I've started Armour thyroid. My first dose I take at 7.30am (on waking) and have breakfast 9-9.30am (a late breakfast because I benefit from doing a 14 hour intermittent fasting window).
My doctor advises I take my second dose of NDT 2-3pm. But if I need to have an empty stomach when I take the NDT, that means I'd have to have my lunch finished by 12-1pm? So I allow 2 hours for the food to leave my stomach? That's a tight window. How do you dose your NDT around meal times?
What about times when you go out of the house and you're tied to other meal time schedules out of your control? Does it matter to move the NDT dosing time an hour or so periodically?
Also I'd like to confirm I need to leave at least 4 hours from taking the NDT to taking an iron supplement?
Many thanks 🙂
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HEA72
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I take NDT and all my dose at 3.00 am in the morning - at a toilet break - to dovetail in with the circadian rhythm of the body - and know my stomach will be empty as it's around 9 hours post food and 3/4 hours before I get up at around 6 .00 am.
I don't seem to be need more than I take just the once, and that's 1 + 1/2 grains.
I did try splitting my dose but it didn't suit me and was unable to sleep and with headaches.
Yes always take iron tablets well away from any other supplements and any thyroid hormone replacement options.
No thyroid hormone replacement works well until your ferritin, folate, B12 and vitamin Dare up and maintained at optimal levels.
Your results on NDT will look very different to those of when on T4 monotherapy.
Your TSH will likely be suppressed and your T4 likely much lower than when on T4 only BUT your T3 should be proportionately much higher - and you track on your T3 readings.
I went low and slow - dropped 125 mcg T4 one day and started on 1/2 grain NDT the following day.
2nd week added a 1/4 grain :
3rd week another 1/4 grain so forth and so on :
There comes a week where you don't feel ' as good ' as the week before, I felt uncomfortable in my skin and anxious, and just not me - I dropped back down to the previous weeks dose - stayed on that dose for 8 weeks and then ran a blood test.
I also monitored myself on twice daily blood pressure, pulse and body temperature and whilst these first two physical symptoms remained stable I saw my temperature rise from 35.4 to 36.6 where it still hovers most days now some 6 years on.
If you get to 2 grains - hold this dose for 6-8 weeks and then run a blood test to compare with your bench mark readings.
I found my TSH was at 0.0 : and my T3 and T4 had swapped places as now my T3 was at 110% through the range whilst my T4 was at 25% through it's range and I felt well with no signs of over medication.
Hopefully you will start feel improved and if still with some symptoms then start again slowly adding 1/4 grains and monitoring your symptoms and physical signs.
With NDT you dose to the relief of symptoms and not to fit into a range / guideline that was designed and introduced to be used alongside Big Pharma's marketing of its T3 and T4 synthetic thyroid hormone replacement options in the middle of the last century.
I am with Graves post RAI thyroid ablation 2005 and now manage lingering Graves, thyroid eye disease and hypothyroidism and self medicating NDT and much improved looking after myself.
Thank you for your helpful response. That's great that technique works for you. Must be great to take one dose and not have to think about it for 24 hours. I tried the circadian method and unfortunately the night waking didn't suit me. I'm increasing the NDT very slowly, as I'm very sensitive to thyroid hormone replacement. I started on only 15mg per day for 2 weeks, just moved up to 30mg (as 2x 15mg doses). My doctor wants me to get to 2 grains.
I started on 1/2 grain as I haven't a thyroid and had played with taking T3 - Liothyronine and knew it suited me.
So, maybe start taking notes as to temperature, pulse and blood pressure readings as I found it assuring as I built up my dose and seeing something working gave me the incentive to continue and when to settle !!
NDT is a slow build and takes time to bed in and work and I was still finding subtle improvements many months after settling on my dose - and my last surprise was my dress size dropping around 2 sizes some 18 months on.
