SUPPLEMENTS or NOT?

[GKeith]

Why is it that thyroid hormones, T4 & T3, for example, are (almost) always measured in micrograms, while vitamin supplements are (almost) always measured in milligrams, a measurement 1,000 times higher than micrograms. How the hell can you take any supplements that way? Of course, your endo, when asked, always says yes, you can take them before you even show them to him?

[helvella Administrator]

In the UK, the principle is that we should try always to avoid numbers after the decimal point. And numbers that are really big.

(Mind, vitamin D is usually in micrograms and/or International Units.)

Take some vitamin such as vitamin B2 - riboflavin. A typical dose might be 100 milligrams. You could equally well call that 100,000 micrograms. But that adds the confusion of a decimal separator. And is much longer. No-one would ever need to consider a dose less than 1 milligram.

Similarly, you might consider a 100 microgram levothyroxine tablet. You could write that as 0.100 milligrams. But that adds a leading zero and a decimal. Which is more complicated. And for 25 micrograms, you could write 0.025 milligrams. Again, more complicated. And - to my eyes - 0.025 milligrams sometimes seems visually larger than 0.100 milligrams! And should you use a zero before the decimal point? 0.025 milligrams or .025 milligrams? 0.100 milligrams or .100 milligrams? Do we really need to make a single speck of ink the ONLY difference between .100 milligrams and 100 milligrams?

The answer is, it is much, much simpler to use nice whole numbers and avoid decimals. So, if needed, use different units!

Some supplement companies love using micrograms when they don't need to. Simply because the numbers look bigger!

[Ellie-Louise in reply to helvella]

That’s a fabulous reply helvella. Makes it very easy to understand, I had always wondered why there were differences too.

[GKeith in reply to helvella]

Sorta like comparing a pound of pebbles to a ton of boulders, before they become rocks.

[Catseyes235 in reply to helvella]

So I could ignore having a TSH of 0.01!! 🤔😀

[PolyannaYorkshire]

Your lucky you have an endo GKeith,🤔

[GKeith in reply to PolyannaYorkshire]

If you knew the damage he's done to my thyroid you wouldn't say that.