dosage advice

[Joant24]

I’ve recently been feeling much like when my T3 went slightly over, shaky, anxious and my heart rate often spikes for no particular reason and when walking the dog often goes into fat burn which rarely happened previously. My Fitbit is set to alert for AF, it hasn’t done thankfully. Also lost a stone in weight which I’ll admit is a bonus but not worth this anxious feeling etc. (gave up alcohol recently as it was making me ill which probably helped with the weight loss)

From past experience i know I don’t feel comfortable at the top of T3 range so I tried cutting back my T3 from 10mcg split in the afternoon to one dose of 5mcg for a few days, my heart rate has settled and I felt less anxious.

I really don’t want to go too low so do you think I should try 7.5 mcg and see how I go or stay at 5 mcg and up my T4 to 100 from 75mcg.

Thanks for help always so very much appreciated 🥰

[tattybogle]

doubt this will help much , but in case it does shed any light ~ here's a reply i just wrote to jefner . Basically i have felt an improvement and much more stability (for now lol) by lowering T3 to just 4mcg daily and upping levo to 100:

"well.... i aimed for waiting at least 6 wks between any tweaks (same as i would for levo only ).... but in practice i have fiddled / experimented with dose / timings at 3 wks if i have noticed significant problems .

basically none of what i have done is what i would advise.... but hey-ho , i'm just following my nose and trying to make sure i'm functional at work ~so "don't follow me i'm lost too" applies here , but in case it helps at all , here's what shinanigins i've been up to :

lowered levo from 87.5mcg to 75mcg and added 6mcg T3

did 2 wks of 6 mcg all in one go (am). ... not awful , but didn't like it ,

then did 3 wks of splitting it 3 and 3 (am / bedtime). which was better. but still not good at all .

then 3 wks of 9mcg (3+3+3) a.m / 2pm / bedtime ~ felt really 'unstable' ~can't describe it properly but it just felt like too much Treble (T3) and not enough Bass (levo)

tested bloods (3 hrs after 3mcg to see roughly what peak fT3 level is just for my own interest )

increased levo to 87.5mcg , felt an improvement quickly and was sure it was good idea by 10 days , but the penny had also dropped that i feel naff and have a tense uncomfortable bladder for about the first 7 hrs after taking a dose of T3, then feel ok after that .

I stuck with this dose/ time for 3 wks . but i found it necessary to move the doses around on the couple of days a week when i work. to avoid this 'feeling crap for 7 hrs' thing.

so then i missed out the am. dose out and tried 4mcg at 2pm and 4mcg at bedtime for a couple of weeks ~ this fixed the issue of feeling lousy/ tense bladder all morning, which was nice , but then the bedtime dose suddenly started interfering with sleep , which it hadn't done previously, so i moved them earlier to 11.30 am and 8pm .

so after i'd been on 87.5mcg levo for 5 wks and 2x 4mcg for 3 wks .... i decided (based on 'gut instinct') to put levo up to 100mcg and drop T3 to one dose of 4mcg taken at 11.30 am ... this was on 16th Oct and i have been able to leave things alone since then as i have felt basically ok/ stable / functional on 100mcg + 4mcg T3 . So that will be 4 wks tomorrow and i feel functional enough to be able to stay on this dose for another few wks then test properly.

so as you can see ... i have not managed to follow my own advice of 'leave it alone for at least 6 wks' at all so far ...... and rather than 'timing the T3 to feel good at a certain time of day ', i seem to have been 'moving the T3 out of the way so it doesn't make me feel off at a certain time ' ,, if you see what i mean.

it's a tricky balance to find .. when to stick it out and be consistent , and when to follow your instinct ? .... but i'm basically an instinctive person and T3 does seems to allow me to feel what's going on much sooner than levo does.

so ideally , i'm trying to get to 6 wks and test ~ but when i'm really struggling i've given something 3 wks , and if there is still a problem i can't risk waiting out , then careful tweaking/ experimenting has been informative at that point.

however i'm painfully aware that 'constantly twiddling the knobs is rarely a good idea for anything. "

[Joant24 in reply to tattybogle]

Thank you for your reply. Wow you’ve been on quite the journey! My gut says drop the T3 a little and up the T4.

Hubby thinks I should see the GP in case it’s a heart issue but I know they’ll look at my TSH and flip. On the basis everything calmed down when I halved my T3 for a few days I’m aware levels will drop and I’ll be back feeling grotty again.

Added to everything I have problems with really low DHEA and felt much better when I was taking DHEA until they started upsetting my tummy so feeling quite low from that issue but that’s one for a different post!

Thanks again and good luck x

[tattybogle in reply to Joant24]

bit like spinning plates isn't it . lol . i know what you mean about knowing when to stay away from the doc .. me too . and also about gut instinct vs the opinions of others , however well meaning/ logical they are .. at the end of the day it's us that are trying to balance on the tightrope, not them.

i'm also experimenting with the effects of when i eat / what i eat/ when i'm physical / when i rest..... in relation to when i take my T3 dose ... T3 feels like i need to pay more attention to 'fuelling it' (with protein) and 'using it' (with physical activity) than i had to do with levo alone.

i've decided that for me , there's no harm in going too slow. and if some people laugh at me for only tolerating 4mcg T3 and say that's so small it's pointless , well so what ? .... the fact is i feel better on 4mcg than i did on 8mcg so i'm sticking with it for now .

I will see if adding back the other 4mcg is an improvement at some point in the future ~ once i've had a bit of consistency on this dose.

with hindsight i think i might have been better not to lower levo at all , and to start on this dose ( 100mcg levo / 4 or 5 mcg T3 )... i used to be on 112.5mcg levo last year , but i had been lowering levo gradually for a while to deal with very high fT4 levels ,

[Joant24 in reply to tattybogle]

It’s a long road indeed. Good luck to us all x

[FallingInReverse]

I’m in the same boat but have decided no changes until 6+ weeks on a steady dose at least.

I think I’m closer to 10-12 weeks at this point!!! Pretty sure I’m still over on t3.

At this point I am unable to tell the difference between under and over replaced because I’m very new to being (maybe possibly?!) over replaced!

Plus I’m unclear on the impact of perimenopause right now.

So if I’m to know “why” I feel certain ways, I’m following “low, slow and change one thing at a time” rigidly.

Must go get my blood done asap, just been so busy at work and can’t make time : (

[Joant24 in reply to FallingInReverse]

It’s hard sometimes to fit everything in and especially when levels have such an impact. I’ve been on 75mcg T4 / 10mcg T4 for over a year now and was doing so well. Then suddenly the palpitations started and the anxiety, I hung on for a while but a few days ago I gave in and halved my T3. So here I am not sure if I should up my T4. Woe is us!!! Good luck with your testing. X

[FallingInReverse in reply to Joant24]

Thanks for sharing! I’m thinking of these decisions all through the days right now.

I’m in 112 and 10 t3 (split am and pm)

I was in a quest to raise my t4, but lately I’ve been reminded that t3 will suppress it.

So now I’m probably going to reduce t3 next… if blood tests confirm… but must get blood done and stop guessing!

I’m looking forward to how you get on.