This article on low dose T3 usage is brilliant. It sums up very simply what Ken Blanchard talks about in his books. But it gives a bigger insight into who Ken was and how low dose T3 usage developed (and why it hasn't taken off like the Wilson protocol).
Some on here may know i have banged on about lower dose T3 usage for many years. I also feel it is important to find the lowest T4 dose as well for your body.
Anyway happy reading.
Did you read the comments below it? There are about 3 or 4. The last one seems to indicate that the writer has since written elsewhere that T3 in any size dose isn't helping him.
It's not a lot of use to us anyway as we can't get such tiny amounts of T3 and it's hard enough cutting the tablets into 4 let alone further.
From the linked page:
What we really need is manufactured slow release Cytomel at doses of 0.1/0.3/0.5/1.0 mcg.
When you are dealing with such tiny doses, there is a danger that T3, as an impurity or breakdown product in ordinary levothyroxine, could be present in similar or greater quantities!
I think most official pharmaceutical bodies allow up to 1% of the claimed potency of T4 to exist as impurity. That could be as much as 1 microgram in a 100 microgram tablet.
"Allowing" does not mean it does exist! But it does mean that, in the real world, you cannot know if it does, or does not, exist in the tablet in front of you. From one batch to another, from one time to another, from one make to another.
I'd be surprised if the pharmaceutical companies wanted any to be present. After all, if you usually have, say 0.5 micrograms, occasionally you could find more there and exceed the specification. Better to have from undetectable to a small fraction of the amount allowed.
But if the amount of an impurity is similar to that in an intended dose, it means that the amount being taken could vary by a substantial percentage. And you don't know.
This does not mean tiny doses of T3 are necessarily bad or wrong. But they are difficult to manage reliably. Some patients might already be receiving as much T3 without knowing it.
There is no one killer fix all, but understanding the process about how thyroid hormone works is explained really well in the article and it might just help someone out there who is using to much to reduce down.
The fact the author didnt find any answer with it is not really relevant.
I feel very strongly about using to much thyroid hormone because this is something i have run into. I worked it out by myself before i read Dr Blanchards book, so for me LESS thyroid hormone works much better than MORE. It is a very common issue.
I was fortunate enough to have been a patient of the late Dr. Blanchard and currently, I’m a patient of his successor, Dr. Katz.
Low dose T3 in combination with Levothyroxine is working well for me. It was a rocky road getting here due to the fact that when I initially tried T3, I had side effects from filler ingredients and didn’t realize it. At the time I simply didn’t think T3 worked for me so I gave up on it. Turns out I’m VERY sensitive to fillers and therefore have to find the purest forms of meds and supps. Once I came to this realization, I tried T3 in many forms.
I currently take low dose T3 in the form of a transdermal cream, in combination with levothyroxine (name brand Tirosint).
I didn't know you could get T3 in a cream....If it's very very low dose , does that mean it's not on prescription ?
I don't think it is available within the UK so unlikely that anyone has actually made any decisions - so would be prescription-only, I guess, unless and until decided otherwise.
Can increase skin thickness and hairiness. 
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/115...
as in " it works Jim , but not where you want it " ? I cant imagine much of it gets anywhere else in the body if its put on the skin... having said that , i could do with some thicker skin on my hands ...
This is a fundamental issue with many topical preparations - getting the substance (whatever it is) around the rest of the body.
Loads of ironies. Like the way ibuprofen gels were promoted as operating where they are applied, but they actually do get everywhere. Including the stomach where they can have pretty much exactly the same side effects as ibuprofen tablets.
Whereas some other substances increase concentration in the layers of the skin but hardly beyond.
Interesting reading. Adding 1/4 of ndt to my levo makes noticeable diffrence . Also interesting that her TSH was completely normal. 1.2. Which is what mine was and yet I had severe hypo symptoms that are relieved by thyroid meds. I wish someone looked at hypothyroidism with brand new eyes. The whole understanding of the disease is wrong.
It's very refreshing to hear that Dr Blanchard's theory that a tiny dose of T3/NDT goes a long way for many thyroid patients. Many of us who are totally reliant on our thyroid meds from a bottle and can not find our sweet spot. Dr Blanchard was spot on for me from my own experiences. Personally I do better with higher T4 meds and a very tiny T3/NDT dose added to the mix.
I respect thyroid patients that may and do better with higher doses T3/NDT or just T3 and /or just a small added dose of T4 to their T3/NDT mix .
From my experiences with higher dose T3/NDT I experienced muscle/joint pain making it difficult for me to climb stairs, brain fug , tiredness, oestrogen dominant , with lack of filter on my mouth.
Taking stock with each thyroid dose /changes helps one find what works best individually.
Some years ago, Dr Lowe wrote this:
Thyroid Science 3(1):C1-2, 2008
Dr. Kenneth Blanchard’s False Beliefs About T3 Therapy
Dr. John C. Lowe
Yesterday, January 10, 2008, I received the following question from a person expressing concern about his use of T3 alone. I’m responding to his question in this newsletter because I often receive similar emails expressing the same concern. Their concern always arises because of an opinion of some doctors about the use of T3 alone. The doctors’ opinion is wrong, as I explain in my reply to this troubled gentleman.
