So, not been on this site for yonks - have been using the available energy on the nausea- inducing PC to finish writing my book after ten years of true grit and hard graft! Should've been finished in two but heyho, the life of a thyroid and ME conqueror is lived at a snail's pace. Wish aging was the same!A preamble to introduce the fact that I've still not a clue about how to navigate the site, so please forgive me if I'm asking a question in the wrong section.
Simple ask that I've found conflicting answers to: how long after guzzling can T3 be taken? And how long to wait after taking T3 for guzzling cycle to commence again, please?
Thanks in advance and hope.
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Schenks
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I take my first dose of T3 (30mcg) at around 6am every morning and then doze for another half to three quarters of an hour after which I’ll have a cup of tea. My second dose (20mcg) I will take between 4 to 4.30pm and I’ll be drinking coffee both before and after with no specific time gap (sometimes I’ve even taken it washed down with coffee) and I’ve never noticed any difference in efficacy with either way. Levothyroxine is a different story though… I take that (25mcg) at bedtime with nothing else around it for a couple of hours.
Thank you for this. The coffee bit is rather a surprise, having had instilled that caffeine is the devil. Will work at reducing the neurosis around it!
I think the reason there is conflicting advice out there is because any formal research done with food and thyroid hormone has been done with Levothyroxine. For Levo, there are several papers where they very explicitly test it, and research participants take different foods, such as milk, coffee, or grains, so we definitely know absorption of that is reduced when taken near food.
This lack of clear evidence means there are a few competing views about T3.
The one I think is the most widespread is to be on the cautious side and treat T3 exactly like Levo in this respect. Fast for two hours before taking the tablets, and one hour after the tablets.
This means if you take T3 on waking, you wait one hour before breakfast, particularly milk or coffee.
If you're then taking another dose between breakfast and lunch, wait at least two hours after breakfast to take that dose, and so on for any additional doses (I break mine into four doses now, so this is all a bit of a nightmare).
The three hours of fasting is still always a compromise of practicality versus what might be ideal. For example some people theorise taking doses at night may be more effective for some because of the long fast. Sometimes you hear slightly shorter fasting periods recommended. I've heard doctors saying you just don't need to fast at all for T3 like you do for Levo, but I think that is just a knee jerk approach that if we don't have formal evidence we should assume it doesn't exist.
The completely other approach is to argue that T3 should be taken with food because when fasting you are subjecting the lining of the stomach and the rest of the gut to a super concentrated dose, which isn't good for them. I believe this is a legitimately argued view by a well thought of expert, but I haven't looked into it myself and can't remember their name. I expect there is more to it than just eating freely as you please, you probably need to plan very similar meals all day, and I just haven't had the headspace for that 😅
These are all the reasons I can think of for conflicting advice. Personally I go with the more cautious view and fast for the full three hours for each dose. Very occasionally I squeeze it a bit if I'm pushed for time, or take a tiny bite of something. In the past I've had very bad results when I completely throw the fasting out the window, even just for one birthday treat.
It is a pain to do, but I now actually find it very useful to have my day divided into sections. It keeps me eating regular meals at the proper time, and divides the day up nicely so I do different things in the different time periods.
Good luck with your book! Is it about the thyroid experience, or something else?
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you. Will keep reading it to get it fixed, but 2 hours before, one hour after is easy to remember. Not necessarily to do, but that's a matter of practice. The rest of the information needs to be taken slowly and fully digested. I really appreciate your time for this.
And thanks for asking. Nope, the book is nothing to do with thyroid. It's about some of the stories in the Gospels, but from a woman's perspective, about the women in his life, for women. It puts women, represented in the Bible as chattels, whores and handmaidens back where we belong: up front and centre stage. Think the patriarchy will approve? Apolitically of course!
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