thyrotoxic me! diagnosed by me not some mad endo. - Thyroid UK

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thyrotoxic me! diagnosed by me not some mad endo.

23 Replies

As I have been unable to get hold of my nature thyroid I have been experimenting with alternatives and seem to have taken too much thyro gold. Unfortunaly recently some of my thyroid resistance is not affecting my heart but is affecting me else where so I have to balance a fine line between neurological symptoms that leave me unable to function if I take to little and a thumping heart that almost seems at bit over sensitive if I take a tiny bit more.My normal dosing system is to take about 3 grains of nature thyroid. One in morning, one at night and one to nibble during the day to relieve whoosy head and vertigo. I took 300mg of thyroid gold last night. I was unable to sleep and should have realised but I thought this was because I hadnt taken amitriptaline. I took another dose this morning 300mg almost by accident.I meant to just take i grain of nature thyroid but absentmindedly took some more thyroid gold. I think I have underestimated the strenght of the stuff and now have thumping heart and fast pulse. I need to reduce T3 in my body any suggestions and what would be good medical practice for someone who has taken too much or who is toxic.

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23 Replies
startagaingirl profile image
startagaingirl

Don't take any for a couple of days and then go back to normal.

Clutter profile image
Clutter

Mandyjane,

300mg ThyroGold is equivalent to 100mcg T4 + 25mcg T3 or 3 grains NDT.

in reply toClutter

Thank you clutter. I have been to see locum GP who was strangely very adament that taking thyroid hormones is dangerous and unsafe and in my case not needed. He wouldnt discuss the right s and wrongs of it and told me he depends on fact and didnt want to hear anything else but he was in some way a lovely polite man. He exaimned me very thoughly. He was eldery and so took my pulse and then listen to my heart, then took my pulse when listening to my heart and took my blood pressure. he was very careful about my dignity when I had to move my clothes for his to examine me. I liked him but he said he would not listen to my arguements about needing thyroid hormones and only dealth with facts and he aplogised for being so blunt about it and I said to him that he came across as a kind man and a good doctor and that although we didnt agree I was gratefull for his care and he said again I am sorry but I just deal with facts and I said can I just ask where you are getting these facts and he said that he depends on common practice so if most other doctors treat in a certain way he accepts that it is good practice and I said but hasnt the medical practice made mistakes on mass all the time through out historys even back to trepanning in the stone age times. he said o yes yes I see that but I have to conform to what is considerred by my peer as good practice. It was a nice little chat in a way and I liked the dear man.He has given me some propanalol and sent me home to bed for the day and taken thyroid bloods.

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado in reply to

What a strange experience! If he physically examined you while overmedicated what information will that give him about your overall thyroid status?

in reply toSilverAvocado

I think he wanted to make sure my heart was Ok but I really could not see thepoint of the blood test it will only show if he has taken T3 that I had had too much. I suspect he has only taken TSH and T4 and so I shall be amused at the thought of him seeing my under range T4 and trying to make sense of it. I dont think as a locum he was wanting to assess over all thyroid issue but just wanted to make sure I didnt have a heart attack. When I looked a green card scheme once there were not a sudden death associated with T3 but several with levo. I only really went to see him because I had chest pains last week lifting logs and was concerned that with a mix of fast heart beats and possible angina might cause problems. I have come to the conclusion on this that if my heart is beating really fast and I dont get chest pains it was not angina.

Clutter profile image
Clutter in reply to

Mandyjane,

Sounds like a sheep. A pleasant sheep to be sure, but a sheep nonetheless.

in reply toClutter

yes bless him. somebodys who does not have an independant thought in his body. I think I did get him to soften a little on his ridged adherance to the status. He did acknowledge that the medical profession could be wrong on mass by the end concerning this issue and I think we came to a point of mutual freindlyness. I am so glad I am not having to rely on him for long term thyroid care though. I suspect his dogmaticness is protecting him and enabling him to carrying on working. I got the feeling that he was quite sensitive and caring really. He was a funny mix.

in reply toClutter

O thanks it does mean I have taken about twice as much as normal. I have taken it in the past but it did nothing for me then at 4 of them. I am really concerned about my health with this.Most people if they stop thyroid hormones gradually go down hill over the weeks. They get tired and all the symptoms come back gradually and if left for a long time it causes serious problems. If I was like that I would just wait for nature thyroid to come back into stock but if I miss a dose these days it is a dramatic decline of my brain function unitll i have some. I am a funny case. Unfortunalty my camera has broken down as I was dong a video diary of my issues without thyroid hormones. I have ordered a new one so will start again.

