Hi guys, I hope everyone is keeping safe and well!
I took the plunge and started taking T3 back in November. I had RAI to zap my thyroid years ago and became poorly soon after and have been since. It was suggested I try T3.
Long story short, I am currently on 112mcg levo and 25mcg T3.
I reduced the T3 to 12.5mcg a couple of weeks ago I was becoming oddly clumsy and the heart palpitations were too frightening.
The heart symptoms I was getting from the T3 have reduced a lot thankfully but I still feel quite rough as always. I don't seem to have noticed an improvement.
I have read that if T3 doesn't seem to work for you, it could be a cortisol issue. I have the saliva test ready to go.
I took half my T3 the day before the test and half before I went to bed. Took test first thing as always.
Do you guys have any advice for me with regards to dosing moving forward? I was hoping I would notice an improvement as I know T3 works wonders for some. I am starting to think my problems lie elsewhere...
Keep safe guys and thanks in advance for any tips and advice!
Written by
cazmania7
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Absolutely address your liver. I don't visit the boards often but when I do, I have to tell everyone, the liver is an underlying issue for many problems and symptoms. Anyone with an autoimmune disease or a thyroid disorder has to address their liver.
Methylation has become a really big problem. It used to be an issue for elderly people, just something that happens when our bodies get older and everything slows down. Now, people have sluggish livers when they are young and it's typically from our ridiculous diets. I don't just mean eating junk, I mean the chemicals, eating anything that's not organic really isn't all that safe.
Your liver has to metabolize iron and vitamin D and other fat soluble vitamins, B12, and also your thyroid meds! If it isn't working properly, you will have nutrient deficiencies and your medication will not work optimally.
Your liver can be a source of all kinds of issues, autoimmune diseases, any type of inflammation, heart issues, basically name a symptom and your liver can be one of the underlying issues.
I came to these boards for support and information, and I've received a lot of support. But I found out recently that my experience and knowledge as a nutritionist was the key to the information I've needed all along. And one of those things was the liver has to be healed. No exceptions.
Liver supporting nutrients and herbs, a very mild detox for your liver, and a meal plan that helps to support the liver and also is anti-inflammatory....all a must.
Even a person who has no serious issues may have a methylation problem. Healing the liver is a no-brainer for really anyone.
People who think they can't tolerate T3 sometimes will find they do tolerate it quite well when their liver is functioning properly. You may not need the high doses of thyroid med that many doctors claim you need. I take 10 micrograms of T3 a day, and that's it. I take no T4 and I had radioiodine therapy on my thyroid over a year ago. I have absolutely no thyroid function left and I'm surviving and feeling fantastic on 10 micrograms a day of T3. Prior to healing my liver, I was taking almost 75 micrograms of T3 a day and it was barely helping me.
That would be my advice for a way to move forward!
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. It’s great to hear your inspiring and positive experience.
I absolutely know that my diet hinders rather than heals. I will look into what you have suggested. I’m taking vitamin c and magnesium and getting lots of sun to help with the vitamin D too.
I wish you well. Sounds like you are already there 😀
You're very welcome. Yes, things are looking up and I feel great right now, but have to remind myself that it doesn't mean everything is perfect yet. I will still have bad days just like everybody else. I started advising the local functional medicine doctor with ways to heal the liver and others are benefiting from the plan. And that's what I want, for people to be healed and to feel good. It's amazing how great our bodies work when we do the right thing. I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I went through the last year and a half. When I say that I almost died, I mean it quite literally. And everyone isn't going to heal as quickly as I did, but I promise you you will heal if you do the right things.
Yep, gluten free. And I'm on an individualized anti-inflammatory diet. However, what many people on the internet claim to be anti-inflammatory are not good anti-inflammatory diets. Eliminating tomatoes is sometimes a mistake, even though some nutritionists will claim all nightshade's are inflammatory. That really isn't true. Anyway, if you have any questions feel free to ask me any time.
Lol I’ve seen those diets. They don’t look like much fun and I’m a bit of a pig if I’m honest. I bet you can’t even have a gluten free dominos can you?!
Lol nope. Yeah, they aren't fun, at first, trust me. And I LOVE food. One of the ways I wrecked myself was eating whatever the heck I wanted and drinking wine whenever I felt like it. Lol. But, I wanted to heal and refused to live with a "disease" so that just became more important to me I guess. I still do eat a lot, but it's good stuff and I'm back down to my high school weight. I'm not going to lie though, I would love to just eat a whole pizza right now.
Something tough is I own a small winery and of course I have to taste the wine as we are making certain batches. Even though my wine is organic, the alcohol still has inflammatory effect. But what can you do? Lol.
Wow a winery!! How cool is that. Well, a sip here and there, I am sure that’s good for you!
I don’t drink anymore. It used to get my into trouble! I gave up smoking too so apart from the food I am angelic!
Are you dairy free too? I managed DF GF for about a month and then I caved. Plus I was worried about supplies and filled cupboards with normal stuff, just in case...prior to COVID I had emptied the cupboards of all non GF stuff. Ah well!!
