Hello, I was prescribed T3 5mcg under 2 weeks ago by my Endo to take with my existing Levo 50mcg. He advised me to start with half a pill at 2.5mcg as I’m small which I did for a week. My current routine is I take both Lio and Levo at 5 am and no food/drinks at least 3 hours before and after. I have breakfast at 8:30 am and do moderate workout in the morning ( under 2 hours) daily. My observation so far:
Week 1: slight improvement in my energy especially in the morning. After lunch my energy plummets and I end up having to take deep naps for 1-2 hours and still feel exhausted after waking up.
Week 2: I doubled Lio dose to 5mcg ( still with 50mcg Levo), and felt my energy is lasting me longer and today after 3 days of 5mcg Lio, I didn’t need to nap in the afternoon.
Whilst all that sounds great, I’m noticing both my foot nail beds aren’t looking great. The nail beds are lifting on 3 toes, I think they’re called onycholytis? I’ve never had this problem before, and I’m surprised the development was so quick as I first noticed it only 4 days ago and now the separation is more significant.
Does this mean that I have overdosed on Lio? I read that this symptom seems more related to hyperthyroidism? Not sure if I should stay at 5mcg Lio or go back to half a pill again.
if anyone has any experience with their nail beds splitting, and can share how relevant is this symptom that would be most appreciated . Many thanks again.
ps: I have not noticed any other symptoms except better energy but with nail beds separating.
Written by
redsquirrel68
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
I do have a blood test in 6 weeks to see how I fare with this combined dose of Lio and Levo. Have taken photo now and will show my endo as advised. Thank you again.
onycholytis can also be fungal or sometimes caused by previous trauma. I had it on finger nails, clippings were sent off but negative. It is associated with hyper levels.
onycholytis is what sent me back to dr after blood test, ultrasound scan & fine needle aspiration was done & I told me everything clear. Hyper levels had been missed.
I will keep my clippings and do as you suggest. I would never have thought I had a hyper swing in the past. Since I’m ahead by 6 hours( in Asia on holiday), I’m reading your combined response with grey goose with interest. I will write more as I believe I may know when I had that swing. Thank you for that insight
Do you have Hashi's? If so, you've probably been mildly hyper at some point in the past. The effect isn't instantaneous. I have Hashi's and my last hyper swing was 30 years go, but I got this nail problem on my hands about twenty years later. I found that nail massages helped enormously.
I do have Hashi. Wow. I never would’ve guessed that I may have a had a hyper swing in the past. It could be coincidence as slow dragon pointed out but both your response and purple nails made me think of a time last year where I stupidly overdosed myself on Lugol iodine for 3 weeks. I became addicted to it as it gave me energy which I craved and warmth too. The effect I felt on Lugol is funnily( maybe not) not too dissimilar to how I felt yesterday. Boost of energy, couldn’t sleep in the afternoon and feeling warm. Do you think something like that may be the culprit?
I have since gone back to half a pill again on my Lio this morning. Got a bit nervous. I’m trying to see if I can work out a rough concentration in my system which I should not go over.
Monday- full pill 5mcg Lio. Good energy morning, crashed in afternoon
Tuesday- full pill 5mcg Lio( half life from Monday adds up to 7.5mcg). Good energy in morning, crashed in afternoon
Wednesday- full pill 5mcg Lio( adds up to 8.75), good energy in morning and afternoon, no naps but have surplus nervous energy.
Thursday( today)- half pill Lio 2.5mcg( brings total down to 6.8?)
To monitor how I feel today. Sorry if I don’t make sense, but I will write later when I have more time. Thank you all for coming back so quickly 🙏🏼
Iodine can stimulate the thyroid to begin with, so it makes you feel better. But stimulating a sick gland just makes it crash all the sooner. Highly unlikely that you needed that iodine because you would have been getting it from your thyroid hormone replacement: T4 contains 4 atoms of iodine for every molecule and T3 3 atoms. So that means that 100 mcg T4 will give you about 65 mcg iodine every day, which is recycled in the body. And, frankly, you don't even need that much because the thyroid is no-longer making thyroid hormone. Hope you've stopped the iodine now.
Wednesday- full pill 5mcg Lio( adds up to 8.75), good energy in morning and afternoon, no naps but have surplus nervous energy. Thursday( today)- half pill Lio 2.5mcg( brings total down to 6.8?)
No, you can't do that. If T3 is going to do what it's supposed to do, you have to take the same amount every day. The body has to be assured that its source of T3 is not going to dry up.
I’m trying to see if I can work out a rough concentration in my system which I should not go over.
That's very weird. Why don't you just do a blood test?
