4 Months At 3 Grains Thiroyd And No Effect. What Should I Do

[ecstatichamster]

again, my experience is NO thyroid has made a difference for me. Not a good difference. So for some, thyroid supplementation itself won't work. That is my experience 100%, after 4 different trials.

 

[MyUsernameHere]

again, my experience is NO thyroid has made a difference for me. Not a good difference. So for some, thyroid supplementation itself won't work. That is my experience 100%, after 4 different trials.

Pills will never be ideal at replacing an entire gland in the body. To me thyroid supplementation is a stopgap while I look for ways to fix my own.

 

[marsaday]

@marsaday Thanks for the long and thoughtful response.
I am looking into Dr. Blanchard’s work and it does seem very interesting and makes a good case for synthetics.
This quote really caught my eye:
Hypothyroidism, The Many Myths by Kenneth Blanchard, M.D.
“I also disagree with the use of Armour thyroid by itself for the same reason, that it does not contain a physiologic balance of T4 to T3. The human thyroid produces roughly 95% T4 and 5% T3. Armour thyroid is an animal thyroid that contains 80% T4/20% T3. People who take Armour thyroid usually feel better for a short period of time because they were deficient in T3 but, after a period of time, the Armour thyroid will cause a T4-T3 imbalance at tissue level and a variety of undesired symptoms can then develop over time. One can get a better balance by giving some T4 with the Armour.”

I wonder what RP would make of this as he suggests a 1:4 ratio and also thinks the lower the TSH the better.
edit @ilovethesea Thanks for the RP view

My pretreatment thyroid tests are given below.
TSH: 2.87 (0.28 - 4.10 mIU/L)
Total t3: 94 (87 - 178 ng/dL)
total t4: 0.98 (0.61 - 1.64 ng/dL)
FREE THYROXINE INDEX (FTI): 6.34 (4.50 - 13.13 ug/dL)
THYROXINE (T4): 6.5 (4.5 - 12.8 ug/dL)
T3 UPTAKE: 39% (32 - 48 %)
VITAMIN B12: 859 (181 - 914 pg/ml)
VITAMIN D,25-OH,TOTAL: 49 (30-100ng/mL)

A lower TSH is better, but it needs to be in relation to the T4 supply. When the supply goes too high, the TSH shuts down and this lowers conversion. This is how the system should work in healthy people. IF you have a low TSH and a low level of T4 then your T3 level is likely to be low. This is why some patients can have a TSH in the 100's, yet be fine because the body is super converting the T4 to T3 so levels of T3 in the tissue are fine. How long this lasts is a guess. Not ideal though. Hence docs will give you T4. This can then lower the TSH too much and you can actually feel worse. It is all about finding your balance or the sweet spot.

Total T4 seems at the lower end of the scale (bottom 1/3)

Ft4 at 6.5 is also lower in the scale (bottom 1/3)

Total T3 is also low in the scale.

To me you are low in thyroid hormones and i would always try T4 first to see how this goes. T4 works well for many and it is the easiest thyroid med to use. I am not saying it will work fully, but it should be tried on its own first. Give it a go for 2 months to see how a few increases work. Then you can introduce a little T3 to see if this makes a difference. You can then work out what ratio you feel good on with the T4/T3.

Vit D is also low and needs increasing.

Ilovethesea: You can disagree all you want. The key thing to understand is that ray peat, or dr blanchard or any other doc have experience of what works for them. Many people will not get better following rays work or Dr B's. Lots will. These guys are providing more solutions than main stream medicine and so should be listened to, but the best way to find good health again is to develop your own individual protocol. This involves trial and error, but sticking to someones rigid treatment method can often hinder folk.

I am a well thyroid patient and have tried all the thyroid protocols since 2008 when i realised my issue was thyroid. It took 5 yrs of messing around to get the health back on course. I still make fine adjustments and am still improving my health. Here is a list of treatment protocols i have used:

NTH upto 6 grains

T4 only 150, upto 225.

T4 150 and T3 50

T3 only up to 100. Felt terrible when i was past 60

I then decided to use a tiny bit of T4 and mostly T3 = 25 T4 and 55 T3. Over a two year period i did very well and after a year i wanted to see if i could use more T4 and less T3 because i wanted a simpler approach to multi dosing. Over a year i switched to 125 T4 and 20 T3. I then hit a wall. It was by accident that i missed my T3 one morning and i felt great. I stopped the T3 and for about 2 years i just used 125 T4.

I now use 150 T4 and 3mcg T3. I split my T4 dose into 50 and 100. The evening dose of T4 is key and i feel much better using T4 in the evening than in the morning. This is more natural and helps generate good cortisol production for the next day. I also use 2 drops of progestE per day and this helps make a big difference too.

