Advice For My Mother?

Emstar1892

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Aug 14, 2015
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hello everyone,

my mother has been hypothyroid for years now. she has been taking levothyroxine since diagnosis which has helped in a whole number of ways, except that it makes her very...unstable. she has mad mood swings, to the point of hurling things at people. she sleeps 5-6 hours a night and despite this is hyper all day. she's lost a TON of weight but has a "rubber tyre" around her middle, which looks very odd. among other things. anyway she told me she's thinking of trying cytomel, but I know absolutely nothing about it. is this a good idea? any advice welcome, thank you!
 

tara

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Peat has said that many people who require thyroid supp do better with a combination of T3 and T4 at varying ratios, but often in the range 1:2 - 1:4 of T3:T4.
Cytomel is T3, and Peat has said good things about it in the past. If she can get hold of some cytomel, it might be a helpful addition to the T4 levothyroxine she has been taking. There have been supply issues the last few months - there's a thread.

T3 has a short half-life of a few hours, and the healthy body typically produces 3-4 mcg T3/hour. Peat usually recommends nibbling a tiny crumb of T3 - I think that means 1-2 mcg out of a 25mcg tablet - every hour or two as required.

If she eats as little as you say, no wonder she gets hangry.
The tire could be a symptom of chronically elevated cortisol. Chronical or frequent low blood sugars could contribute to this.
Forcing metabolism up without adequate fuel and other nutrition runs the risk of increasing stress and catabolism of organs.
 
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Emstar1892

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Ah Tara you're such a genius! Always so prompt and helpful :D

That's exactly what I said to her! It had to be said quite delicately, but I always thought that "tyre" was a cortisol issue. And I've also been trying to help her realize that she needs to eat more, but it's a difficult one. Like so many people I know, she keeps asserting that she's fine. I've said, but you don't eat breakfast, so your body HAS to run on cortisol until midday, there's no way around it. And she just nods and says "I KNOW!" but then doesn't do anything about it. I got her some ashwanghada hehe but that's it
 
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Emstar1892

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I think I read that it's also possible that cortisol will be raised on t4 only, because it stresses the body to convert it, and this can create problems if conversion is an issue. Perhaps I'm wrong about that though
 

burtlancast

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Levothyroxine is T4: Ray's explained the problem in giving women only T4; they often don't manage to convert it efficiently to T3 . And T4 accumulates and supressese TSH, causing even more problems.

It's a good idea to try T3, but perhaps a dessicated natural thyroid would be an even better thing ( i believe the one sold in Thailand has given great results for some members here).
 

tara

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goodandevil

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May 27, 2015
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Peat has said that many people who require thyroid supp do better with a combination of T3 and T4 at varying ratios, but often in the range 1:2 - 1:4 of T3:T4.
Cytomel is T3, and Peat has said good things about it in the past. If she can get hold of some cytomel, it might be a helpful addition to the T4 levothyroxine she has been taking. There have been supply issues the last few months - there's a thread.

T3 has a short half-life of a few hours, and the healthy body typically produces 3-4 mcg T3/hour. Peat usually recommends nibbling a tiny crumb of T3 - I think that means 1-2 mcg out of a 25mcg tablet - every hour or two as required.

If she eats as little as you say, no wonder she gets hangry.
The tire could be a symptom of chronically elevated cortisol. Chronical or frequent low blood sugars could contribute to this.
Forcing metabolism up without adequate fuel and other nutrition runs the risk of increasing stress and catabolism of organs.

I've been happy with unipharma t3.
 

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