Over medicated thyroid effects

[JBL312]

Five days ago I reduced my t3 from 25mcg to 12.5mcg due to the blood results below. I was also getting overheating, sweating, palpitations and insomnia. I am now getting all the above plus headaches, nose bleeds and extreme fatigue. Do you think this is due to the overmedication or the drop?

[shaws Administrator]

Did you allow a gap of 24 hours between your last dose of T3 and the test? Did you get blood drawn at the very earliest, fasting (you can drink water)?

[JBL312 in reply to shaws]

It was 24 hours after my levo and 11 hours after my t3.

[shaws Administrator in reply to JBL312]

I am not medically qualified but, if it was my own test, and I was bleeding from nose (I take T3 only) I would miss one or two day's combination dose plus reduce again the T3 when you start again.

"The following sounds as if you are taking too much'

I was also getting overheating, sweating, palpitations and insomnia".

I would also take one antihistamine in case you're sensitive to something within your tablet. You must be worried but hope it resolves quickly.

[Hashihouseman]

It takes a bit longer to settle ... yes t3 clears in 12-24 hours but the effect on t4 metabolism will take longer to settle. Those blood levels were strong evidence of over replacement particularly t3. T4 was also higher than normal healthy (not lab range, which is different). High t4 could be because of over replacement or under use through less conversion because of excess t3. Dropping the t3 may well have caused discomfort initially because it’s such a powerful thing but that doesn’t mean you needed it!

[JBL312 in reply to Hashihouseman]

So should I just keep on going with the reduction? How long does it take to make a difference to my levels? Thank you for helping.

[Hashihouseman in reply to JBL312]

ok im not medically qualified so I don't know what may be going on with nosebleed as I have no experience of it but my experience after dropping myself from excess t3 is yes big fatigue but with time it settles. we can get a bit hooked on the over stimulation of too much t3 compared to being hypothyroid but its not the good effect as getting it just right!

[JBL312 in reply to Hashihouseman]

Thank you so much for your reply. My blood pressure is a bit high, which could be due to the excess t3 , which may have caused the nosebleeds. The sweating and overheating is still really bad. I’m considering dropping the t3 completely for a few days or would that be a bad idea?

[Hashihouseman in reply to JBL312]

Well generally I wouldn’t make any sudden big changes, that said I have put the breaks on excessive t3 myself quite severely and it actually seemed to push me into making better use of t4...... you could try a bigger drop and then if you feel extremely hypothyroid add a little dose. Personally I never take more than 2.5 mcg t3 in one dose and not more than 7.5 mcg every 24 hrs. After 24 hours of insufficient t3 you should be able to take small doses and feel good effect without the cumulative excess of too much too soon between doses.

[JBL312 in reply to Hashihouseman]

I didn’t take any t3 at all today and yesterday and I’m severely overheating and sweating . Feeling desperately hungry too, like I need sugar. Would dropping it make me feel more over medicated ?

[Hashihouseman in reply to JBL312]

It’s such a complex biology that in my own experience I found hard to figure out what is going in when there are adverse effects. In my experience Big and or sudden changes in thyroid medication should be avoided because there can be destabilising effects that cause many varied signs and symptoms of disruption, it’s not necessarily hyper or hypo but disrupted metabolism. And of course there may be other causes that you may need to seek qualified specialist medical consultation to determine. I have experienced sugar craving when I am under medicated but there can be other causes of that too and thyroid disruption may affect these. I would say, seek endocrinologist support if at all possible and bear in mind you seem to have gone from a large t3 dose to no t3 in a short time, when I did this it hurt! And I realised that I needed to make changes to routine t3 doses very very gradually and even when I did that I didn’t do well without any and so only lasted 6 weeks before gradually re-introducing it albeit at lower level and split doses no bigger than 2.5 mcg. That’s all based on my reactions so please bear in mind we are all potentially different in these things and that each of us may have something else going on that confounds the relationship we are trying to discover in our thyroid doses and our symptoms. We neeed to ask doctors to check out these possibilities. Take care and best of luck.

[shaws Administrator]

Good morning Jonathan 1956.

I would put your question above as a new Post so that you get more responses. I haven't used SRT3. and there are more knowledgeable members who maybe able to answer.

I am assuming your wife must have some resistance as her dose is high.