I know what you mean on the covid-19 thing, it's like we weren't sure what was going to happen.
That's great you don't drink or smoke anymore.
No I'm not dairy-free. But I don't drink pasteurized and homogenized milk from the grocery. I try to do raw goat's milk and I also drink a small amount of goat's milk kefir everyday. I drink an organic cow's milk from the local food store too, just once a week or so. And there is no way I would be able to stay away from cheese. I absolutely love aged cheese and I'm able to eat it a couple times a week. Have to kind of limit the dairy but if you don't have a full-blown allergy to it, you can manage to keep it in your diet.
I do hear a lot of good stuff about kefir and drank it for a bit. But I do wonder whether we should be consuming these products. Love cheese though. Who doesn’t 😂 🧀
Kefir is definitely not for everyone. It made me feel funny at first and I questioned whether I should be drinking it lol. I don't have a link to a website because my functional medicine dr. helped me to create my meal plan. But I would be more than happy to send you a message with a list of everything I eat and the things that I absolutely had to eliminate.
I can also send you some information on how I addressed my liver, the herbs and supplements, etc. If you are interested. Stop The Thyroid Madness does have some information on methylation although I don't know what their approach is to healing the liver.
There are two doctors online who have websites and information that is very similar to what my functional medicine doctor has taught me, and very similar to the meal plans that we created for myself and his other patients. Dr. Patrick Flynn and Dr. David Jockers are the two who have very similar approaches, although everything they teach is not exactly similar to what I follow. But that's to be expected.
Thanks for your reply. I have found Dr Jockers website which has lots of information so I will go and take a good look around there. I know that I need to address my diet and was doing ok until the lurgy came along. I’ll get back onboard then GF train at the very least!
I had Vit D and B12 tested 3months ago but not since due to funds. Only got this test as it was on sale.
I took the plunge and was gluten and dairy free for just over a month. But then what with everything happening it went out the window. Started stocking up on normal stuff, just in case of doomsday!!
I am planning on doing it again though. I didn’t notice a difference but I think I was eating more healthily and that’s good in itself.
So this blood test is from when you were on 112 T4 and 25 T3 ?
Were there any vitamins and mineral results for ferritin, folate, B12 and vitamin D ?
It does show a heavily weighted T3 compared to T4 - most people tend to feel well with a ratio of 3.5 - 4.5 : Yours is coming in at around 2.6. ( simply divide the T3 into the T4 ) .
Your T3 is coming in at about 60% through the range but your T4 is at about 17 %.
These should be better balanced - so it's good you dropped that T3 dose down and would suggest you look at conversion issues possibly associated with low nutrient levels.
Oh, ok then, so this result represents 6 weeks on 112 T4 and 12.50 T3 ?
So, I'd be inclined to drop a little T3 and add in a little T4 - but think until your vitamins and minerals are optimal, you may not see much improvement.
I found 12.50 T3 too much with my 100mcg of Levothyroxine - and became very unwell :
It took over a week for my levels to come down, and over 2 weeks after this did I feel nearly normal and totally frightened myself - whatever that is !!!!
I then tried NDT and haven't really looked back, so far, so good, but still supplementing daily, certain vitamins and minerals, and adrenal glandular to compensate for the damage RAI and NHS treatment has left me to cope with.
I take Nutri advanced adrenal extra - referred to as NAX - it contains the gland plus a vitamin and mineral complex as recommended in Barry Durrant - Peatfield' s book :-
Your Thyroid and How to keep it Healthy.
It does sound strange, I suppose, as we now don't have this amazing little gland to keep healthy, but the book is an excellent source on all things thyroid and we need to know all of this so we can try and compensate accordingly.
The author is a doctor who has hypothyroidism and takes NDT who resigned from the profession as he was ostracised for continuing to prescribe NDT to his patients, against guidelines suggesting he should switch patients to Levothyroxine.
I knew as I read his book my adrenals were " on the floor " I didn't need a test to tell me this. After a couple of months I felt my achey achey lower back ease and still take a maintenance dose, as adrenals work alongside, supporting the thyroid and I realised they too had taken a hit from the RAI and under medication that followed throughout my NHS treatment.
Thanks slow. I was on 125mcg levo for years. When I dropped it right down to 100 I felt rough so I don’t think it’ll do harm to go back to to 125mcg and test again.
I was told T3 lowers T4 but it does seem too low so I’ll do what you suggest 😀
I am reluctant to increase the T3 again after the symptoms but I might play around with splitting the dose after two months of increasing the levo. Splitting isn’t that practical for me with work etc though lol.
Yes I was on 125mcg for decades...when endo added T3 Levo was reduced to 100mcg ....but after 3 months Ft4 was too low. I initially increased to 112mcg (and retested 8 weeks later) and ended up back on 125mcg.
I take 20mcg T3 as split dose .....but only started on 2 x 5mcg
Dose wasn’t increased up until after about 10 or 12 weeks.
“To explain this paper briefly, the DIO2 gene activates tri-iodothyronine (T3) and the researchers found that a tiny fault in this gene could mean that although the body gets enough T3, the brain doesn’t.”
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