You might find this of interest if you've not read it before. It was published 14 years ago, yet we've not come much further on our journey with optimum treatment being given. Also the refusal of the professionals to believe that some can be harmed with levothyroxine.
Excerpt from link below:
T3-Binding to Transthyretin. In the 1950s, limited information led some researchers to conclude that transthyretin only transports T4 into the brain. Based on this conclusion, they believed that brain cells get their T3 only by converting T4 to T3. Some doctors adopted these two beliefs. And based on the beliefs, they wouldn’t let their patients use T3 alone. These false beliefs probably contributed to conventional doctors’ rigid use of T4-replacement (patients’ use of T4 alone with their dosages adjusted by their TSH levels). All of this happened despite studies in the 1950s and early 1960 that showed T3 alone was highly effective for patients who failed to benefit from T4 alone or T4/T3 therapy.
Let me illustrate the types of problems that resulted from doctors holding these false beliefs. I used to co-treat patients with a neuropsychiatrist in Houston, Texas. More than once, he expressed frustration at an experience he occasionally had. After he prescribed T3 for depressed and cognitively-impaired hypothyroid patients, endocrinologists would switch them to T4-replacement. The endocrinologists would argue that without taking T4, the patients’ brain cells wouldn’t have enough T3. But soon after being switched to T4, their depression and cognitive dysfunction returned. So, when the patients went back to the neuropsychiatist to complain, he switched them back to T3. Quickly, their depression and cognitive dysfunction cleared up again.
Depressed and bipolar patients with normal TSH should be prescribed T3 supplementation...
The battle isn't over on T3
