I’ve posted this on another page, so some of this isn’t needed on here but it was easier to copy n paste!
Any fellow mid life females (on T3 ideally) experienced similar?
I’m a 47 yo female with existing thyroid issues, and I’m on progesterone to help with thyroid uptake.However, last night I wakened with a full blown anxiety attack. It was about 330am which is obvs when your cortisol kicks in, but I couldn’t shift it, and now at gone 12 noon I’m still feeling very on edge.I suspect due to it age it’s my hormones at work, as my thyroid levels have been stable for months. i will of course do bloods to check but has anyone experienced this and more specifically did you identify which hormone was causing it?It’s easy enough to increase my progesterone, more tricky to introduce estrogen I think 😬TIA
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Murphysmum
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You probably know that progesterone increases the uptake of thyroid hormone & oestrogen decreases it. I’m on HRT & T3/T4 combo. I certainly found that as I increased my oestrogen, I needed a wee bit more T3.
However, when I had to double my dose of progesterone I barely slept for a couple of nights! It took me that time to realise what was causing the hyper symptoms & I reduced it back down. I’m very sensitive to changes in meds so may be just me but I have heard other thyroid sufferers say similar in my meno group. It gets quite complicated having to adjust the doses to get the correct balance & isn’t something many medics know about.
Well this is why I haven’t done anything about it until now!
I’ve known for about 5 years my testosterone in very very low, but gps weren’t interested back then. I’m have recently tried some I got on a private script, but it made me ill in three days as it obvs converted to estrogen. So now I suspect that has dropped and that’s the bit I’m dreading trying!!
If a teeny dose of testosterone affected my T3, I’m terrified of trying estrogen.
So do we think it’s the drop in estrogen that’s causing the anxiety? The Pg has been great for me and evened out how I felt. I don’t think my thyroid levels have gone high, but I’ll check just the same.
If you have low testosterone it is better replaced. Try supplementing again but a teeny weeny, incy wincy amount. I started supplementing recently and have had to reduce thyroid meds as am soooo hot inside. My testosterone comes in a sachet to last 8 days but it has lasted me well over two weeks already with still some left. It is potent stuff!
Did you try halving your tiny dose of testosterone? (You can check the female doses on the BMS website.)This is what I did when I got side effects on the full female dose of T & it wasn’t anything to do with oestrogen as I was on a good dose of that with decent levels. T only converts to O when O levels are low.
Sometimes start up symptoms from T can resolve over time. I haven’t been able to find anything much on the relationship between thyroid hormone & testosterone but I think this is just because it’s a very poorly understood hormone in women & there’s very little research.
From what I’ve read, both P & O can affect anxiety. P is generally considered a very calming hormone, helps with sleep etc, this was why I couldn’t understand the sleeplessness until I made the connection with the thyroid absorption. Too much AND too little O can cause anxiety, so it’s hard to know!! And getting the right balance between O & P can take time too, as I am learning!
Sorry if that’s not much help. A meno specialist may be able to help more as I know very little about the use of hormones in peri meno.
Maybe have another trial of the testosterone at a lower dose. My meno expert told me it can make you feel worse before you feel better, so try and stick with it for a few weeks. It can also take 6 months to feel the full benefits. It shouldn’t convert to oestrogen unless your O levels are very low, so try not to panic about that side of it! Wish you all the best 😊
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