I started t3 dose 3 weeks ago at 2.5 mcg (1/8 20mcg thybon henning) and then 1 week ago added in another 1/8 in the afternoon 2 hours after lunch than waiting 1 hour.
The first 2.5mcg I do feel made a difference, felt more stamina and energy. 2 weeks later I added the afternoon dose.
its impossible to cut these pills into 1/8 exactly so ive probably been taking closer to 3mcg morning 2mcg afternoon. I am not sure the afternoon dose made much of a difference, perhaps with the decreased absorption and that I already had some t3 in my system it's not such a big change.
Ive also had a couple of colds in the last week. I feel that these effect me way more than pre hypo, specifically in fatigue and muscle aches. i heard a theory that when you get ill t4/t3 conversion is lowered and this may be a reason for feeling worse, I thought therefore that adding t3 may help with this -perhaps it is, but perhaps I am not taking enough?
I havnt tested since starting t3 but my levels in august on 100mcg were TSH 10.4 FT4 18.1 (12-22) FT3 5 (4-6.8). My endo has said my tsh isnt reliable so we try to go more off the other levels.
So i am wondering if to just move up to 5mcg morning now or test this week to see where I am at. 2.5mcg was meant to be an introductory dose rather than long term and I havnt had any adverse symptoms so I cant believe there wouldn't be space to add more.
My last vit d test was 35 ng/ml in march taking 2000iu, I'm sure over summer with sunlight exposure this increased but now im not getting any sun so wondering if I should also double to 4000iu?
Thanks!
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samking5
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Can I ask why your endo says your TSH is unreliable?
No point in retesting before at least six weeks on the same steady dose because the dose won't have 'settled' and none of the results will be reliable.
It true that having an infection or being ill in any way can reduce conversion of T4 to T3, but that is for a reason. It's to force you to rest while your body recovers. To start taking T3 defeats the object of this natural measure.
my tsh is very resistant to come down, it doesnt suppress easily when my ft4 has been too high and i have felt overmedicated, and it shoots up very easily.
true on second part however before I was hypo my thyroid was able to produce t3 itself whereas now that is obviously not happening so the effect of lowered conversion would have more of an effect on a hypo patient perhaps?
No, I don't think it would have more of an effect on a hypo patient - unless you were naturally a poor converter. And now you're taking T3, we can't know how well you convert.
Not convinced by your endos thinking about your TSH. It isn't just affected by T4 levels, it's also - in fact more so - affected by the T3.
Be wary of symptoms. Symptoms of under and over-medication can be exactly the same.
ok but regardless of if you are a good or bad converter the thyroid produces 20% of t3. hypothyroidism leads to damaged thyroid so a hypo patient doesnt only lose t4 production but t3 production. therefore they have to rely more on conversion than a non-thyroid illness person. for some people, this may be fine or they may not feel the difference but for others not so much. I believe I belong to this second group group. increasing my levo has never resulted in increased t3 levels, in fact once the t4 levels are too high ft3 levels decreased.
And symptoms wise I know the ft4 levels were too high for me because they were over the range and even though the tsh wasnt suppressed i reduced medication and then after some weeks I felt better. this has happened multiple times . I feel better at a TSH of 10 then i do at 2. this is on levo monotherapy - things may change on I start to get tests on combination therapy, perhaps as you say the tsh will be much more reactive to that.
in fact once the t4 levels are too high ft3 levels decreased.
Yes, of course it does. Because when the FT4 is too high, more of the T4 is converted to rT3 than T3. It's a safety device to prevent T3 levels getting too high.
But, despite the fact that the thyroid produces 20% of all T3, etc. many people do very well on T4 mono-therapy. I myself was an excellent converter of T4 to T3. Problem with me was that I couldn't tolerate T4! It made me ill. 🤣🤣🤣 Oh, the irony of it!
well he said eventually 10-20mcg but to build up slowly, he didnt think 2.5 would do much but im quite sensitive so he was happy for me to start there.
is the 6-8 week wait for the tsh? because I see a lot of people here moving up in t3 dose every 1-2 weeks on feeling.
Basically I was kind of looking for confirmation if moving up now to 5mcg in morning might be sensible given im taking little, my levels before starting were fairly hypo and i havnt had any adverse reaction so far
I would say yes i am sensitive however given t3's fast acting nature I would expect any bad effect from overmedication to have been felt by now? I am certainly not feeling overmedicated, in fact under, which makes me think adding a bit more would be fine?
I havnt tested since starting t3 but my levels in august on 100mcg were TSH 10.4 FT4 18.1 (12-22) FT3 5 (4-6.8).
Looking at those labs I'm wondering why you were prescribed T3....your conversion looks fairly good.
