High Reverse T3 Help Please

[Oberley]

My Dr. is scaring me. My RT3 was High in July at 34.5

I was on 50 Synthroid 7days a week and extra on Sunday and Wednesday.

She took away the 2 extra days added 5 Cytomel..Next labs RT3 was 27 Then

So she lowered Synthroid to 25 day and Increased Cytomel 10 did this 4days and Anxiety through roof wa shaking. So she upped to 50 Synthroid and back to 5 Cytomel.

Labs results RT3 was 23. Then put me on 50 Synthroid and 7.5 Cytomel 4 weeks.

Lab results RT3 is now 25.5. Had me go back to 50 Synthroid and 5 Cytomel 8 days.

Now she wants me to take 25 Synthroid one day of week and 50 on other days and stay on 5 Cytomel. She said this will help me to Lower RT3.

What should I do? Besides get on long waiting list for new Dr...I feel so cog fogged, short term memory, shaking, depressed, anxiety, non functional.

If she reduces to 25 Synthroid for just one day and has me take 50 on other day will this help along with 5 Cytomel daily.? I can post labs from this. If it could help figure things out.

[shaws Administrator]

The following is another fact regarding RT3 and it was by a doctor/scientist who was an Adviser to Thyroiduk.org.uk before his untimely death. Two Excerpts:

1.Some patients do have impaired conversion of T4 to T3. However, the available scientific evidence suggests that at the longest, impaired conversion lasts only a few weeks. I know of no scientific evidence supporting Dr. Dennis Wilson’s speculation that some patients have chronically impaired conversion of T4 to T3. When patients have impaired T4 to T3 conversion, they also have a predictable pattern of lab test results. However, despite extensive testing, one other researcher and I have never found this predictable lab test pattern in fibromyalgia outpatients.

2. A popular belief nowadays (proposed by Dr. Dennis Wilson) has not been proven to be true, and much scientific evidence tips the scales in the "false" direction with regard to this idea. The belief is that the process involving impaired T4 to T3 conversion—with increases in reverse-T3—becomes stuck. The "stuck" conversion is supposed to cause chronic low T3 levels and chronically slowed metabolism. Some have speculated that the elevated reverse-T3 is the culprit, continually blocking the conversion of T4 to T3 as a competitive substrate for the 5’-deiodinase enzyme. However, this belief is contradicted by studies of the dynamics of T4 to T3 conversion and T4 to reverse-T3 conversion. Laboratory studies have shown that when factors such as increased cortisol levels cause a decrease in T4 to T3 conversion and an increase in T4 to reverse-T3 conversion, the shift in the percentages of T3 and reverse-T3 produced is only temporary.

web.archive.org/web/2010103...

[greygoose]

Posting labs would indeed help with understanding this problem. But, so would some sort of time scale. How often has she been changing your dose? It sounds like she changes it every week or something, and that would not be good!

However, rT3 is not just about your levo dose. T4 will convert to rT3 if your you have a conversion problem, and your FT4 is too high in range. But, it's difficult to imagine that your FT4 was that high on just 50 mcg levo a day. That is just a starter dose.

RT3 will also be high if you have some sort of infection, or if you're on a draconian low-calorie diet, if you have low iron, or a cortisol problem. So, maybe these things need looking at, too.