Clutter profile image
Clutter in reply to

Mandyjane,

Well, it looks like you have doubled dose so try 1 x 300mg ThyroGold until you can get more NatureThroid. If one capsule is too much in one dose you could empty the contents and take half a capsule x 2 daily.

in reply toClutter

Thanks Clutter I am going to try this although I have had the racing heart today it does seem to be quite good for me. It seems to last a bit longer. I took some yesterday afternoon and did not get the whoosy head at all after.I have got some 150mg so I shall aim for one in the morning and one at night. I shall wait untill heart rate drops and whossy head is back.

in reply toClutter

clutter. I have got a bit of nature thyroid but once the rapid heart beats had stopped yesterday and when I got up the morning I felt better than I have for months. The whoosy headeadness was gone. I was more sure on my feet. I felt more normal by loads. I didnt start to feel whossy until about half an hour ago at which point after 36 hours since my last dose I took 150mg of thyroid gold. I thought it might really be the answer but moments after I put it in my mouth my heart started pumping again. It was really strange as I could still feel the capsule intact in my throat , my heart was reacting faster than I can swallow and its contents inside the capsule. I waited about20 mins to see if it calmed down but when pulse taken it was going very fast. It was 78 this morning and has been fine all day. I have taken beta blocker as prescribed yesterday and am sad for some reason my heart seem to be very sensitive to something that is really good for my brain. Even my memory was better today. I will look at thyroid gold website. I wonder if it is slow release and not out of my system yet from yesterday morning or I wonder if there is something wrong with my heart not related to taking thyroid hormones.

Clutter profile image
Clutter in reply to

Mandyjane,

There's no way that your heart was faster moments after swallowing a TG capsule. It takes 20-40 minutes for a capsule to be swallowed and ingested before you absorb it into the blood and feel anything.

I don't think TG is slow release. It normally takes 3 - 3.5 days for the last dose of T3 to be out of your system and up to a week for the last dose of T4.

in reply toClutter

Thats what I thought. I think it way well have been that the propanalol I toke yesterday has warn off and due to funny GPs high anxiety yesterday about my potential to drop dead I was anxious taking this dose and so as I swallowed it I felt the palpatations. It is fast I would guess about 110 to 120 but I have just read that insome people it goes up to 400 beats a minute. I have just read up on Dr Lowes website and he has a check list for over stimulation and I am Ok other than this. I will take some again tommorow but cheak my pulse before and half hour after. It maybe that for me a faster pulse is normal which is why I feel so well. I am about 24 stone in weight. the only endo I had the misfortune to be under the care of told me my health was suprisingly good after taking my pulse which was something like 74, I humoured her but thought at the time that is not right for a 26stone woman which I was at the time. My husband who is an utter lunatic has also been to a solicter and is threatening me with taking me to court for an occupation order as he says I have physically and finacally abused him. If he did this I would be out on the street homeless zimmer frame and all in November. It is funny and I do see the funny side. I am so frail these days that if I hit him Clutter I would do myself some serious damage and he probably wound'nt notice and I have bank statements going back four years proving that he has not paid a penny for his keep in all that time and that I paid for his PHD for him. It is funny but solicters letter are worrying and it will probably all end up in family courts soon. The letter came before yesterday. I think most peoples heart rates would increase a bit. I am pretending I have not recieved the letter. I have given it to my worker who helps with domestic abuse and I am acting as if nothing has happened. I will wait until this time tommorw to take pulse without beta blocker and if it is less than 130 I will think it a healthy pulse considering.

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado

I seem to be in a similar situation, of being overall undermedicated, but if I have a couple of low activity days I get patches of feeling overmedicated. Or this may just be my imagination trying to make sense of chaos :p

Anyway, it's my belief in all of this that increased activity can get past overmedicater feelings - although it sounds like you are very literally overmedicated as you've taken your whole daily dose twice in succession!

I usually go for a walk as far as I can, or tidy out a whole cupboard, but if I was more able I'd go to exercise classes or even for a run.

I also empathise with running out of Nature throid, as it's happening to me too :( I've decided I'm going to completely switch brand once I get to the end of my supply. My attempts to blend the two have been unsuccessful. I had been kicking myself for not keeping more months in stock, as I always think about keeping 6months but never do. But it seems like lots of people are being hit by it at the same time. It's good to know I'm not the only one :)

in reply toSilverAvocado

yes I deliberatly did some housework this morning to try and burn some T3 up and it did seem to drop heart beat a bit. I find talking uses up thyroid hormones really fast with me. If I am chatting away on the phone my head goes weird after a bit and I have to nibble some NDT untill I feel better.( This is not a mobile so not microwaves) I have mangaed to order some nature thyroid 1grain and am hoping it will arrive before I run out in about 7 days. Like you I might end up changing brands and am going to try lower dose of thyroid gold to see if it sustains me better.