I eat well, but don't follow any protocols. I just eat what i like. I have a natural sweet tooth, so cakes and chocolate or my weakness. We eat home cooked food usually. I don't drink much alcohol. I take vitamin D regularly and niacin a few times a week. I am sure i can fine tune things further, but generally life is good and i live well.

Sorry for the long post, but i thought i would give as much info to help Queequeg.

I was on my own when i first stumbled onto the thyroid issue and i self treated from day 1. The mistake i made was using NTH first and ramping up too fast. I wish i had just started out with 50 T4 and nothing else and seen how slow increases to around 100 would have worked out. Then i would have introduced T3 in 1/8th doses (about 3mcg) and seen how that worked out.

 

[papaya]

A lower TSH is better, but it needs to be in relation to the T4 supply. When the supply goes too high, the TSH shuts down and this lowers conversion. This is how the system should work in healthy people. IF you have a low TSH and a low level of T4 then your T3 level is likely to be low. This is why some patients can have a TSH in the 100's, yet be fine because the body is super converting the T4 to T3 so levels of T3 in the tissue are fine. How long this lasts is a guess. Not ideal though. Hence docs will give you T4. This can then lower the TSH too much and you can actually feel worse. It is all about finding your balance or the sweet spot.

Total T4 seems at the lower end of the scale (bottom 1/3)

Ft4 at 6.5 is also lower in the scale (bottom 1/3)

Total T3 is also low in the scale.

To me you are low in thyroid hormones and i would always try T4 first to see how this goes. T4 works well for many and it is the easiest thyroid med to use. I am not saying it will work fully, but it should be tried on its own first. Give it a go for 2 months to see how a few increases work. Then you can introduce a little T3 to see if this makes a difference. You can then work out what ratio you feel good on with the T4/T3.

Vit D is also low and needs increasing.

Ilovethesea: You can disagree all you want. The key thing to understand is that ray peat, or dr blanchard or any other doc have experience of what works for them. Many people will not get better following rays work or Dr B's. Lots will. These guys are providing more solutions than main stream medicine and so should be listened to, but the best way to find good health again is to develop your own individual protocol. This involves trial and error, but sticking to someones rigid treatment method can often hinder folk.

I am a well thyroid patient and have tried all the thyroid protocols since 2008 when i realised my issue was thyroid. It took 5 yrs of messing around to get the health back on course. I still make fine adjustments and am still improving my health. Here is a list of treatment protocols i have used:

NTH upto 6 grains

T4 only 150, upto 225.

T4 150 and T3 50

T3 only up to 100. Felt terrible when i was past 60

I then decided to use a tiny bit of T4 and mostly T3 = 25 T4 and 55 T3. Over a two year period i did very well and after a year i wanted to see if i could use more T4 and less T3 because i wanted a simpler approach to multi dosing. Over a year i switched to 125 T4 and 20 T3. I then hit a wall. It was by accident that i missed my T3 one morning and i felt great. I stopped the T3 and for about 2 years i just used 125 T4.

I now use 150 T4 and 3mcg T3. I split my T4 dose into 50 and 100. The evening dose of T4 is key and i feel much better using T4 in the evening than in the morning. This is more natural and helps generate good cortisol production for the next day. I also use 2 drops of progestE per day and this helps make a big difference too.

I eat well, but don't follow any protocols. I just eat what i like. I have a natural sweet tooth, so cakes and chocolate or my weakness. We eat home cooked food usually. I don't drink much alcohol. I take vitamin D regularly and niacin a few times a week. I am sure i can fine tune things further, but generally life is good and i live well.

Sorry for the long post, but i thought i would give as much info to help Queequeg.

I was on my own when i first stumbled onto the thyroid issue and i self treated from day 1. The mistake i made was using NTH first and ramping up too fast. I wish i had just started out with 50 T4 and nothing else and seen how slow increases to around 100 would have worked out. Then i would have introduced T3 in 1/8th doses (about 3mcg) and seen how that worked out.

This post is so helpful, thank u! What brand of t4 & t3 do u use?

 

[marsaday]

Am in the uk and we get levothyroxine here.

 

[Queequeg]

Thanks @MyUsernameHere, @sweetpeat peat and @ecstatichamster for sharing your experiences. It is definitely helpful to hear your stories, good and bad.

@marsaday thanks again for the great info and feedback. It was very helpful.

I should report that though my temps haven’t really budged my heart rate is up in the low 80s. They were in the high 50s for the longest time. However, this may be due to my new red light and not the NDT. I had been lazy and wasn’t watching my HR that closely as I ramped up the NDT. Happy to see it either way but plan to turn off the red light for a week and see if it stays high.

