Underacyive thyroid advice...

[Wilkate]

Hi I'm 26 year old female from the uk! I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2014 after months of being told I was just 'tired' and had a bit of 'post natal depression'..anyway..since having my son and being diagnosed I have gained 3 stone (if not more) I have been 'stable' on levothyroxine 150mcg even though I still feel dreadful and can't lose weight 😭 I have a friend that's a personal trainer and she recommended T3. Has anyone tried this? If so how do you work out dosage etc? Thanks in advance 😬

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Wilkate To know if you need T3, you need FT4 and FT3 tested at the same time. That tells you whether or not you are converting T4 to T3 well enough, if not the next step is to get vitamins and minerals tested - Vit D, B12, Folate, Ferritin - only when these are all optimal can thyroid hormone work. If low or deficient, supplements can be suggested to optimise these nutrient levels. Once all your ducks are in a row, if you still show signs of poor conversion then adding T3 would be your next step.

[maxart in reply to SeasideSusie]

Ooh. Do you happen to know optimum levels for B12, Folate and Ferritin? Thx?

[maxart in reply to maxart]

I mean thx!!

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to maxart]

Vit D - 100-150nmol/L according to the Vit D Council

Ferritin - half way through it's range

Folate - at least half way through it's range

B12 - And an extract from the book, "Could it be B12?" by Sally M. Pacholok:

"We believe that the 'normal' serum B12 threshold needs to be raised from 200 pg/ml to at least 450 pg/ml because deficiencies begin to appear in the cerebrospinal fluid below 550".

"For brain and nervous system health and prevention of disease in older adults, serum B12 levels should be maintained near or above 1000 pg/ml."

[maxart in reply to SeasideSusie]

Brill - thank you !

[Nanaedake]

You may not be on the right dose of levothyroxine. If you post your blood tests along with the laboratory ranges then people could help. It is very difficult to get T3 on prescription in the UK at the moment. You would need referral to an Endocrinologist and even then doubtful you would be prescribed. There is an ongoing Government consultation around T3, otherwise known as liothyronine, at the moment.

It is available from overseas and people can send you a private message if they have managed to source it. My suggestion would be to make sure everything else is optimised first and weight gain suggests you may be undermedicated but without seeing blood test results I can't say. Do you know if you have been tested for autoimmune thyroid disease?

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Find out if you have ever had your thyroid antibodies tested

If result is positive (above range) then this means cause is autoimmune thyroid disease. Also called Hashimoto's

About 90% with hypothyroidism in UK the cause is autoimmune

But you need to know for sure as autoimmune often has gut symptoms, low vitamins and very often changing to gluten free diet can help heal gut and slowly lower antibodies