I'm a hypothyroid (for at least 15 years) 35 year old male (6 ft, 73 kg) trying to get myself well on NDT now. My vitamin D, B12 are both in great ranges for good thyroid absorption. My iron panel perhaps needs work - see previous posts (even though ferritin is fine according to many). My brain MRI and heart echocardiagram are all clear. My 4 point saliva cortisol looks fine as well. But this post is not about blood tests or other results. I want to see if anyone has these specific symptoms that started for me about 3 years ago.
These particular set of symptoms are in addition to your usual hypothyroid symptoms, such as feeling cold, low energy, short/medium/long term memory recall, and so on. No, these extra symptoms come on suddenly.
The heart/chest starts feeling weird in a kind of a pain (angina?) that can migrate around the chest and to the back. The face muscles around the mouth and nose area feel numb so that facial expressions feel unnatural (but totally doable - I'm not actually losing control of any muscles). I also feel a bit shaky and somewhat anxious. I start to have even more dreadful thoughts. A little lightheaded too. My irritability increases even more than usual and ability to "care" about things decreases lower than the normal already "low" threshold. Most other symptoms such as coldness increases too. So this is like a temporary extreme hypothyroidism...
The acute phase of this goes for a day or two. Then there is usually a recovery after another day or two after that and I feel fine, which is my usual set of symptoms that seems nothing compared to when I have this cyclical thing come on.
I have noticed that these attacks increase in frequency as I increase my thyroid past certain point. That point is a lot lower than my optimal upper quartile T3 and TSH < 1. This occurred for me when I was on Levo (T4), then when I was on pure T3, and now when I'm on NDT working my way up the dose.
My theory revolves around this being a kind of an anxiety attack, caused by me not absorbing the thyroid properly and this is the thyroid pooling effect. Getting my iron panel optimal is my only chance here. Perhaps looking into oestrogen dominance as another source of not absorbing thyroid, but it doesn't seem a popular theory on these forums.
Basically I'm worried about increasing my NDT higher to get better thyroid panel at the expense of not being functional! Should I even drop my NDT lower for a while? Who knows, but at effectively 2 month adjustment periods between doses it's not something I want to take lightly. I am working towards my optimal dose - currently slowly raising the dose, not lowering it. Hence, need advice...
Has anyone experienced this? Has anyone got it diagnosed? Has anyone treated it successfully? Very interested in people's thoughts...
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ak_83
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I’m sure others will give you an even more precise response...
From my own experience...ones symptoms can be entirely unique to you...
I’ve found , for example, that I often don’t fit the bill ..that is the list of symptoms of something..and yet that something is ultimately proves to be the problem....
Hormone problems cause so many diverse symptoms...and we’re all different to start with...so add on top of that variability a certain condition and things can look and get complicated.
Despite not understanding any of your seemingly unusual symptoms ...one obvious thing you haven’t mentioned is Adrenals
I have Adrenal Fatigue alongside Hashimotos,..very common..
5hey invariably go together.
It’s horrible..
I’ve never yet heard anyone describe the symptoms as similar to mine..which proves the point,..
The one thing we all agree on..it’s horrible !
I’d suggest you get an Adrenal Stress Profile dome first..along with the sex hormones perhaps. I think Regenerus labs provide a brilliant service,...very clear and easy to understand...this would give you a lot of understanding...
Then take things from there..
You may then need to see a specialist...if you can find one.
🙄....but the labs provide a counselling phone call who will talk about your results based on the test PLUS all the symptoms you describe o the form.
I’m sure this would be s good springboard for you to take you forward.
If Adrenal stress is the issue...you can then look into taking something like Adrenavive or sort things...ask me...and whatever you do....look into Dr Rinds website and start taking your temperature three times daily..write to me on this if you like..
Hope this helps.
All the very best...sorry it’s so very hard for you ,.,.things will slowly unravel if you keep looking.
Where do you think you're not absorbing correctly? In the gut? Or at the cellular level?
What exactly do you mean by 'pooling'? It's not a concept we support on here. If your T3 isn't absorbed by the cells, it won't hang around. It only has a half-life of 24 hours.
It's usually low oestrogen that causes problems with thyroid hormone, rather than oestrogen dominance. Are you oestrogen dominant?
Do you have any labs that you can post on here, to see what's going on? Have you had your nutrients tested - vit D, vit B12, folate, ferritin?
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I have done the adrenal test and it was in good ranges.
greygoose
As above, I have measured my key vitamins that affect thyroid absorption and they are in optimum ranges, except perhaps the iron panel (see my previous posts).
If pooling and oestrogen dominance are not supported concepts, then I'm really at a loss about why increasing my dose is causing more of these episodes... I guess I could measure my sex hormones and post them here for analysis?
Essentially it feels like just when I'm supposed to be feeling better and better as I get closer to my optimal thyroid bloods, I seem to get more unstable. Really frustrating...
OK, I've flipped through your past posts and find you and I had quite a long conversation - forgive me, I have no memory for names. So, how have things progressed since then - two months ago? You said you wanted to raise your iron. Did you?
How much NDT are you taking now? Because it seems to me that your symptoms are hypo.
We discussed thyroid hormone resistance in that thread of two months ago, and that the only cure is taking high doses of T3. Is that what you mean by 'pooling'? Different people seem to mean different things by the same word. I often think we ought to have our own dictionary, so that we're all singing from the same hymne-sheet. As it were.
Oestrogen dominance certainly is a thing. And it could cause you symptoms. But, I'm not sure it affects your absorption of thyroid hormone - hopefully, if I'm wrong, someone will come along and correct me. But, do you even have oestrogen dominance?
Sorry, just typing a request for sex hormones blood test to my doctor and realise that I have quite a shallow knowledge there. Could you recommend a good set of tests so that it will be complete when I post it back here? Currently putting down oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone...
In addition to your new hobby of reading ALL of these threads including history,,, LOL!! I strongly suggest you also add a new study AND avenue of change to your diet. Completely clean up your diet. If you are vegan/vegitarian that maybe the problem. Won't get into why 10 pounds of vegies no longer contains the nutrients and lack of toxics as it did 50 yrs ago, but it's not the same food.
So many young folks had prenatal/natal experiences that gave them hypersensitive bodies, mine is and I'm older, I know. Eliminate gluten, seed oils etc etc. You'll learn the dos/don'ts by this study as well. Cook everything you eat yourself from raw zero packaging sources. Buy from farmers directly when possible. Grass fed meat etc.
Good and study the paleo diet. A good guy and starting point may be:
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