 

[DrJ]

I've been getting really good results from raising my calcium-to-phosphate ratio. It's a little challenging to track that, but basically if you take lots of the hard cheeses, like parmesan, which get close to a 3-to-1 ratio, and reduce high phosphorous foods like grains, muscle meats, soda, and prepared foods, you'll get there. My temps and heart rate have stayed high doing this, and I don't wake with my extremities (like feet) feeling cold. Plus I've been losing about 1.5lbs/week.

Also, if you aren't converting T4 to T3, your liver is probably burdened. I tried daily carrot salad, but it caused me digestive problems, so I've been using activated charcoal with 3X 260mg capsules every night, and even before I started targeting the calcium-to-phosphate ratio, it was noticeably raising my temp for several hours and even into the morning.

 

[marsaday]

My HR won't come above 48 at rest. Often around 40. My temps are normal however. The waking temp is the key temp to see what basic metabolic rate is doing. Mine used to be so low.

I play a lot of sport (always have) and so i think this is why the HR stays low. It would be great to see it higher, but i can't shift it really.

 

[ilovethesea]

Thanks for the great info and bringing in RP's take on it.
I think the ideal ratio seems to be very dependent on the individual. If your liver can convert T4 to T3 without any issue than a higher ratio of T4/T3 that matches normal thyroid output would make sense. At the other extreme those that can't convert T4 efficiently would obviously need more T3 in the mix.
I'm sure both doctors would agree with that but I find it interesting in how far apart both Ray and Dr. Blanchard are on the ideal starting ratios for the average person.

Ray specifically addresses the ratio question on that page http://www.functionalps.com/blog/20...oid-temperature-pulse-and-tsh/comment-page-1/

The serum’s high ratio of T4 to T3 is a pitifully poor argument to justify the use of thyroxine instead of a product that resembles the proportion of these substances secreted by a healthy thyroid gland, or maintained inside cells. About 30 years ago, when many people still thought of thyroxine as “the thryoid hormone,” someone was making the argument that “the thyroid hormone” must work exclusively as an activator of genes, since most of the organ slices he tested didn’t increase their oxygen consumption when it was added. In fact, the addition of thyroxine to brain slices suppressed their respiration by 6% during the experiment. Since most T3 is produced from T4 in the liver, not in the brain, I think that experiment had great significance, despite the ignorant interpretation of the author. An excess of thyroxine, in a tissue that doesn’t convert it rapidly to T3, has an antithyroid action. (See Goumaz, et al, 1987.) This happens in many women who are given thyroxine; as their dose is increased, their symptoms get worse.

 

[ilovethesea]

In my experience taking a lot of T4 at once is making you even more hypothyroid. I used to take 50 mcg in the morning, then when that stopped working 75, 100, and by the time I got to 100 I was worse off than when I started. I know that endocrinologists recommend taking it in the morning on an empty stomach, but that is completely unphysiological. Your body doesn't make 100 mcg of T4 in one sitting. It makes it slowly, during the day, most of it overnight in fact.

I also found it works better when taken at night. When I take T4 in the morning (even small amounts like 25 mcg), and have breakfast afterwards I have a lingering adrenaline feeling in my chest for hours and feel very uncomfortable. If I take it at night I get no such thing.

My experience with T4 so far is that it is also best multi-dosed, for example taking the majority of the dose at night, and then a smaller amount in the afternoon. For example for a total of 75 mcg
I would take 50 mcg before bedtime, and 25 mcg around 6 PM.

T3 works best in pieces of 5 mcg throughout the day for me.

I agree with this, T3 through the day and T4 at night.

Re: getting worse on T4, there is a great post on Vision and Acceptance about this http://www.visionandacceptance.com/sinthroid/

 

[ilovethesea]

A lower TSH is better, but it needs to be in relation to the T4 supply. When the supply goes too high, the TSH shuts down and this lowers conversion. This is how the system should work in healthy people. IF you have a low TSH and a low level of T4 then your T3 level is likely to be low. This is why some patients can have a TSH in the 100's, yet be fine because the body is super converting the T4 to T3 so levels of T3 in the tissue are fine. How long this lasts is a guess. Not ideal though. Hence docs will give you T4. This can then lower the TSH too much and you can actually feel worse. It is all about finding your balance or the sweet spot.

Total T4 seems at the lower end of the scale (bottom 1/3)

Ft4 at 6.5 is also lower in the scale (bottom 1/3)

Total T3 is also low in the scale.

