Anyone have ideas...5 years on still adjusting and not making much progress. The addition of T3 two years ago got me out of the house and semi active but so many swings still and fuggy head.
Previous bloods were
Tsh 1.42, Ft3 4.5, Ft4 12. I was not great here meds dosage was 100mcgs t4 and 5,5,5 T3(spread out through day).
My Endo put me up to 125mcgs 5,5,5 T3. I felt worse in fact.
Bloods on this dose were Tsh 0.85 Ft3 4.2 Ft4 11.5
So I reduced my T4 to 112.5 (pill cutter) and T3 5,5,5,5 (extra 5)
I felt better than I did on 125, I don't have bloods as this is only a week after recording the last bloods above on the previous meds dosage.. I almost have bloods monthly so much fiddling.
Still suffer what I call Payback....If I exert myself one day I have to payback with a big low the next day or couple of days.
I am taking suppliments now suggest by forum. I think I have almost exhausted the combos of T3 and T4....Does this make any sense at all to anyone? Or even familiar?
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fostercraig
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My Endo says that T4 must be taken away from food as it binds to proteins and is not absorbed properly. T3 does not have this problem and should be dripped in to try and mimic the natural way. T3 has a very short 8 hour half life and needs topping up regularly, as opposed to T4 which takes days to metabolise.
Yes, I know, lots of people say that, but the results say the opposite. I think that's just a myth.
As for 'dripping in T3 to mimic the natural way', you can't really mimic the natural way. And, some people need large amounts in one go to saturate the receptors, or they can't get enough T3 into the cells.
T3 has a half life of 24 hours, not 8, but the T3 that gets into the cells stays there for about three days, so that really doesn't hold water, I'm afraid.
It's possible because no doctor ever thought to test my thyroid. They preferred to blame me for being lazy, greedy and a liar, and prescribe antidepressants.
In terms of dosing, I would say do your own experiments, and see what suits you best. Obviously life is way easier if you can get away with taking it in one dose with your T4!
The way it worked for me is I started on 1 morning dose, and it wasn't until I'd increased my dose quite a bit that I noticed being more tired in the afternoon, so added an afternoon dose. I was fine on that until I'd increased quite a bit again, and I slowly noticed I was nearly always feeling terrible by bedtime, so I added another evening dose.
I've also changed the sizes and timings of each dose, too. I've always taken the larger dose in the morning, and the other two smaller, but I've shuffled exactly how big the difference is a number of times depending on symptoms.
I've been doing it that way for ages, and am now a lot better overall. I'm not thinking of trying to cut out the evening dose and see how I feel. At the moment my evening dose is pretty small, because in the past year or so I found I wasn't at my best energy levels until after the afternoon dose, so more and more I've moved the bulk of the dose earlier in the day.
Sorry this got very long, I just wanted to illustrate the juggling act and that there are no hard and fast rules for how to do it. If I were you I'd try having just the one dose for a few weeks, notice how you feel in the evenings and afternoon. And if you're more tired or symptom heavy later in the day split into a second dose and see how you go. Its possibly you do need the full 3 or 4, but you'll never know till you mess around with it.
I find this theory about needing to take all the T3 in one go to saturate cells interesting as doctors seem to always disagree on this subject...some recommend multi dosing (I've seen a few recommend taking it up to six times daily which for me would mean thinking about nothing else) and others say once a day is preferable provided you don't feel jittery.
Well, it really does depend on the person. We're all different and all have different needs. It suits me best to take it all in one go - and certainly doesn't make me jittery. But, other people need to take it several times a day.
Is my FT3 not supposed to be towards the top of the range so at 4.2 when the range ends at 5.7 I am short no? ergo More t3 ?. TSH target should be under 1 I gather, which it is?
3 years ago I had a whole range of tests at the start of my Endo intervention. I would love to send them to you if possible on a PM. The majority mean nothing to me but probably would to you. And since then just the three bloods. Can you attach pdf's to PM's?
Fostercraig, my feeling once you've added some T3 is that when you're having an increase you'll usually want it in T3 rather than T4.
Your current freeT3 is about halfway through the range if I'm reading things correctly, ideally you want it near the top of the range, so you've got good evidence there for an increase.
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