Is this true?

[Clara9]

On a facebook forum for thyroid disorders they recommend ft4 levels to be in bottom half of range with ft3 in upper part when taking both levothyroxine and liothyronine. This they say is because you risk getting high Reverse T3 if ft4 is in upper half of range. Is this true?

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Clara9

It can't be true because everyone is different with their own individual needs. There is absolutely no one-size fits all.

I take Levo plus T3 and if my FT4 is below mid-range it makes me very unwell. I need both FT4 and FT3 reasonably well balanced around the 60-70% mark.

[Digitalbluecat in reply to SeasideSusie]

That'd be "optimal range". My struggle especially using this awful Synthroid. I'm so tired of medicine quality issues.

[radd]

Clara9,

It is true high FT4 & high FT3 can result in elevated RT3 if those levels were too high for that individual but that is certainly not the case for everybody, and elevated RT3 can be the result of many other reasons than where thyroid hormone levels lie.

What is commonly seen is FT4 levels drop anyway in the presence of medicated T3.

[greygoose]

My advice would be to stay off Facebook thyroid forums. In my experience, none of them know what they're talking about. rT3 is not a problem, anyway, it's the result of some sort of problem. It is inert and only stays in the body for a couple of hours before being convert to T2.

[Lalatoot in reply to greygoose]

Thanks Grey - it will amuse me to get on some of the facebook forums and 'educate' them either till they chuck me out or I get bored. Got to be done!!!

[greygoose in reply to Lalatoot]

Yeah, I tried that. It didn't end well. There was a really good US forum on there - until they took on a 12 year-old admin who kept quoting STTM at me, and eventually said 'this forum isn't for ignorant newbies, it's for experienced people.' I wrote to the owner of the page to complain and then left. So sad.

[DippyDame]

"They say...."

Hardly a reliable source!

"They" clearly do not know that everyone is different with different needs so cannot be fitted tightly into convenient tick boxes!

Instead, it involves a patchwork of many solutions and when medics fail to understand this it causes problems for thyroid patients.

Particularly those whose systems refuse to follow what medics see as the text book examples!

There are a lot of us!

rT3 is not the problem it is far too often flagged up to be.

This may interest you

thyroidpatients.ca/2019/11/...

[Hunny_BEE in reply to DippyDame]

this link is very helpful!

[Clara9]

Thanks all! It was as I suspected then. I even asked for a reference to this statement but nobody provided one.

[guysgrams]

I take a combo and my FT3 is not quite 2/3 through range and my FT4 is just in range and I feel great. No issues at all. Everyone is different.