To me you are low in thyroid hormones and i would always try T4 first to see how this goes. T4 works well for many and it is the easiest thyroid med to use. I am not saying it will work fully, but it should be tried on its own first. Give it a go for 2 months to see how a few increases work. Then you can introduce a little T3 to see if this makes a difference. You can then work out what ratio you feel good on with the T4/T3.

Vit D is also low and needs increasing.

Ilovethesea: You can disagree all you want. The key thing to understand is that ray peat, or dr blanchard or any other doc have experience of what works for them. Many people will not get better following rays work or Dr B's. Lots will. These guys are providing more solutions than main stream medicine and so should be listened to, but the best way to find good health again is to develop your own individual protocol. This involves trial and error, but sticking to someones rigid treatment method can often hinder folk.

I am a well thyroid patient and have tried all the thyroid protocols since 2008 when i realised my issue was thyroid. It took 5 yrs of messing around to get the health back on course. I still make fine adjustments and am still improving my health. Here is a list of treatment protocols i have used:

NTH upto 6 grains

T4 only 150, upto 225.

T4 150 and T3 50

T3 only up to 100. Felt terrible when i was past 60

I then decided to use a tiny bit of T4 and mostly T3 = 25 T4 and 55 T3. Over a two year period i did very well and after a year i wanted to see if i could use more T4 and less T3 because i wanted a simpler approach to multi dosing. Over a year i switched to 125 T4 and 20 T3. I then hit a wall. It was by accident that i missed my T3 one morning and i felt great. I stopped the T3 and for about 2 years i just used 125 T4.

I now use 150 T4 and 3mcg T3. I split my T4 dose into 50 and 100. The evening dose of T4 is key and i feel much better using T4 in the evening than in the morning. This is more natural and helps generate good cortisol production for the next day. I also use 2 drops of progestE per day and this helps make a big difference too.

I eat well, but don't follow any protocols. I just eat what i like. I have a natural sweet tooth, so cakes and chocolate or my weakness. We eat home cooked food usually. I don't drink much alcohol. I take vitamin D regularly and niacin a few times a week. I am sure i can fine tune things further, but generally life is good and i live well.

Sorry for the long post, but i thought i would give as much info to help Queequeg.

I was on my own when i first stumbled onto the thyroid issue and i self treated from day 1. The mistake i made was using NTH first and ramping up too fast. I wish i had just started out with 50 T4 and nothing else and seen how slow increases to around 100 would have worked out. Then i would have introduced T3 in 1/8th doses (about 3mcg) and seen how that worked out.

? I never said that people should stick to some rigid protocol. I agree with you that thyroid dosing is a lot of trial and error, and very individual.

Ray actually suggested trying T3 first and then adding T4 (in the 4:1 to 2:1 ratio) to keep TSH down at night.

Surprised that anyone on Ray Peat forum would suggest T4 only.... that's exactly what mainstream medicine is offering majority of thyroid patients, and it's not working out too well for them.

Until the poster does an RT3 test yet, we don't know if excess T4 is the entire problem.

 

[ilovethesea]

My HR won't come above 48 at rest. Often around 40. My temps are normal however. The waking temp is the key temp to see what basic metabolic rate is doing. Mine used to be so low.

I play a lot of sport (always have) and so i think this is why the HR stays low. It would be great to see it higher, but i can't shift it really.

Maybe your high temps are elevated because of stress hormones. Have you measured before and after meals?

 

[marsaday]

My temperature follows the natural curve we have in the day. Rises from a lower point and starts to fall off in the evening. My temp is pretty stable and the early morning one is starting from a good position. I am also well so not monitoring temps that much. I only do my BP in bed at night watching tv. HR is always in the low 40's generally. BP is 120/60 approx.

If a do the temps again i will try do before/after eating.

 

[aquaman]

Hi, I have all the typical hypo symptoms and a TSH of 2.6. As my title says I have been ramping up on Thiroyd from PimPom for the last 4 months, currently at 3 grains, and haven't noticed any impact on temp or other symptoms. My waking temp has been consistently in the low 97s. HR hasn't budged from high 50s.
I am wondering if I should try another brand or if this is common and I should stick it out. I did notice I can get Naturethroid without a script and have read some good reviews.

I was just listenig to a Herb Doctors interview where Ray mentions a woman on 15 grains of NDT. He says because there was no conversion of the T4, effectively she was on 3 grains so needed 15 as she was only getting use from the T3 element.

So at 3 grains, if the same applies you're effectively on 3/4.

Try adding T3 and upping calories.

I THINK it was the one called Exploring Alternatives on the FunctionalPS site: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22195338/kmud_160520FPS_190002FPSfritalk.mp3 around the 27 min mark (can't listen at the moment).