I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice about what to do re. racing heart.
Up until 10 days ago I was taking 150mcg Levo plus 300mcg Thyrogold, still not feeling 100%, tired, gaining weight despite being very careful and weighing/tracking food intake. I had my bloods done on 8th Jan (attached). I began supplementing Vit d (mouth spray) and taking Berserker undefatted desiccated liver for iron.
I've been struggling to get hold of Thyrogold because stocks are low due to covid - so I swapped back to T4 + T3 (from tablets I had from taking t3 previously). I have read people who have been in contact with Tammy Lowe state that 300mcg of Thyrogold contains 100mcg t4 and 25 mcg T3. To be cautious in swapping over I started with 175mcg Levo (because I was already taking 150mcg in addition to Thryo) and 20mcg T3.
On Saturday evening, 2 days after starting the new dose, I had a whole night where I couldn't sleep - but otherwise felt fine. But 48 hours ago I started with a very fast heart rate even as I sit and type now my heart rate is 97bpm according to my fitbit, I have check my pulse with blood pressure monitor and manually and they're all the same. I feel quite anxious with occasional adrenalin rushes. Even making a cup of tea shoots my HR up to 120+bpm.
I haven't taken any medication last night or the night before because I was worried I was overmedicated - however it doesn't seem to be having any impact on my racing heart rate. I'm not sure how to proceed from here - could it be that my own thyroid has some how kicked in after 10 years and now I'm hyper? Or that I'm undermedicated and need to take my meds. I'm not sure what to do. I'm also concerned about going to my GP because they've been worse than useless - they usually say that the fatigue and weight gain is my age (I'm 37) and they're always trying to reduce my levo becuase the TSH is supressed - so I'm concerned if I go to them with these symptoms they'll just make a kneejerk decision which may not be correct.
Apologies for the ramble - if anyone has any advice or similar experiences I'd love to hear them.
Thanks in advance,
Katy
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katyfow
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After I diagnosed myself with hypo, I was forever in/out of A&E (uually middle of night) and had heart monitors etc. Eventually the cardiologist said he was puzzled and was considering putting an implant into my heart 'to see what was going on'. When T3 was added to T4 symptoms resolved and I then stopped T4 and took T3 alone. I am fine thankfully. I didn't need an implant in heart and never consulted the cardiologist again.
Hi Shaws thank you for your reply. That's really interesting - a heart implant 'to see what's going on' sounds extreme! That's brilliant you've got to the right medication and dosage eventually - gives me hope! I'm not sure whether I should stop or continue taking my meds - I feel like I don't know which way is up at the moment.
Considering that a dysfunctional thyroid isn't running our whole body - from head to toe - is why we no longer pay for any additionals prescriptions for any other diseases we may have/develop.
This is due to the dire situation people in the past had to accept before a brilliant doctor thought that it was the thyroid gland that was causing terrible symptoms/death.
"The last part of the 19th century was a period of great achievements in medicine and endocrinology. The thyroid gland evolved from being considered a rudimentary structure to an organ related to specific diseases. The singular importance of iodine became acknowledged. Graves-Basedow's disease was described. Surgical treatment evolved with extraordinary speed. Theodor Kocher observed that the clinical picture in patients after total thyroidectomy was similar to the one seen in cretinism. In 1850, the first case of hypothyroidism or myxedema was described. Less than 50 years later, effective treatment was introduced. Another 50 years later, autoimmune thyroiditis was ascertained as the most frequent cause of hypothyroidism (in areas with no iodine deficiency). This paper gives a short survey of the history of hypothyroidism and its treatment.
1. Introduction
During the 50 years preceding World War I, medicine saw a wealth of new ideas and novel procedures, not in the least within the field of endocrinology.
Among major achievements of this period were the recognition of the importance of the pituitary gland, first suggested by Oscar Minkowski (1858–1931) [1] and introduction of pituitary surgery [2]—not only for pituitary tumors but also as treatment of acromegaly [3]; the delineation of hypopituitarism as a nosological entity [4]; the discovery in 1877 (by a medical student) of the parathyroid glands [5] and recognition of their vital importance [6]; introduction of thyroid surgery, pioneered by Rehn [7], Theodor Billroth [8] and above all Theodor Kocher (1841–1917) [9]; Minkowski’s demonstration that pancreatectomy swiftly leads to severe diabetes mellitus [10]. Halban [11] and Knauer [12] performed important experiments demonstrating that chemical substances controlling menstruations were released from the ovary. Similarly, Reinke [13] and Bouin and Ancel [14] proposed that testis was a gland with internal secretion—studies that were the vanguard of an impressive number of investigations on the relationship between the pituitary and the gonads [15]. The first hormone was synthesized (adrenaline or epinephrine) by Jokichi Takamine (1854–1922) in 1901 [16]. What was probably the supreme feat of the epoch took place on January 16, 1902 when William Bayliss (1860–1924) and Ernest Henry Starling (1866–1927) for the first time UK witnessed the effect of a substance later to be identified as a hormone (secretin) [17].
