My NDT is working really well for my body (losing weight, hair not falling out, energy is up, skin softer etc.) but I have extreme anxiety, agitation making focus difficult, and some insomnia is also creeping in.
I just found out I have a high reverse t3. I don’t want to post my labs because I’m obviously under medicated, and don’t want people to get distracted saying that when I really would just love the cortisol advice, but I am definitely very hypo atm .
So - I want very much to remain on NDT - but I need to know how to lower my cortisol. Please share with me, if you’d like to, how you lowered your cortisol effectively to tolerate thyroid meds.
I know I could do that but I spent 10 years on multiple different psych meds (even anti-psychotics) and I feel it just covers the problem instead of dealing with it.
Yes, there is a very fine line between optimal dosage and anxiety. As they decrease or increase anxiety appears. One day I'm fine, another day I'm not. This is what I meant.
No problem. Yesterday I drove all day and I wrote on the go while I was behind the wheel, I didn't remember. I've crossed half of Europe, I'm on vacation.
Yes… similar to my response above really. I don’t want to medicate over things, I did that for years and years. I’d rather actually address the high cortisol, but if there are no herbs etc. that can help I’ll just take the anti-depressants and be done with it because this isn’t tolerable.
Also… the whole reason I want to get optimal on thyroid meds to get rid of my psych symptoms 😟 will they subside if I take the medications alongside the NDT?
This is counterintuitive but you could be overdosed with thyroid hormone. Your body is choosing to get rid of the excess T4 by converting it to RT3. This could be the reason for your high cortisol.
You end up more hypo because high FT3 levels can upregulate D3 enzyme. D3 can take apart and inactivate your T3 hormone after it enters cells but before it can get to the nuclear receptors, causing more empty T3 receptors. D3 enzyme is also what converts the T4 to RT3.
To find out if this is what is happening try reducing your NDT. If this also reduces your anxiety and your insomnia then you'll know you are going in the right direction.
In a situation like this you can't trust your numbers because they are not representative of your dosage and what is going on inside your cells. When D3 is upregulated it skews everything. Overdose can result in hypo. You have to trust how you feel.
I feel very hypo. I have weight gain, no period, hair loss, dry skin, poor memory and recall. I definitely don’t think I am hyper or being over treated, my tsh is 8. But thank you for the suggestion
Have you had any tests of your cortisol? There is a lot of overlap between symptoms of low and high cortisol. You can't just assume your cortisol is high or low, you will have to test.
The best kind of test is a 4-part saliva test. I don't know where you live, but if you live in the UK these two tests are the best ones because they both measure cortisol in saliva and include a test result for DHEA.
Dealing with regenerus is straightforward. You buy the test, get sent a test kit through the post, send the samples back to the lab and then wait for your results to be sent to you via email.
Genova is a bit more problematic. They refuse to deal directly with the public, so it has to be done under the auspices of Thyroid UK.
More info on both the above tests is given on this link. Read the sections on both Regenerus and Genova. :
Note that there are other companies that do saliva cortisol tests but they don't include a test result for DHEA. They also have reference ranges which are bizarre. For example they have some reference ranges that start at 0. Having a cortisol of zero is never healthy. Another problem is that some companies can't measure really small amounts of cortisol. So, you might end up with a (made up example) result of < 3 for the amount of cortisol, while the reference range is < 2.
I had high cortisol. I tried various supplements to reduce it. The only thing that worked for me was Holy Basil supplements in a very high dose (at least to start with). I reduced my dose very slowly, and have now reached minimum dose (1 capsule per evening)
Please can I ask, is it better to take the tablet in the morning when my cortisol is super high? Will it have any better effect please? I’ve been trying to bring my cortisol down for two years now and have made little progress
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