Hi

In order to help, What dosage of T3 are you taking?, and, do you split your dosage?.

How long have you been taking that dosage?

Best Wishes

Peanut31

I've never taken just T3 so had no experience of that but I do know it's tempting to over do things when have new found energy. So as it's still early days I'm wondering if you are physically trying to do too much to soon. Other than that it might be worth trying to tweak the doses a little so hopefully someone else taking just T3 can help with that.

It sounds much more like a sugar crash

Are you on a low GI diet, it is very good to be low GI to regulate energy.

Are you having a high carb lunch or a sweet drink afterwards?

Energy crashes are often sugar related.

I would suggest looking up a low GI diet and sticking to it for three days. If you still get your crash, it's not sugar.

50mcg is a huge starting dose. You could spread your medication over more of the day as you are going from lunchtime until bedtime without any and also a sugar crash does sound possible.

my functional doctor told me to split my dose. I take it at 8am and 2 pm.

Hi

From my experience of taking T3 (no longer on it) you have to take it very very slowly.

I personally think you have rushed your increase of dosage.

When I started it, I started on 1/4 (6.25mcg) tablet of 25mcg T3 at 6am and 1/4 tablet at 3.30pm, some don’t even start with a second dosage at first, but I was originally on 125mcg of Levothyroxine.

I took my blood pressure and heart rate and temperature throughout the day.

One was before taking T3 and then a few hours after taking T3.

I then increased my T3 after I think around the 14 days mark, by 1/2 (12.5mcg) T3 from 1/4 (6.25mcg) T3 in the morning dosage (6am). Kept at that dosage then 2 weeks later increase my 3.30pm dosage to 1/2 from 1/4.

I also noticed that by lunchtime I was flagging so I moved my 3.30pm dosage to 2pm, but, kept my 6am dosage. The 6am dosage I would set my alarm wake up take it and go back to sleep for an hour.

I kept increasing slowly, I brought a diary to keep notes on symptoms and vitals.

I can recommend a book by Paul Robinson that helps give advice on T3. It’s called recovering with T3.

You can buy it from Amazon (make sure you buy it via the Thyroid U.K. charity)

Many just take one large dosage a day, in the morning,

but, for me I was running low on energy by mid afternoon so knew I needed that extra.

I found that cutting the tablet with a craft knife gave me a more clean cut, and the pill cutter couldn’t do the 1/4 spilt.

I got up to 37.5 mcg It didn’t work for me as although I was doing well I needed an increase and my body just didn’t like the increase.

I’m currently on NDT, which is so far working.

I hope that helps.

Best Wishes

Peanut31

Yungnog, the same happened to me when I first started T3 only. I crashed at 4om and started to improve at 7pm. My cortisol levels we’re not in the right place. It’s important to check levels with a cortisol saliva test.

Peanut31 has given you excellent advice, I can’t better it.

Good luck.

I take 50mcg. I take 20mcg at 7am, 20mcg at 12.00 and 10mcg at 5pm. All before meals and convenient times. Most important is to take them at exactly the same time as the body adjusts its cycles. I would not take it at night.

All of us are different so you will have to find what works best for your body but make changes gradually so you assess the effect of changes properly.

All very sensible info from peanut. You have definitely started on too high a dose. Read Paul Robinson. I have been on it for two years now, I am only taking 37. 5 a day in three doses. 12.5 at 6 .30 am ( set the alarm) and the same doses at midday and 6 ish at night. Build it up very slowly.

The reason you crash at 4:00pm is because T3 has a half life of about 8 hours (varies according to research sources - hence my "about". ). I am not sure why you recover in the evening but it could be your cortisol kicking in - that varies during the day, but it doesn't peak in the evening it peaks about 4:00pm. It could be that your body is finally recovering from the assault of too much T3 combined with the cortisol peak.

You have good advice above regarding your dosage and how to spread it out during the day. From my own experience (I take NDT, has T3 in it) you should also measure your blood pressure (BP) and see if it varies throughout the day (and evening), i.e. does it correlate with the exponential drop off of your T3? If your BP does not vary or is not consistently high, then you are very lucky - so don't worry about that aspect of things.