But, there's something you haven't taken into account in your half-life calculations: after 24 hours there will be half your dose left MINUS what gets into the cells. And that is something that you just cannot calculate. And it probably wouldn't be the same every day, anyway. So, I rather think your plan is doomed to failure, I'm afraid.
I’ve stopped the iodine last year after 3 weeks for all the reasons you mentioned. It made me feel good initially then I didn’t feel great. I didn’t realise then I had problems with thyroid as I had blood test much later and was diagnosed with hypothyroid end of last year.
Can I ask you more in detail? Is the onset of my onycholytis nothing to do with my T3 intake? I was worried because the timing was just within days of starting T3.
To keep my T3 intake consistent, how do I know which dose suits me best….half a pill or full pill? All my endo said was start with half a pill of 5mcg and see how I go ( as I’m quite small). I did that but energy still remained low so I went up to 1 whole pill. It’s day 4 now and I have better energy but seeing my nail bed separating yesterday freaked me out which was why I asked for help 😓 Am I panicking for no reason?
I have a blood test scheduled in 6 weeks. Thank you GG for explaining things in a simple fashion. I’ve read all this before but didn’t even clock that we get our iodine from the T4
The only way to know which dose suits you best is to go by how you feel. No-one else can tell you because they're not inside your body. But, actually, 5 mcg is only a tiny dose, you might end up needing more.
I have 2 toe nails which are splitting at one corner. Greygoose points out if mildly hyper in the past can affect the nails. My FT3 in February 2022 when diagnosed, without thyroid supplementation, was 91.89%. I am hypothyroid, as my FT4 was MINUS 65%.(TSH still normal range)
I have had my FT3 at 89.73% , 2/9/24 when taking 10mcg T3, 83.78%,11/11/24 when on 7.5 mcg. Per Greygoose's reply, I will now assume that FT3 in the 80s is too high for me personally. though I didn't feel overmedicated. I then reduced my T3 dose to 5 mcg. NHS endo then did thyroid bloods 16/12/24 , but unfortunately, I had only been on the reduced dose 4 weeks. On T3 , 5mcg my FT3 dropped, at 4 weeks, to 54.05%, paired with FT4 61% with levo 68 mcg. The 2 readings prior were also on levo 68 mcg, but I maintained 78% FT4 with these.
I will take private bloods 24/3/25, on an unchanged dose to that done previously by NHS ENDO at the 4 week stage. The NHS would likely have had a fit had they tested me 4 weeks prior where FT4 78% and FT3 83.78%, which my private Endo thought was excellent. He was happy even at FT3 89.73%. So I dodged a bullet there with the NHS as I had to tell them I was on T3 and my Health Board is rabidly against T3, and do not prescribe.
I started in May 2024 adding in T3 at 2.5 mcg for maybe a month or more , before increasing to 5 mcg per day. I had definite improvement at the 2.5 or 5 mcg dose but don't have a blood test for either for lots of reasons, and believe I will need to tweak around these doses and T4 dose. I lost the benefit from the T3 when I moved beyond 5 mcg. I came to a grinding halt, but it was complicated by an enforced T4 brand change.
I wouldn't have moved beyond T3 5 mcg but my private Endo had said I would likely need T3 15mcg. Since it was a trial , which could have been ended, I felt it only sensible to see how 7.5 and then 10 mcg felt, and what my blood readings would be.
I have no idea what your historical blood results have been as I will lose this post if I try to check your previous posts at this point.
Am I correct to assume you started with 2.5mcg T3 in May 2024, then went up to 5mcg, then up to 10mcg and back down to 7.5mcg, then to 5mcg and now you’re waiting for your blood test on 24th March? I will be following your post to see how your blood test on the 24th March turns out. When you were taking your T3, did you have to split your dose daily?
I started with 2.5mcg Lio for 1 week then upped to 5mcg this week. It’s only day 6 but I do feel much better. It appears to sustain me well despite doing some extra workout daily this week for 2 hours in the morning. It will be interesting to see how I fare on this dose when I’m back to my normal routine next week.
Did you experience any change when you have an active or sedentary day?
Thank you for sharing that the low dose worked well for you. Thanks to what I’ve learnt from this forum, I know that my endo appears to be following what is preached here. My dose is increased in small doses and followed by a blood test in 6-8 weeks. Mine is due in a month’s time
Yes, dosed 2.5 mcg, then 5 mcg, then 7.5 mcg and then 10 mcg. I will do my own blood test 24/3/24 on 5 mcg , T3 and 68 mcg T4.
I tried split dosing initially but feel I need to take one dose of T4 and T3 daily.
