1.5 grains. I am much better than before hypothyroid diagnosis but not great. Still tired many afternoons. Can't get anything done concentration comes and goes. Visited Dr this week for recent lab results and even though TSH is .43 she wants to increase NatureThroid to 2.0 Grains because of Free T3. It is 2.7. Dr wants it to be in range of 3.7 to 5.0 I am concerned about raising meds with TSH being that low Does anyone have any insight? Thank you!
Hi Nancy, I started on Naturethroid. I could never quite g et the dose right and wound up on a never. Ending increasing dose. It never seemed to quite be enough, and my rT3 levels showed high.
I suspecr, my rT3 levels were high to begin with. And from the reading I've done, high rT3 can be triggered by Mercury or other heavy metal exposure. The problem is that Armour is from pigs, which have a much higher T3/T4 ratio than humans. So you're getting a nice dose of extra T3, which probably makes you feel better. Except that T3 only lasts for about 4 hours in the body. Ideally, your system would convert some of the longer lasting T4 to T3 as needed, once the T3 Starts to deplete. This relies of your gut and liver cells being healthy in order for the body to make a good amount of T3. And, since the Armour has high T3, your body could be triggered worse into producing additional or even higher rT3.
Now my guess is your energy levels are up and down like a yoyo, and you may also be having anxiety due to T3 imbalances. Yes? No? You could just keep increasing you're dose as needed, but there are negative side efects from thyroid medication, so it's best not to have to use a high dose.
I found there is a controvoercial protocol of short term very high dosing to try and desensitize the body to the thyroxin. This results in a lower effective dose. But then you have to keep doing this every so often. To keep the dose down.
I tried a bunch of different meds and in the end, realized I needed to intervene elsewhere in the thyroid loop. I got more relief from amino acids and cleansing than I did from the meds.
Hope this can give you some insight that saves you the years of thyroid roller foster I was on.
Thank you Catherine. Yeah the effects of dosing too high are what is bothering me. And not sure it's anxiety or what you call it. Something is off besides the energy. Maybe little edgy, down and little anxious too. Weird
Dr wants me to do the test for adrenals also don't know much about that so need to do some research. Hope you are well. Thank you for your time!
Yes, Nancy, thyroid medication consists of T3, T4 or both. Naturethroid, and all prescription NDTs are derived from porcine (pig) source. Unfortunately, pigs have a different ratio of T3 and T4 than humans, in fact the pigs have much higher T3 than humans. The NDTs because they contain higher T3 than humans feel great initially for low T3. But will eventually result in a relatively high T3, which causes anxiety.
Take a a look at your blood work. You'll see that (likely) your T4 is below midrange of normal, and your T3 is above midrange of normal. This is a crude indicator that these numbers are out of balance.
The medical "solution" for this is to prescribe a synthetic T4 only medication in the hopes that your body will convert as needed. But that doesn't happen so you wind up with horrible side effects from the synthetic, plus the same problem in reverse, of high T4 and low T3.
If you really need thyroid meds, you can try some of the OTC bovine products because they're closer to human ratios. Not covered by insurance, but worth every penny. If you still have your thyroid gland, it's best to solve the problems that cause thyroid disease, rather than to keep medicating while the condition worsens.