High TSH on Armour & Liothyronine

[Sallyann674]

Hi all,

I just had my recent labs back and my private doctor is concerned about ongoing high TSH levels. I take 2 grains of Armour and 5mcg of Liothyronine daily my FT3 is quite high but it’s my TSH level he’s concerned about at 13 and it’s been high for a while.

does anyone have any ideas why this may be? TSH should be suppressed when taking thyroid meds but mines not and I’m trying to understand why?

thank you x

[greygoose]

Do you always have your blood test done at the same lab? Could be interference in the assay.

[FallingInReverse]

Hi, we don’t have a lot of info from you, but in your last post a few years ago, you had a fine, low TSH.

When did it start to increase? How many tests have you had, have all the conditions been the same, last Levo dose 24 hours before, and what has the progression been for your TSH, FT4 and FT3 together over that time? You say your ft3 is high, but what ms the corresponding ft4?

Also - any symptoms?

[CaptainBeOS]

Hi,

I am quite surprised that you are supplementing the Armour with Liothyronine. In my experience Armour is supplemented with Levothyroxine to improve TSH suppression, not liothyronine. Any endo I've come across would have kittens at the suggestion of NDT + Lio. I indeed took NDT + Levo a few years ago and found it most agreeable on all fronts. Sadly the NHS would not fund it, so I had to settle on a Lio and Levo combination, which, after many years of battle, now works very well.

On my journey I found some very useful links, including this one: thyroidpatients.ca/2019/11/...

What this suggests is that in the presence of too much free T3 your cells would release deiodinase type 3 to combat it, which in turn would convert T4 to rT3 and T3 to T2 resulting in your TSH looking elevated when you would expect the opposite to be the case (because rT3 and T2 do not simulate the receptors on the pituitary gland where near as well T3 and T4 do).

So, you may find you get better results if you switch out the Liothyronine for Levo. Or switch out the armour for levo. Especially if your free T3 is showing high.

Hope this helps