Thank you, will do. I'm taking my pulse and temperature but haven't been taking my BP. I'll start on that too. My immunity is very low (due to the low metabolism I think), so I tend to have infections 90% of the time, which can mar the readings somewhat but taking them will still give me the gist still I think. It's just the timing of this second dose, I've yet to refine. I'll get there. 🙂
you may have to go slower than that. I buy 2grain Armour from USA as it’s cheaper to buy it in a larger pill and cut it. I take 1/2 pill (30 mg) at 7.15am when I wake up. To increase my Armour dose from 60mg to 75mg I cut one 120mg/2 grain pill (better using fingers than pill cutter which crushes them) into 1/8ths and took the extra 1/8 (7.5mg) every other day in the evening an hour before dinner. I did this for a few a month or so gradually adding the 1/8 extra dose every day for at least a month. My heart rate easily races up to c90bpm+ but it fluctuates and my Fitbit tells me it averages c 74bpm. Until I caught a virus 2 weeks ago (which won’t quit) I was really well on the new dose and sleeping properly. I’m still under the ideal T3 score so I need to increase it more but it’ll have to be at snail’s pace and probably when symptoms prompt.
Yeah, I have 60mg tablets of Armour and cut them into 4 at the moment. You're right, they crumble. I have electronic jewellery scales and try and weigh the cut pieces of the tablet on there to get as accurate measured dose as I can. I too have caught a virus and it's interfering with my temp, heart rate and sleep. Mine's the heavy strong cold that's going around (I think it maybe RSV, it's not Covid - I did a test).
Now you have trumped me - and I don't know enough to say much -
other than no thyroid hormone works well until your core strength is strong and solid and that means that ferritin, folate, B12 and vitamin D are all up and maintained at optimal levels.
I spent over a year building up my vitamins and minerals before I switched to NDT and now take a yearly full thyroid panel more for my vitamin and mineral levels than my T3 reading as I know that is now ok.
I supplement my NDT at 3.00 am and at around 7 in the morning I take adrenal glandular and then around an hour or two later take some grapefruit segments and a spoonful of whizzed down cooked chicken livers.
My main meal of the day is lunch after which I take B12, folate and vitamin D :
Thank you. I've made a new schedule now for my NDT dosing and think it's probably safer to take a core of my supplements at dinner time in one session (4 hours away from the NDT). However, I do benefit from taking taurine and ashwagandha throughout the daytime (to help adrenals/calm my nervous system), so I'm hoping these will be ok to take with my meals 🤞
This is the million dollar question. And I haven't solved it yet because I don't want breakfast until I've been up a while and I don't get up particularly early. If you can do it, push the second dose back to 4 or even 5pm because that will give you until 2 or 3pm to eat. But if you go suddenly tired before then, you need to bring that dose forward.
It actually angers me. I don't want to have to concentrate so hard. Today I planned my dose for 3pm. I had a good breakfast and was fine. Nothing to eat from 1pm. But at 3pm I was in my mum's house and she had me doing a host of jobs for her. 4pm came and I said that I really needed to go and take my tablet but she still found something else and so I finally got in the door and took it at 4.15pm. I am now literally watching the time tick in desperately slow seconds. Still half a darn hour to go before I can eat something and then I'll grab the wrong food out of the need for instant gratification.
If I could take it all once a day I'd love it. But I'm not prepared to try that until I know what my dose needs to be. And anyway, I have had issues with enzyme D3 reacting to too much hormone and converting it to different metabolites to expel them so I don't get the benefit of the dose. I need to keep my individual doses smaller for now. I take 15mcg at bedtime. So I'm doing this pain in the ass 3 times a day. The only one that doesn't stress me is morning.
Yes we need to leave 4 hours before taking minerals and I'm sure magnesium is included in that list.
You could do with perhaps moving your morning dose earlier to give you a better start. Some people seem to time second doses for around noon, or even 11am. Leaving just 4 hours between the first and second dose but that seemed too much for me when I tried it. I was on 2 grains at the time. I am currently on 1 and 3/4 grains.
Thank you for your reply. That's given me something to think about. I think I've now created a new schedule for my NDT dosing. It is very fixed, which may make it hard for when I go out of the house and need to adjust the timings. But these times will hopefully be rare. I think it's probably safer to take a core of my supplements at dinner time in one session (4 hours away from the NDT).
I hope you felt the benefit of your later NDT dose yesterday afternoon. It shows how much it's supporting you, by you noticing symptoms when your dosing time changes.
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