these basic thoughts fail is if the interaction with food is only to slow down absorption, and to avoid the neat liothyronine tablet causing a high local concentration of T3 in a small area of our guts.

Overall, away from food does seem to be the safest assumption in the face of little evidence.

[purplejuicy]

Another question...if I was taking 100mcg of T4 before I got RT3, I'm not at 50mcg of T4 plus 25mcg of T3 in split doses (am & 2pm) - am I still undermedicated? Or now taking too much? As this equals to 125mcg of T4 now?

Still don't feel great but can't tell if I'm hypo or taking too much. Although if I were taking too much I'd know about it quite quickly I'm guessing.