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado in reply to

We also sound similar in what you were saying to Clutter about how missing a dose makes you ill. I'm like that now, too. I wonder if it's a general thing with NDT, or a more personal sign that I'm on a better dose. When I had to miss doses of synthetics I always felt great the next day. On NDT if I'm skipping doses to have a blood test I feel wretched

I am on 6 grains and take it in 3 doses. I tried to replace one of the doses with the new brand to phase it in, and after day 2 I felt dreadful. It's taken me a few days to get back on track. It seems unbelievable that I could be so sensitive.

But I do now suspect that there's a lot of individual difference in how sensitive people are to exactly what hormone they're taking. I think all those people that manage on whatever the GP gives them are relatively insensitive - or you could call that efficient. And people who are difficult to dose are at the sensitive end. That makes the whole thing make more sense :p

in reply toSilverAvocado

I can definatley relate to the sensitivity. I have gone through so many brands. Thyroid s a tiny nibble of those tiny tabs will have me asleep for 24 hours. Levo I was like a zombie. I have recently tried throid another tia brand and not well at all and armour did nothing and cost the earth. I think we must both be burning a lot of T3 and it is probably the t3 with need most in the ndt. I would not be able to go without for a blood test now and blood tests have become irrelevent for me . My dose is so dictated by my body that what ever my blood test results I will still need to continue dosing the way I do. I worry about being so dependant. I worry that if I need my knee replaced with GP offers some times that they wont let me take my medication in hospital. I also have found with me that this dependance on NDThappened after a break from it and that since that break my health has deteriorated big time. My 86 year old freind is fitter than me now and she is not one of those super fit granny types. She is an incontinent old lady who falls a lot but she can walk much furthur than me now and goes shopping for groceries.

Do you want me to Pm you with my nature thyroid source. It is reliable. I doubt if they have any left now from last batch but they have a waiting list you can go on and offer some by email when it comes in.

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado in reply to

Yes please PM me your supplier, that is very kind of you!

I am 38 and can't do much. I do find elderly people that can do far more than me is one of the few things that really upsets me to see :p

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado in reply toSilverAvocado

PS: I wouldn't dream of walking out for groceries now even if I was able to do it! Now that I've been doing online orders for a year or more it takes me less then twenty minutes to do my weekly shop. I just copy last weeks order and then change a few bits and pieces.

in reply toSilverAvocado

Yes I do the same and they carry it out to the kitchin for me. I keep trying to persaude my freind to do the same as she is shattered after these shopping events.

in reply toSilverAvocado

And me, it hurts. They go climbing bloody mountains some of them.

in reply toSilverAvocado

about to do pm but do you have some kind of resistance. I am trying to get my child tested for resistance to thyroid alpha which is a condition current head of BTA has an interest in. You have to take loads of meds to get any relief from symptoms and often not all the problems are resolved by hormones. There is a lot of indicators for it in my family history. I remmber my poor mum sitting down with me after an unpleasant visit to GP following my collapse into bed age 15 and saying right we have heard what that idiot thinks now you tell me what wrong with you. I used to read alot of medical books as a teenager. I sat and mumbled I think its my thyroid and my mum looked at me and said something like bastards arnt they your granddad died of it too. The thyroid alpha stuff tends to occur alongside dyspraxia and I think autism traits and there are issues like short legs and loads of skin tags which are so prevalant in our family. Blood tests tend to indicate normal tsh with lowish T4 and high T3. You body desperately turns the t4 into t3 as fast as possible to try to meet the hormone needs but the hormones often cant get into resistive cells. My poor child has dyspraxia all the hypo symptoms you can imagine and high t3 and low t4 and guess what I cannot get him tested on NHS. My T3 has always been low even on NDT sometimes but I wasn't tested for t3 untill a couple of years ago and I think by that time my thyroid was exhausted with all the effort.

SilverAvocado profile image
SilverAvocado in reply to

Yes, I suspect I do have some kind of thyroid hormone resistance. I currently pushing my freeT3 over range and am getting better and better.

Interesting what you say about using a lot of T3, because my freeT3 rises very slowly. Recently I increased by half a grain 4 or 5 times and my freeT3 stayed exactly the same. It's now jumped up about 3 units, but again it's stayed the same after a half grain increase.

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