You had room to increase your levo from 100mcg to 125mcg, which should have raised your FT3 a little...was this discussed?
Numbers alone are not enough....symptoms must be factored in
My endo has said my tsh isnt reliable so we try to go more off the other levels.
I think / hope what he is saying is that TSH is not a reliable marker, it fluctuates during the day and if Hashi's is involved......the most important labs are FT3 followed by FT4
vit d test was 35 ng/ml in....
This is very low!
Have you also tested vit B12, folate and ferritin?
These 4 nutrients must be optimal to support thyroid function/ conversion
T3 is not the panacea of all ills ( and that is from someone who needs high dose T3-only to function!) Like every other medication, to be effective, it has to be used with knowledge and respect.
I havnt had any adverse symptoms so I cant believe there wouldn't be space to add more.
First you must be sure you need to add T3!
Have you had thyroid antibodies Tg and TPO tested for thyroid autoimmune disease/ Hashimoto's.....this can result in elevated TSH?
If Hashi's exists then a gluten free diet usually helps.
In your shoes I would have started by optimising essential nutrients and raising levo dose, testing after 6/8 weeks on a steady dose of 125mcg then evaluating the results. Only then would I perhaps consider the addition of T3.....why complicate things!
I'm afraid there is no quick fix so we have to be patient....and no point in being concerned about the transient symptoms of a cold in relation to TSH.
hi so I had reduced my dose significantly from 150 and then to 125 because I was experiencing persistant overmedication, so now my ft4 levels are lower however when on those previous doses my ft4 was at 100+% meanwhile ft3 was unchanged or even lower. I actaully feel better on this dose (once the bad effects of the overmedication had worn off) then I did on those higher doses with a tsh of 1-2.
I have spent 2 years on levo on many diferent doses and i have never felt good, ive been everywhere from very hypo to moderate/ mildly hypo which has been my best and then overmedicated 3 times which has been awful (t3 actaully dropped during overmedication periods). so my Dr wanted to try something different. my main symptom is muscle aches/slow recovery so was thinking perhaps the conversion is not keeping up with bodies demands now i have lost some or all of my thyroids own t3 production.
i am avoiding gluten, this may have been the reason for the reduction in thyroid dose as when I cut out gluten my ft4 levels went up and I had to reduce, perhaps coincidence, perhaps not...
ferritin is ok and tsat is usually high so more iron is probably not good idea, b12 lowish folate middle of range . have started taking b12 daily but not folate. vit d you think I should increase? what should I aim for?
I can now see why you need T3....have you tried taking it in a single dose rather than splitting....splitting didn't work for me. You would need to build the dose up very slowly though.
It's sometimes just a case of trial and error.....which you now seem to be working on.
I'd now suggest T3 is the key to your problem!
For good health almost every cell in the body needs to be flooded with T3 by way of a constant and adequate supply.... your FT3 levels are not achieving this.
The Vit D Council recommends a level of 100-150nmol/L (40-60ng/ml),
Vit D is best taken with co-factor vit K which promotes calcium accumulation in your bones, while reducing its accumulation in soft tissues such as blood vessels.
Serum B12 over 500 pg/ml
Active B12 over 70
Ferritin and folate at least over half way through range
hi sorry for delayed response. I started with a single dose of 2.5mcg (1/8 thybon hemming) , 2 weeks later I then added afternoon dose but I could have moved to 5mcg morning instead but was trying to be gradual, however I’m not sure the 2.5mcg afternoon dose has made much difference.
Why did splitting not work for you? What did it make you feel? I’m interested to know.
Am increasing vit d with k2 and will look into others
hiya, ive been thinking to switch my 2.5 twice daily to 5mcg once daily, I feel I felt better potentially on the 2.5 once daily, although it may be that im just run down the last week and am blaming it on the t3 dose when it is not that haha. just wondering how it made you feel different, or what t3 splitting made you feel?
I found I had very little uplift with multi dosing and a quick drop back, whereas I can take the same dose or less in one go and it powers me up all day... I think it is down to the speed of uptake or maybe just having enough circulating at a time to get through to the cells.... I find 15mcg in one dose works far better than 25mcg in 2 or 3 doses... timing seems just as important as quantity to find your personal sweet spot
edit... there is also a link to cortisol and having enough but not too much circulating to assist the fT3 into the cells
so do you think taking it twice daily could effect the results in bringing down the tsh without actaully increasing circulation of thyroid hormone?
I did definitely notice a difference between no t3 and the first 2.5mcg dose, but not much or nothing adding in a second 2.5mcg, in fact I think i might have felt worse, however that may be because ive been overworking and have got viruses, rather than its actaully the added t3's fault - its so difficult to know when theres so many changing factors!