Question: I’m a confused thyroid patient. Thyroid experts say so many things that conflict with what others say that I don’t know who to believe. Armour and Levoxyl didn’t work for me, so my doctor, who has read your studies on T3, has been treating me with Cytomel for several years. It gave my life back. Last night, however, I read Dr. Kenneth Blanchard’s answer to a woman named Annie who asked him how he feels about prescribing T3. If he is right, I’m afraid I’m heading for trouble with Cytomel. I am concerned, so I’ll be grateful if you’ll respond to his answer to Annie:
"The important thing in prescribing a thyroid hormone is that you have to attain the right T3 in the body. I don't think that anyone is well served by using T3 only. Dr. Wilson published a book in 1991 called Wilson's Syndrome. This book is interesting in that it has many pages of glowing testimonial letters. The problem is that T3 slowly lowers the balance in the body. T4 levels fall slowly in the tissues. The patient feels better for a few months but then they [sic] crash. I guarantee that no one can take only T3 for very long. [Italics mine.]
Dr. Lowe: First I want to say that I admire Dr. Blanchard, an endocrinologist, for some of his points of view. In the first edition of Mary Shomon’s Living Well with Hypothyroidism, Dr. Blanchard and I were the two doctors she heavily quoted. Since reading some of his statements in her book, I’ve felt that he is courageous for thinking outside the fault-laden belief-box of conventional endocrinology. Some of his beliefs are scientifically sound.
That said, I want to emphasize that his statements about using T3 alone are balderdash. I simply don’t understand how he could publicly express such nonsense.
Dr. Blanchard refers to Dr. Denis Wilson’s book containing "glowing testimonials" about T3 therapy. I will give you a testimonial of my own, but first let me make something clear: In my book The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia, I document that some of Dr. Wilson’s beliefs are so contrary to scientific evidence that they are simply nutty—as nutty as Dr. Blanchard’s beliefs about T3 therapy. Except for Dr. Wilson’s advocacy of T3 therapy, I adamantly disagree with many of his views. On the other hand, my own testimonial about T3 could fit right into his book.
My testimonial about using T3 alone makes Dr. Blanchard patently wrong or me psychotically deluded. He wrote in his answer to Annie that he doesn’t think anyone is well served by using T3 alone. Despite that, we have a massive research literature on patients with thyroid hormone resistance. That literature shows that most of the patients are served well by no thyroid hormone therapy other than T3 alone. If Dr. Blanchard questions this, he should read my extensive chapter in The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia on the science and treatment of thyroid hormone resistance.
Here, though, I’ll say that T3 alone has served me very well for twenty-three years. My father and some of his siblings committed suicide, and I’m convinced that their deaths were from depression due to thyroid hormone resistance. He took his own life at age twenty-eight only three years after T3 was discovered, so the hormone wasn’t available clinically to avert his early demise. I have been more fortunate. Unlike my father, I had the help of a wise psychiatrist and the research conducted by psychiatric investigators in the 1970s. That research showed the effectiveness of T3 therapy in relieving many patients’ depression. Because of my long-term use of T3 alone, I’ve long been free from the desire to exterminate myself—a desire that dominated half my thoughts from my earliest memories as a boy until I began using T3 alone.
Is Dr. Blanchard right and I psychotically out of touch with reality? Have I not been "well served by using T3 only"? I’ll put it this way: Before my use of T3, I was crippled at doing math, as well as most other intellectual tasks. Since using T3 alone, my major past time has been the highly technical practice of mathematical logic. In this practice, I reduce arguments to symbolic notation using quantifiers and analyze them for validity using rules of inference. I do this in a quantificational language that would take most highly intelligent people years to learn, as it did me. Dr. Blanchard would undoubtedly argue that my long use of T3 has impaired my mental faculties. But the truth is, T3 has given me a razor-sharp mind; I know this from the brief times I’ve been off T3. Each time, the familiar thick mental fog ensheaths me again, causing me to back away from my dry erase boards, unable to quantitatively express and analyze arguments. In view of this personal history, I humbly contend that it is Dr. Blanchard who is wrong.
I want to repeat a statement he made in his reply to Annie: "The patient feels better for a few months but then they [sic] crash. I guarantee that no one can take only T3 for very long." [Italics mine.] As a thyroid hormone resistance researcher, I have for many years followed patients who have used T3 alone, some for up to seventeen years. And, of course, I’ve followed myself for a full twenty three. Have we "crashed," as Dr. Blanchard claims we inevitably will? Absolutely not! My follow-up of long-term T3 users shows that most are healthier than people in general. And this is true of myself now within two weeks of the age of sixty-two.
Dr. Blanchard’s "guarantee that no one can take only T3 for very long" is as concretely false as the claim that the earth is flat. At the time he made his should-be-embarrassing statements about T3, he apparently hadn’t bothered to read the scientific literature that proves him wrong. But that’s okay; I always stand ready to show him that my long-term use of T3 alone has not in the least hampered my health and vigor. I’m always ready to arm wrestle him or take him on in a long race up the side of any mountain. However, rather than arm wrestling or racing, he would do better to study The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia, or at least the T3 literature in PubMed. If he did, he would probably revise his beliefs about the use of T3. By doing so, he would far better serve the interests of patients like you.
At any rate, I hope you don’t let Dr. Blanchard’s mistaken beliefs instill you with fear. And I sincerely wish you the very best with the extraordinary health you’re likely to enjoy, as I have, through your continued use of T3 alone.
Giving the Dr John Lowe middle of the night single T3 dose a go!
Update: T3 usage & monitoring by NHS 
T3 only and low dose NDT
Lowering T3 dose- feel really weird. (Take T3 only not T4)
