crimple

Are you doing anything about your very raised antibody levels. Most of us find and Gluten free diet helps reduce antibodies and helps with Levo and T3 absorption. Also take some Selenium which helps with conversion of T4 to T3. try those things first before adding in more T3.

Victoria1990 in reply to crimple

Hi Crimple,

I have been gluten free for a while which has help with my digestion and heart burn. I will try some Selenium again, I used to take it but my gastroenterologist told me to stop taking it as he said it hindered absorption. Thanks for your reply.

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greygoose in reply to Victoria1990

Absorption of what? Thyroid hormone? If you take it at least four hours away from your thyroid hormone, it won't have any effect. Obviously, you shouldn't take anything at the same time as T4 and T3.

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crimple in reply to crimple

Try going dairy free too. I went totally dairy free for 3 months and it also helped. I then introduced arla lactofree milk, cream and cheddar cheese. I can tolerate butter and any hard cheese. Some people cannot tolerate milk protein, casein, rather than lactose. There is a milk available at supermarkets that has the casein removed.

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shawsAdministrator

You should go by your own clinical symptoms rather than the blood tests. If you are still symptomatic a small increase 1/4 tablet every two weeks. If taking T3 only your T4 will be low as you aren't taking any.

As crimple has pointed out your antibodies are too high and they attack the thyroid gland and wax and wane.

SeasideSusieAdministrator

Victoria1990

When taking a combination of Levo and T3, it's a balancing act and often much tweaking of doses is needed to find what levels suit you best. I take both Levo and T3 and through experimenting I have found that I need both FT4 and FT3 around 75% through their ranges. Some people are fine with a much lower FT4. So really, all you can do is try altering one thing at a time. If you increase your Levo, you may have enough natural conversion for this to raise your FT3 to some extent as well as your FT4.

In fact, looking at your previous post where your results on 125mcg Levo were

TSH 1.50 (0.27 - 4.20)

FT4 18.00 (12.0 - 22.00)

FT3 3.80 (3.1 - 6.8)

then I wouldn't have lowered my dose of Levo as your FT4 is only 60% through it's range.

However, I did say that you needed your ferritin to be higher than it was, it needs to be at least 70 for thyroid hormone to work properly, so yes you do need to be much stricter with taking your iron (and folate, that needs to be at least 16 with that range). If you start eating liver regularly, your ferritin should rise more quickly than it is on iron tablets.