Hello, some of you with good memories may know that a while ago i was sourcing my own T3. My husband, who is an ex body builder with bad experiences of online bought meds, is terrified I might do some damage with self bought T3. As such, i've reverted to using prescribed levo. Since then I didn't feel a great deal different but i have put on almost 2 stone in just over a year. Weight was already a problem and now it is desperate. with my latest bloods my doctor upped my dose of levo to 150mcg per day. last night I fell asleep at tea time and I was out for 2 hours. I feel my symptoms are getting worse, not better. I already believed I had a conversion problem, now i'm convinced the more levo i'm putting in, the more Rt3 my body is making, giving the opposite of the desired effect while showing very suppressed TSH. My body temp this morning was 36.8 but it was sweltering in the bedroom as my 6 year old decided to join us in bed and i'd already got up to put the alarm off. I'm going to monitor my temp for a month to see what that looks like.
I'm going to ask my doc for a full blood screen. Does anyone else have experience of increased RT3 as levo dose is increased? Dr. Westin Childs seems to think this is a real problem.
I'm desperate to find out how to maximise conversion and reduce Rt3 without having to resort to T3.
Is anyone still getting NDT out of the NHS?
Written by
t3warrior
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NHS doesn't test rT3. You can order a private rT3 test but it is expensive and requires a phlebotomists to draw blood thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin... If rT3 is high the only remedy is to reduce Levothyroxine dose to reduce rT3. Most people will swap out some Levothyroxine for T3.
There are a few members able to have NDT prescribed on the NHS but it's not licenced for UK use so it is rare and, I think, unlikely a new patient will be prescribed it. You could ask your GP to refer you to a NHS endocrinologist to discuss the suitability of adding Liothyronine (T3) to Levothyroxine.
Ah - that would explain why rT3 didn't flag with me last time I had a full screen - because it wasn't there. What was there was a low t3 level with high t4, which could i guess indicate higher rt3.
Maybe they don't test because that would support the need to prescribe t3. the conspiracy deepens.
thanks for the info. i'll look into private testing, though i suspect it would just prove what i'm pretty sure I already know and when there doesn't appear to be a resolution other than buying t3 online, I feel like i'm hitting a brick wall.
I had to reduce my T4 down to about 75mcg in order to reduce my rT3 to decent levels. I am taking 2 grains of NDT plus 50mcg of T3. Both sourced online w/o a prescription, though I actually do have (US) prescriptions for both...long story.
As for the concern about buying these things online, it did run through my mind, but I have two thoughts.
First, many people on this forum source both NDT and T3 online and are still alive and healthy. Actually they are more alive and healthier.
Second, and possibly not terribly comforting, if somehow you did get scammed it would likely be with inactive ingredients. They don't want to poison you...they want your money and thus have a vested interest in keeping you alive.
I certainly wouldn't buy anything from a bodybuilding site...I would rely on the trusted sources that people on this forum have used.
Everything is a gamble, but you can almost guarantee harm to your health by increasing levo if you have a conversion problem.
Like you, I became worse on worse the higher dose of Levo I was prescribed. I went to great lengths with my resistant GP and surgery to get a referral to a (second, as first no good) endo who straight away took me off Levo and put me on T3.
I know that T3 does not help many, many people and you might be one of those but am really writing to reassure you that if you genuinely need it and push intelligently and politely you can get there. I'm one of the lucky ones - no exciting weight loss though as is so often described, but it was the extreme fatigue etc I needed relief from so a little excess weight is tolerable!
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How long does reverse T3 last and why isn't it T3 that needs cutting not T4?
How fast to raise T3 only
Sorry no link, it's from an ad site, but still a good read: Improving Thyroid Hormone Conversion
FT3/rT3
