Tremors/heart palps on armour

[sandandsea]

I am new here. Decreasing armour after going up, down then up. Tremors and heart palps. I am 68yrs old. Have been on synthroid for 30 years. Trying Armour. Started at 60mg. Fine more energy, sleeping, no fog. After 4 weeks developed palps. 6 weeks really bad so drop to 45. one week later drop to 30. Feeling better after on 30 for 5 days so every 5 days or so added 15mg. At 75 had mild palps. 90 I was a mess. Lots of pain. Tremors. 2 days and back to 75 still no good. Dropped to 45. I feel good on the 30 at 4:00am but go haywire after the 15 at 11:00. Takes 4 hours before I am a bit better. Should I give up? I am very sensitive to meds and always take less than what is adviced. This is very scary.

[shaws Administrator]

Welcome to our forum and am sorry you aren't feeling so well.

Sometimes it takes a while to slowly increase our dose, especially if we're Doing it Ourselves. We can also get into the initial adjusting the dose according to 'how we feel' instead of concentrating upon the dose.

Below is a link by a doctor who was also an Adviser to Thyroiduk.org.uk before his accidental death. He was also a scientist/researcher.

He only took one blood test for the initial diagnosis and thereafter it was small increments of hormones, mainly NDT or T3 for his thyroid hormone resistant patients. I hope this will be helpful for you:_

naturalthyroidsolutions.com...

You don't state how much synthroid you were taking but 100mcg is approx equal to 1 grain of NDT.

This is the method for getting a blood test:-

1. The earliest blood draw.

2. Fasting (you can drink water)

3. Allow 12 hours gap if taking NDT (24 hours if on levo).

I have found that when increasing a dose (I go up by a quarter of a tablet), to keep on this dose for about 3 weeks and take into consideration your symptoms. I was apt (early on in my journey) that to increase/decrease was easy but my body had to get used to a new increase before it settled down.

naturalthyroidsolutions.com...

[sandandsea in reply to shaws]

Thank you. Yes I think when I was trying to raise it back up I rushed it. I thought I had read somewhere that you can’t wait to long to raise it on your will start to pool. This is all very confusing. I am also wondering if I’m having a reaction to the armour.

[Cincolo]

May I ask why you are taking a dose so early in the morning? Do you start your day that early? With the T3 in Armour, it will give you more energy. You may be throwing your body off by taking it that early. What was your Synthroid dose? If you had not taken T3 before, it's recommended you start at a lower dose than the recommended conversion amount to give your body time to adjust to the T3. Then retest in 2 weeks and adjust. Also Armour was modified in 2015 and many did not do well on it afterwards. I was one of the casualties.

[sandandsea in reply to Cincolo]

I had read on the STTM site to split your dose and take some at four and some at 11. I started doing that after four weeks on 60. The palps had started and I was trying to stop them by splitting my dose. I was on 75 Synthroid for many years and my TSH was fine but nothing else was ever tested. Then my TSH went up and the doctor wanted to raise it to 88 at which time I switch doctors to try armour. I am worried that I might not be able to take it as I am sensitive to meds. How do I know and what are my options.?

[Sadie97 in reply to sandandsea]

If you were feeling fine on synthroid why switch to something else.

[sandandsea in reply to Sadie97]

I was not feeling fine. I was not sleeping, tired, cholesterol rising, Reverse T3 rising, osteoporosis, brain fog. No palps tho.

[Lora7again]

Why don't you try a different NDT? I used Thyroid S which I think is a slower release. I worked myself up to 1 1/2 grains a day and not once did I have any palpitions. I took the whole dose first thing in a morning an hour before food with a large glass of water. Infact I have more now I am in remission if I over exert myself and I have to breathe through them and they do eventually pass.