I found out some people I know were taking Levo @200mcgs to lose weight for a bodybuilding competition. After explaining to them the dangers etc they both decided to come off of it.
They had been on it for around 5 months, and have now been off of it for 2 weeks.
Obviously they're now feeling absolutely horrible, and are very hypothyroid.
My question is, how long does it take the thyroid to recover? Does the Levo need to completely clear their system before their own thyroid will start producing again?
There's a lot of literature showing that for T3 abused in bodybuilding that 2 weeks after discontinuing you will have a full recovery (if thyroid was healthy in the first place). Obviously the longer half life of Levo will extend this.
I'm just curios if anyone knows the process. Thank you
(please don't leave any comments talking about how stupid etc that they are, they're fully aware and made a mistake. I'm sure you've made some in your life)
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HypoHden
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Might be a good idea to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and b12. These are likely to drop and supplementing to improve may help Thyroid function recover quicker
thank you! Do you know if the Levo needs to totally clear before they start to notice any improvement at all? so 6-12 weeks for full recovery - any idea until the body starts producing any of it's own? Thank you!
You could work it out. The half life of T4 is 7 days, which means that in 7 days of stopping it, there will be half the amount there was the day they stopped. Seven days after that, it will be reduced by half again. It depends how much one takes, how long it will take to clear.
Personally, I would recommend that they come clean to their doctor and get some assistance in coming down off that dosage if they aren't starting to feel better in another week or so. It is possible that it would be better for them to go back on the levo at a lower dose and step it down over time so they aren't overtaxing their systems.
Personally I would not advocate coming off a big T4 load just like that. Better to do it gradually to let the body recover and reset itself for the end point of being off altogether. What will probably have happened is that you will have raised T3 somewhat but made a lot of useless reverse T3. The rT3 will clear quickly, but you will also have partly suppressed T4-T3 natural conversion and this will take time to recover from.
A question - I can understand body-builders taking T3 as it has a more instant effect. But surely if you are euthyroid and take T4, all that will happen is that your TSH will drop and you will stop making so much of your own T4 to compensate or, as Diogenes says, just produce RT3 instead. So it probably won’t make difference to you at all. Unless you were taking a massive amount I suppose and 200mcgs is above an average dose. Not sure! Maybe Diogenes or Greygoose can let me know their learned thoughts on this?
Never heard of people taking levo for that, just T3 or triac (and I was a competitive body builder). Generally you'd only take it for about 8 weeks (raising gradually) and come off it after the show over another 8 weeks (decreasing gradually). If they felt OK on thyroxine, they might actually BE hypo - otherwise you'd expect the body to convert most of it into rT3 to stop them going hyper. It'll take at least 8 weeks to tell.
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