Before I started 2.5 mcg or 5 mcg last year I had no energy whatsoever and wide spread pain everywhere, and was fit to do nothing. I am basically housebound and have no quality of life, and have been ill since 1987. You are doing 2 hour workouts, so are much higher functioning than I am, and likely have felt under par for a much shorter period. When I introduced T3 initially, I had total mental clarity back and was highly motivated. I still had very little energy and was very weak, but from doing no housework whatsoever, suddenly I was even tackling shampooing carpets and cleaning years of dust from the top of wardrobes, and writing lists of tasks I needed to do if, and when I had more energy ( like painting the kitchen-dream on!)! I woke each day and was able to accomplish multiple household cleaning tasks in a day and without doubt had transformational results, though still in considerable pain and lacked energy. Hard to explain.
On both 7.5 mcg or 10 mcg T3 , I lost all motivation and mental clarity again and was back to being incapable of doing anything very much again. I just came to a grinding halt again. I have been dropped to 5 mcg T3 since 4 weeks prior to 16/12/24, which was when I had my covid and flu vaccinations. So when NHS Endo tested 16/12/24, it was 4 weeks after vaccines, at 3.45 p.m. and reducing to T3 , 5 mcg. The 5 mcg dose had not had time to settle. The NHS Endo appointment was too close to having had vaccinations. I had waited a year and a half for 2nd appointment which was 10 mins.
On 5 mcg T3, now, I still haven't got the motivation or mental clarity back that I had last year. My feeling is that it must have been 2.5 mcg T3 that had me in a sweet spot previously.
I would like to reduce T3 to 2.5 mcg to see if that is the sweet spot.
A hair mineral analysis test stated I would have high in range, good looking levels of thyroid hormones in a blood test (I did), but that I had cellular resistance and they were not getting into the cells, so I don't feel the benefit. The cause was stated as gut microbiome and adrenal fatigue. The test also implied my progesterone may be really high and estrogen very low. Blood tests I did at the same time confirmed this. I wholeheartedly recommend a hair mineral analysis test . I intend to do an OATS test in the next few months.
I believe , (personal opinion)to overcome cellular resistance , in my case, that I need to reduce my thyroid doses to overcome the cellular resistance, rather than raise further. I think it is a protective mechanism of the body. My type of supposed cellular resistance, I believe, is different from that of Greygoose and Dippydame who need T3 only in high doses to function. It may be that it is related to what is called the Wolff-Chaikoff effect.
You asked if there was any change if I had an active or sedentary day. When I felt the benefit of low dose T3 all my days were filled with as much activity as I could handle. I would say that I went from previously sedentary days , to all day active days (for me).
I can’t imagine what it must’ve been going through lockdown, not only trying to secure doctor’s appointments but also managing your doses around the vaccines! The tests you mentioned about cellular resistance are all new to me. I am doing exactly what you described…. As long as I feel the energy and motivation returning, I will be active as much as I can because I’m terrified of losing it. I would be most grateful if you can update your situation after your tests. I hope you will find your sweet spot again soon. Thank you very much for sharing 🙏🏼
I wouldn't describe the tests as cellular resistance tests . The explanation that came with my hair mineral analysis test results described my results as a whole that way. Hope you continue to improve.
Just a note on your workout, it is great that you are able to do some exercises, but please be careful with that and don't overdo it. Exercising required a LOT of T3 and if your levels are not optimal yet and still on the low side, you will be getting exhausted more quickly. A healthy thyroid can ramp up the production of T3 when we are exercising and as required, but as your source of T3 is what you are taking, you can run out of it, if you overdo it.
I would just do some gentle exercising or walking regularl (maybe a bit of yoga if you like that), until your T3 levels have stabilised and are higher. Otherwise you may do one step forward and 2 steps back, which is not good.
Thank you. I was aware of being cautious around exercise as I looked up several posts here around workouts before going on my holiday now. I’m on a scuba diving holiday which I booked a year ago. I’ve been an avid diver for more than 25 years. Whilst it is not as strenuous as running or cycling long distance, you do need to have your wits with you. After the first day diving , my anxiety dissipated as I managed to get into a routine of taking melatonin at night to combat jet lag and ensure I get enough sleep and waking up at 5am for my Levo-Lio dose. I have also been religiously taking all my minerals and vitamins and eating high fat/protein and gluten free. It is my first holiday since diagnosed and I’m so relieved that it’s gone as well as it could and I will be back in Uk next week. I have come to appreciate how everything is consequential - the dose consistency, minerals and vitamins and a gluten free diet ( high fat/protein). I hope to follow through this routine when I’m back in Uk. I used to take my supplement pills at convenient times but this time I will carry my vitamin and mineral pills/spray with me so that I can take them at a specified time every day wherever I am.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
cheapest way to buy Levo and Lio
Dosage of Liothyronine and Levothyroxine
Due to start T3 but not sure of the best way to reduce my levo
Increased dose of levo causing tummy problems - help please! 
Nightmares due to overmedication?