I think any T3 drops the TSH, it's like Dippy D says some people need a higher level circulating to be able to make use of it, little doses come and go so might not peak high enough?.... chances are you get better uptake in the mornings as cortisol levels are generally better then and drop off throughout the day
It won't necessarily show as higher fT3 for long because it has actually left the blood stream and made it into the cells where it is needed
thats interesting, i did a cortisol saliva test recently and was normalish apart from afternoon test was below range other times within range but in bottom half.
Initially your system may have appreciated the extra T3 but in time realised it needed more and symptoms returned.
I agree it can be very difficult to work out what is causing symptoms....for quite a while I couldn't work out why I felt rubbish. I tried adjusting myT3 dose to no avail. It turned out my chronic uti had flared up big-time!!
I take my full dose at bedtime ( no faffing about with timing!) and that's fine.
However, we are all different with different needs...unlike washing machines etc we don't have instruction manuals. We have to employ a certain amount of trial and error based on our understanding of T3.
Give a single dose a go for at least 6 weeks, to allow the dose to settle.
Nothing is written in stone....if that doesn't work try something else!!
My case proved to be rather complicated and it took me over 2 years to find my therapeutic T3 dose.
I have been researching thyroid in depth for many years now. The conventional thyroid model in the U.S. and in the U.K. is 17 years behind where it should be. Please read Dr. Kent Holtorf's research along with many other cutting edge doctors who have left conventional medicine. What researchers have now found (corroborated by endos and other doctors who have left the system) is that due to many factors including gene mutations and deiodinase enzymes that are faulty, MANY patients do not convert T4 to T3 well. The TSH labs will NOT reveal this in many cases (it is very complicated). We do not have the technology to see how much T3 is getting into the cell so many fallen away endos and functional medicine doctors look at the symptoms which include the heart rate and temperature among other things for gauging how much T3 is getting into the cell. Read Paul Robinson's book or visit STTM (Stop the Thyroid Madness.com) for people who have spent 20+ years researching this. Many patients today are still sick on Synthroid and Big Pharma (which is ran by elites who are into population control) do not care about the health of the people. If you do not feel good on various doses of Synthroid, you should probably be on a NDT which includes T3. Don't ask your current endo as he/she has probably been brainwashed by conventional medicine. Find one who has left the system. Dr. Westin Childs has all of the studies on his website to prove this. He is an example of a doctor that was targeted by BigPharma because he was helping so many people. The same happened to Dr. Barry Durant-Peatfield.
I have been researching thyroid in depth for many years now. The conventional thyroid model in the U.S. and in the U.K. is 17 years behind where it should be. Please read Dr. Kent Holtorf's research along with many other cutting edge doctors who have left conventional medicine. What researchers have now found (corroborated by endos and other doctors who have left the system) is that due to many factors including gene mutations and deiodinase enzymes that are faulty, MANY patients do not convert T4 to T3 well. The TSH labs will NOT reveal this in many cases (it is very complicated). We do not have the technology to see how much T3 is getting into the cell so many fallen away endos and functional medicine doctors look at the symptoms which include the heart rate and temperature among other things for gauging how much T3 is getting into the cell. Read Paul Robinson's book or visit STTM (Stop the Thyroid Madness.com) for people who have spent 20+ years researching this. Many patients today are still sick on Synthroid and Big Pharma (which is ran by elites who are into population control) do not care about the health of the people. If you do not feel good on various doses of Synthroid, you should probably be on a NDT which includes T3. Don't ask your current endo as he/she has probably been brainwashed by conventional medicine. Find one who has left the system. Dr. Westin Childs has all of the studies on his website to prove this. He is an example of a doctor that was targeted by BigPharma because he was helping so many people. The same happened to Dr. Barry Durant-Peatfield.
If you felt better on 2.5mcg T3 in the morning, I would suggest the next experiment is 5mcg (much easier to cut too) in the morning and then wait and see how you feel in a few weeks. Don't add T3 into the afternoon if you don't need to do so.
I you feel better again with 5mcg in the morning, I'd retest after 6 weeks and see what's happening.
Do you know about the D3 enzyme that can see the hormone in our cells and decide we have too much of it and so convert the hormone to T2 and excrete it? This is something I'm learning about because I think it might be affecting me. There is a wonderful new piece about this from Tania S Smith on her Facebook group page. She posted it yesterday. But I can't link you to it from here as you need to join the group. It is starting to make a lot of sense to what's happening to me.
If you go and join the group, the piece is titled:
TOPIC -- DOSING T3 IN LIGHT OF D3 ENZYME
Facbook group name: Thyroid Patients Canada Support
yes i just started t3 5mcg morning from today lets see, im sickat the moment with a virus potentally covid so hard to tell effects but hopefully it will help. a few hours post dose no hyper type symptoms!
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