I posted last week about feeling terrible on T3. Exhausted and aching all over. I’ve just had my second lot of results back. The top pic are the most recent ones and the one before that were the results when I’d started on a lower dose of T3. I’ve now dropped my levo from 175 to 150 and taking 10mcg of T3 twice per day. I also have hashimotos as you can see from the raised antibodies.
I’m not very good at interpreting these results. Can anyone help me with them please and I’ll speak to my endo as soon as I can. Many thanks.
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sugarlove1
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Hey, maybe it was a mistake dropping Levo while introducing t3 because your ft4 isn't high. I'd consider upping Levo, but I'm sure others will chip in.
Christ, I've just read you're on 10 t3 x twice a day. Big jump! And huge reduction in ft4. The balance is off for sure and I feel like adding t3 to your Levo would have been a better idea that to decrease Levo and adding so much t3. You may have to now compensate for loss of t4 with more t3 or increase Levo and take a bit less t3.
I don’t really understand the results tbh. Is my TSH not relevant anymore with taking the T3. I’m absolutely done in and off to Glastonbury in 13 days. Not sure what to do for the best now and running out of time to make a dose adjustment.
Your tsh would go quite low with this amount of t3, so not relevant.. totally understand, I've been there and still am at the moment. I think your endo moved way too fast and maybe did a wrong move with the adjustment.
I’m hoping to speak to her over the next few days. I really hope she’s not going to advise me to take more T3 as I don’t think it would be beneficial. Did you start off slower than me with the T3? I’m beginning to think T3 just doesn’t work for me!
I got it prescribed privately as I wasn’t converting properly.
Started on the T3 in early March. 2.5mcg 3 times daily. Raised to 5mcg twice per day and then 10mcg twice per day. My ferrritin levels and vitamin D levels were low so I’ve been taking supplements. I actually felt better before taking the T3. I’m now wiped out and aching all the time. I often fall asleep even just after taking my second dose of T3.
You don't say at what intervals the dose raises were but that was likely too fast. The body needs time to get used to T3 especially if vitamins are low. Ferritin can take many months to raise to optimal.
I know Endo's tell us to go to a certain dose but they never seem to realise the reality of raising the dose so fast. Patients will tell you its a bad idea to rush it.
Suggest you reduce the dose by 5mcgs T3 and slit it into 3 doses of 5mcgs. Morning, late afternoon & bed time. Even that might be too much if your vitamins are low but see how it feels.
Exactly what were your vitamin results? Depending on the level for ferritin its suggested to increase food sources of iron such as chicken livers (pate) and red meat.
How much vot D are you taking and are you also taking vit K2 to help it go to your bones?
I too would guess you’ve gone too much too fast (my own personal experience was starting on 5 T3 morning + 5 T3 bedtime all at once and it took 9 months for my palpitations to subside. And so many ups and downs.)
I would also add - do you have any other iron panel results, but specifically transferrin saturation percent?
Iron is needed at the cellular level for T3 to work well. Transferrin saturation percent is a good indicator of whether that’s sufficient, so worth getting an iron panel as you manage your deficiencies there.
as ever with lab ranges and doctors interpretations there should be a massive caveat….. lab range is much much wider than any individual range and where an individual is in the lab range is a matter of probability or detailed analysis of all the relevant blood levels and symptom diary over time, with blood levels being tested at the same time of day every time evry 3 months (or even every 2 months) not just annually! In terms of a probabilistic assessment there is a wealth of data on statistical normal healthy levels ie in people without current thyroid pathologies and these should be the starting point for reference NOT somewhere in the lab range…. What this means for most people is comparison with non-thyroidal peer groups eg male/female age range blah blah sp for a late middle age person TSH should be 1-2ish depending on time of blood test fT3 should be 4.4 ish and fT4 14-15 ish with females being slightly lower than males in the ish figures….. Then we can interpret where our optimal levels further by the relationship between the three markers and our symptoms…. Eg if fT4 is 16 and TSH is 1 and fT3 is somewhere between 4-5 and symptoms ok ish then that T4 is likely your normal BUT if TSH is significant below 1 let alone below 0.5 then T4 16 may be too high and levothyroxine needs to be reduced a little if only to minimise the risk of adverse effects on heart rate and rhythm, which increases significantly in upper lab ranges. Too much thyroid replacement can skew results in all sorts of ways that may be counter intuitive eg higher levels giving signs of under medication from disruption of the complex feedback loops….. That said, individual optimums may be different to the normal and it takes a lot of trial and error to find out where we are best medicated, more is not necessarily better! Suppressed TSH associated with higher than we need T4 is a red flag for heart health if not osteoporosis!
Echoing the good advice above I had to wait a good while between 5mcg step ups of t3 on top of t4 because of palpitations. I went back down to 5mcg at one point whilst building up the ferritin/folate etc. Comfortable on 100mcg t4 and 2 lots of 5mcg t3 (but now have other issues with drug interactions).
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