Thermometer - self medicating with NDT

[Angie_Phalange]

Just started on Nature-Throid (1 week today!). Feeling hopeful after a bad 6mths on levothyroxine.

Do I need to be monitoring my temperature daily? Under arm or mouth?

[Caesard]

I think you should monitor both temperature and rest heart rate.

For the temperature, until stable, I think you should establish a baseline (your usual body temp) and some check-up point/s (e.g. first thing after waking up, before the meds administration, mid-day, before sleep) and try assuring similar conditions of taking the temperature to isolate effects of external factors (cold/warm variations, emotional, exercising induced influence, etc)

Personally I prefer using a higher quality thermometer and read mouth, under tongue values (sure, you need to make sure nobody else is reading values with the same thing from other, inappropriate body parts)

For the heart rate, rest value is relevant and I factor it by reading it using a Fitbit activity watch with pulse reading; of course, other brands could be used, but regardless, must be used preferably 24/7 or at least at night-time. The reliability of the read is quite impressive. You will notice in time how external factors influence your resting heart rate (sleep deprivations, exercise, mood, smoking, alcohol and, of course, hormone replacement therapy)

It would be very useful to start early with a log, where you keep information about dosage, temp, general health status, RHR, symptom relief status. Might prove very useful, thyroid disease is usually not very kind with people's cognitive abilities, including long term memory

Unfortunately Fitbit app doesn;t allow external factors monitoring (for the temperatures) and there are no reliable everyday wearables to track temperature.

[Judithdalston]

Presume you are hoping for a temperature increase as FT3 'kicks In'! I did this for a month when added T3 to T4...never saw any difference even after getting up to 25 mcg dose T3 to 75 mcg T4, remained 35.6- 36C. I did it by mouth but with old fashioned glass thermometer; under arm is possible but takes 10 mins, and the result should be a whole degree C lower ( did it once and it was). Modern electronic thermometers are not supposed to be accurate enough unless calibrated. Did take Bp too- for me it remained raised with high pulse( including a 169/ 90, and pulse of 106) until just over 3 weeks into combo when overnight it dropped remarkably (eg 120/67, 78)- so presume that is the T3 working. No idea if either is typical or not, but DrLowe pointed out some never get their temperature back up to nearer 37C.

[Caesard in reply to Judithdalston]

Correct, it takes time to see stable results in the metabolic response. I have been four years almost unable to be consistent in reaching 36 C. I have conducted my own tests on conventional/electronis devices, learning that, in my case, the difference is not that high but the inconsistency is high.