Liothyronine newb

[MajawithaJ]

I posted earlier today about advice for taking Liothyronine. Since then, I have taken my first dose of 2.5mcg capsule and instantly felt weird. Headachey, inside of ears were hurting, felt dizzy and nauseous. I went back to the pharmacy to ask for the leaflet as I didn’t get one with my ‘special’ made up bottle & she said that it could be to do with the fact that I’ve taken a dose with my old Levo dose of 100mcg and when I start with the 75mcg Levo tomorrow, it hopefully won’t be as bad. I know that it’s only the first dose & T3 is pretty instant but is it going to get better?

I’m slightly freaking out as I need to take the kids to school in the morning and I’m worried that I’ll feel like this again!

What were your first experiences with it?

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Ideally you should reduce levothyroxine to 75mcg for 2-4 days before adding T3

Suggest you don’t add T3 tomorrow

Usually only get a bit of reaction for first few doses

[MajawithaJ in reply to SlowDragon]

Thank you, that makes sense. I will try that.

[JAmanda]

My experience was exactly that. It took me a few goes to get my body to accept it over some months taking 2.5/5/10 split over a day - and actually I had to take 20mcg before my body said ‘oh that’s good thx.’ Try not to panic and stick with it I’d say. I ts annoying that docs give you no idea you’ll likely have a reaction to T3. It’s a powerful drug. I’m not in the school that suggests you reduce Levo as you then can’t tell whether your symptoms are due to lack of t4 or the new T3.

[jgelliss in reply to JAmanda]

That was exactly my experience. Lowering my T4 was causing me many symptoms too. Felt brain foggy ,muscle/joint pain. In my case lowering the T4 when adding T3 was not conducive . I also found that nutrients is extremely important here too. Vitamin D, B-Complex,B-12, Iron. Did you also find that nutrients are very helpful for you as well?

[JAmanda in reply to jgelliss]

I don’t know really. I did take all the right good supplements and increased T3 so yes they seemed to work together but months later when I had stopped supplementing my levels all stayed high. But before I had high T3 it didn’t matter how much magnesium or folate I took I simply couldn’t raise the levels. My whole system is better on high in range T3 - daily BMs, good albumin levels, no migraines… etc. Still got loads of other probs but I guess not thyroid related - just age.

[Localhero]

I also had a real struggle to get my body to accept T3 to start with. I think it had been so deprived, even small doses had the effect of making me feel weird to start with. I now take 7.5 split into 3 lots of 2.5 over the day.

[MajawithaJ]

Thank you all. That’s so reassuring to hear, my immediate thought was “I can’t have this each time I take a dose” and just thought it’s such a small dose why I’m I having such a reaction, am I allergic?? It actually reminded me of the worst time pre thyroidectomy when I was hyper. But like you say it might be sheer deprivation, as my body’s only had about 30% of T3 from T4 since my thyroidectomy back in 2019.

I didn’t have good night’s sleep and didn’t take it this morning, just took the 75mcg Levo and then possibly start properly tomorrow to get the 100mcg of Levo dose out of the system if that makes sense.

[Summer64]

I only had good experiences right from the start but my levo was reduced to 75mcg from 100 mcg and 10mcg of T3 was added. I don't know where you are but when I had to buy some from abroad a different make gave me your sort of symptoms so it may be something else that's causing it. You mention capsules. I've never had capsules.

[MajawithaJ in reply to Summer64]

I think it’s because it’s such a small dose, they made up a capsule of 2.5 mcg out of ground tablets. It seems like most people get tablets and cut them in half. Great to hear you had good experience, I’m hoping that will happen for me once things even out a bit.

[Summer64 in reply to MajawithaJ]

That sounds an odd way for a pharmacist to go about it. You can't be sure what dose you are really getting

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to MajawithaJ]

Presumably this is private prescription?

Cheapest option for T3 is 20mcg tablets and cut into 1/4’s

Thybon Henning 20mcg tablets are 50p per tablet from specialist pharmacies in U.K.

thyroiduk.org/if-you-are-hy...

NHS prescription options

20mcg - Morningside healthcare, Teva or Mercury Pharma

10mcg and 5mcg tablets- Morningside healthcare brand only

[MajawithaJ in reply to SlowDragon]

It was an NHS prescription. Thank you for listing those.