Hi, I finally found someone who listened to my symptoms and was willing to trial me on Levothyroxine at 50mcg. The symptoms have been improving ever since alongside going Gluten free and improving vitamin levels.I have just had results of a blood test and would appreciate any thoughts. Especially T3 which seems to have dropped?
Thanks for any feedback 🙂
The 50mcgs Levo you are taking has replaced the hormone your own thyroid was putting out so is now lower. Levo doesn't top up your own production but it replaces it. Hence the drop in FT3.
Free T4 (fT4) 20.2 pmol/L (12 - 22) 82.0%
Free T3 (fT3) 4.5 pmol/L (3.1 - 6.8) 37.8%
Your TSH is over 1 so you have a little space with FT4 at 82% for a small increase.
What vitamin supplements are you taking?
You could also try a dairy free diet which helps some.
Hi, thanks for replying. I'm currently taking Liposomal Vitamin B Complex Softgels and Feroglobin
No vitamin D?
Be sure to take iron 4 hours apart from Levo.
I knew there was something else, I'm taking 3000iu Better you Vit D spray daily. Been taking Levo upon waking and Iron with lunch/mid afternoon.
Especially T3 which seems to have dropped?
So, what was it before?
Before meds, results wereTSH 3.2 range 0.35-5.5
FT4 17.5 range 11.9-21.6
FT3 5.24 range 2.8-6.5
I agree with tattybogle , increasing levo is not the best solution. A higher level of FT4 could make your conversion worse.
My question is: why did you start levothyroxine?
Hi, I started on Levothyroxone due to my symptoms and family history. I was having to cancel work (self employed, so not good), sleeping 12 hours and still wiped out, brain fog, cold intolerance..... Since starting the meds the symptoms have reduced, I would say 90%. It was a long road as my GP simply said there was "nothing to treat"
TSH ( Thyroid stimulating Hormone ) is a message from the pituitary to the thyroid asking it to make more / or less thyroid hormones . The thyroid makes mostly T4 and a little bit of T3
When the TSH is raised..... (and arguably TSH over 2/ 2.5ish is 'a little bit raised' for most people.. it is most common to have TSH around 1 ish)...... the thyroid increases the proportion of T3 to T4 that it makes , so when TSH is higher , you get relatively more T3 than you usually do .. This could explain your quite decent level of T3 before you added Levo .
When you add some Levo , the TSH lowers a bit (due to the pituitary sensing the higher level of T4)
And once the TSH is lower, this 'extra T3 please ' prompt is turned down again .. so the thyroid goes back to producing a lower ratio of T3:T4 ... hence as TSH goes down when you start Levo, the fT3 usually goes down a bit too .
it's an expected effect when you start using T4 only(Levo) as a thyroid hormone replacement.
Due to this process, you would probably struggle to get fT3 as high as it was before levo unless you:
either:
~ try to improve your conversion of T4 to T3 somehow (eg. by optimising everything else, making sure selenium intake is adequate etc etc.... ask on forum for specifics re. anything you can do to improve conversion)
~ take a higher dose of Levo to see if fT3 improves ... (this may not work , as there is an individual limit to how much T3 a body will be able to make from T4, and your fT4 is already highish , so you may just end up with very high/ over range fT4 and not much increase in fT3... and having high /over range fT4 carries it's own potential risks, so you probably don't want this if you can avoid it ~ Recent research has shown T4 (both from the thyroid itself and from Levo) is 'associated with' increase in cancer cell proliferation.
~ or take some T3 containing thyroid hormone . eg NDT (Natural Dessicated Thyroid ~ animal thyroid gland containing both T4 and T3) or synthetic T3 ( Liothyronine) .. but this too brings its own problems ..mainly every time you see a doctor for anything they will freak out about your TSH being very very low.. which is very likely to happen if you use any T3 at all... and they may blame any complaint you went to see them about on your low TSH and try to reduce your thyroid hormone dose to raise it , without looking for any other cause for the problem .
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But if you are feeling better on Levo alone, then there is no need to worry about your fT3 being lower than it was before .
How you feel is much more important than how high your T4 / T3 are.
There is no 'best' level for T4 or T3 that you should aim for .. everyone is different .. the best level is 'where you feel best'.
Thanks for all the info and insight. I'm still learning as I go, due to no help from my GP. I will try to up my selenium as I haven't tried that yet. Thanks
New blood test results
New Blood test results
New blood results eventually 
New blood results etc.