There was virtually no endocrine organ that did not become object of intensive investigation. It became clear that diseases of the thyroid gland affect a large number of patients.
In this paper, we briefly review how knowledge of the classical thyroid disease, then myxedema, now hypothyroidism, evolved.
Thank you Shaws that’s really interesting, I had a click through to the journal as well - it looks like a very useful resource I’ll do some more research.
Hi katyfow, I can't comment at all on your medication regime because that's not something I have experience with, but I just wanted to tell you my experience because in some ways it was similar - a few months ago I was taking T4+T3 and very suddenly ended up having too much T3 in my system (I seem to have fixed my conversion problems by going gluten free). That was pretty horrible - crazy insomnia, palpitations, anxiety, et cetera. I was awake and alert during the day despite not sleeping much at all.
Feeling overmedicated isn't something I had ever experienced before, so I got pretty scared! I stopped T3 but still felt way off, anxious and a fast heart rate, so I decreased my T4 as well. My heart rate was faster for a long time, though not as fast as yours I think. It turns out that my T4 was actually too low rather than too high (bottom of the range), while my T3 was around mid-range (probably had never been there before, unfortunately I don't have much data on that). I have slowly been increasing my T4 and the palpitations are going away. My heart rate is back to normal.
I'm sorry I can't give much advice about your situation. But I know how uncomfortable you're feeling. I hope you feel better soon.
Hi WhyAmISoTired thank you so much for your reply, it’s really helpful to hear about your experience - it’s so scary. I’ve had 10 years of trying different medications and doses but I’ve never felt over medicated or experienced this false pulse before (at least never for such a long period of time) and it’s thrown me for a loop. It’s good to hear what the cause of yours was though and that you managed to get sorted. I need to do some more investigating to find out what’s going on I guess 😊
The only thing that scares me about taking T3 only is consistency of supply and not being able to get hold of it when I need to. Have you found this to be a problem Shaws?
Never supplement iron without doing full iron panel test for anaemia first
Eating iron rich foods like liver or liver pate once a week plus other red meat, pumpkin seeds and dark chocolate, plus daily orange juice or other vitamin C rich drink can help improve iron absorption
This is interesting because I have noticed that many patients with Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, start to feel worse when their ferritin drops below 80 and usually there is hair loss when it drops below 50.
Thyroid disease is as much about optimising vitamins as thyroid hormones
Hi SlowDragon thank you for your reply and all of the information! No I’m not vegetarian or vegan - I eat meat frequently I’m not sure what the cause of my low ferritin is. Although I do have very heavy menses (which I think may be thyroid related too) and that may be the cause. This is not the first time my ferritin has dipped this low (I brought it back up with lots of liver and black pudding) but it doesn’t stay there - the last time it was low I had a full iron panel Total Iron Binding Capacity TIBC 64.6 umol/L (41 - 77)
Unsaturated Iron Binding Capacity UIBC 54.6 umol/L (24.2 - 70.1)
Ferritin 19.9 umol/L (13 - 400)
Iron 10 umol/L (5.8 - 34.5)
Transferrin Saturation 15.48% (20 - 55)
The mouth spray is Vivanta 3000iu - I haven’t been taking magnesium but I will start adding it in. I have Igennus Super B in the cupboard, I’ll add that in too.
In the meantime would you hold the medication and dose where it is while trying to bring all of the vits and minerals into range?
Igennus Super B is good quality and cheap vitamin B complex. Contains folate. Full dose is two tablets per day. Many/most people may only need one tablet per day. Certainly only start on one per day (or even half tablet per day for first couple of weeks)
Or Thorne Basic B is another option that contain folate, but is large capsule
If you are taking vitamin B complex, or any supplements containing biotin, remember to stop these 7 days before ALL BLOOD TESTS , as biotin can falsely affect test results
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