Hashimoto’s help

[Flossiewestie2020]

Hi, I’ve been taking two grains of Armour Thyroid for a while now and had been feeling well. When I had blood tests in February my T3 was optimal for the first time.

However, over the past month I’ve been feeling really awful again - at first I had symptoms of Hyperthyroidism and then within a week was feeling very Hypo again. I had blood tests last week and they confirmed that my T3 and T4 levels have gone down and my Thyroglobulin antibodies have gone up.

Rather than just increasing my medication, I want to try and understand why this has happened - I have a couple of theories and was wondering if anyone had any advice as to whether any of them are plausible?

1. My Hyperthyroid symptoms started when I changed how I was splitting my dose as I ran out of two grain tablets and have to take half a one grain tablet and half a 1.5 grain tablet. When I then switched to taking two, one grain tablets a day, I started feeling really Hypo again. Could splitting my dose differently/a different bottle of medication be contributing to how I’m feeling? I’ve heard there can be variation between bottles with NDT.

2. I’ve started taking Fixbiome supplements to help with SIBO/IBS. I always leave an hour between taking these and my thyroid medication but I’m wondering if this isn’t long enough and it’s affecting my absorption.

3. I’ve heard that with a Hashimoto’s swing you can end up more hypo than you were to start with - is this something that would rectify itself or would you need an increase in medication?

4. I’m also wondering what could have caused my Thyroglobulin levels to have gone up?

My February results were:

TSH 0.04 (0.27-4.2)

T4 13.7 (12-22)

T3 5.13 (3.1-6.8)

Thyroglobulin 223

My July results were:

TSH 0.05 (0.27-4.2)

T4 12.4 (12-22)

T3 4.17 (3.1-6.8)

Thyroglobulin 249

I would appreciate any advice on what could have happened and what I should do as I was feeling great and now I feel rubbish 😢

Thanks in advance.

[tattybogle]

So the slightly lower T4/T3 levels might be why you feel less good well now . but knowing 'why' they are slightly lower now is difficult as so many changes have happened .

assuming you have been on stable dose for 6 weeks , and that 'time of last dose' was the some for both tests ?

your theories could all be right , it could be the Sibo medication / it could be the timing of the sibo medication / it could be a recent hashimoto's swing has left your thyroid more damaged / or a bit of all of three .

However re . the possible hyper swing bit :

"My Hyperthyroid symptoms started when I changed how I was splitting my dose as I ran out of two grain tablets and have to take half a one grain tablet and half a 1.5 grain tablet. When I then switched to taking two, one grain tablets a day, I started feeling really Hypo again. Could splitting my dose differently/a different bottle of medication be contributing to how I’m feeling? I’ve heard there can be variation between bottles with NDT".

if you increased dose slightly when using diff tablets , that would explain feeling hyper :

half a grain + three quarters of a grain = 1.25 grain .

as opposed to 1 grain

, so if that was twice a day you were taking 2 and a half grains instead on 2 grains

or have i misunderstood what you meant ?

but even if you were still taking exactly 2 grains for this period, then yes , different bottles/ batches can sometimes be slightly different... it's never possible to rule this out.

Re. the antibodies ~ the rise is very small , so probably not significant , but it could be an indication that you had an autoimmune attack and yes that could have caused a brief hyper swing and lower T4/T3 levels afterwards.

Re. 'after a Hashimoto's hyper swing' , sometimes people are ok on same dose afterwards, but if thyroid was damaged enough that it was then less able to make the same amount of T4/T3 as it was doing previously , then yes, some people will find they need to increase dose afterwards to compensate for this loss .

If more damage to thyroid is the reason for the lower T4/T3 you now have , then no , it won't get better .

your fT4 / fT3 results are now slightly lower ... so whatever the cause, a small dose increase is the obvious thing to try to see if it improves how you feel . (eg 2 and a quarter grains)

if the cause is 'less good absorption due to sibo meds / or timing of sibo meds ... then in effect you aren't really increasing dose anyway if you take more , you are just putting more in the stomach to get the same amount to go through the gut wall, because some of it isn't getting absorbed .

you could take sibo meds further away as an experiment and see how that goes , or you could just increase dose and see how that goes ,

[Flossiewestie2020 in reply to tattybogle]

Thank you. That’s really helpful and reassuring - you’re confirming what my gut is saying! I meant I had to take 1 1/4 grains and then 3/4 grains for a bit instead of 2 x 1 grains to try and use up bottle of 1.5 grain tablets alongside a bottle of 1 grain tablets - it messed me up so much I’m now just wasting that £200 bottle 🙄

[Juliet_22]

Have you tried taking selenium, zinc and black cumin seed oil to help?