Dealing With Hypopituitarism

[alunddk]

Hi all,

Last year I went under a brain surgery for a pituitary tumor.
The doctors damaged my pituitary under the surgery. And after surgery I have been on the medicine for Euthyrox ever since.

Im in the situation, where I really cant loose weight - No matter what I tried.
My diet consists of lean meats for grass-fed animals, and tons of greens and fruits.
Currently Im doing cardio and strength training every day. But so far no luck.

I've went from 69 kg to 110 kg today.

Do any of you have some tips on alternate methods or am I doing something wrong ?

Kind regards,
Anders

 

[tara]

I am not sure I quite understand - you are doing strength training, so I imagine you would be wanting to gain some weight from that, but perhaps you have gained more than you wanted.


I'm sorry you got damage from surgery.
I am no expert, but I suspect that if you can get appropriate thyroid supplementation, I think there may be a good chance that will help a lot.
I think euthyrox may be a T4-only medicine? My impression from reading, is that getting the right doses can be quite individual, that some people have difficulty adequately converting T4 to the active T3 that the cells need to produce energy, and so some people do much better if they can supplement some T3 as well as T4. I think a healthy thyroid gland tends to secrete them in a ratio of ~1:4 T3:T4. Peat has said some people who need it benefit from ratios up to 1:2. I'm not sure what would happen in your situation, with damaged pituitary, but in other situations, peoople have been known to become more hypothyroid (symptom-wise) with T4 only supplementation. But some people do fine with it, so it could be a matter of you just not getting enough yet.
T4 has a long half life, and takes about two weeks to stabilise in the blood at a steady daily dosage. T3 has a much shorter half life, so if using it, small doses multiple times a day may be more useful.

It is important to provide enough nutrition to support the metabolism.

I think it would be worth considering:
- Get into the habit of monitoring your own signs and symptoms, esp. body temps, so you have a way of seeing the day to day effects of the changes you try.
- Read up on thyroid function and thyroid supplements on this forum and other places. You'll find that people don't all respond the same way, and there's sometimes a bit of experimentation needed to get it working right. Here're a couple of articles from Peat on the subject:
If you have not yet come across them, you might find these articles of Peat's related to thyroid interesting:
Thyroid: Therapies, Confusion, and Fraud
Preventing and treating cancer with progesterone.
- Once you've done those things, you may want to ask your doctor if you can try some T3 in addition to the T4.

 

[Herbie]

Euthyrox is levothyroxine (t4) only.

 

[NathanK]

If you are hypopituitary then you are gonna need more than just thyroid to get by.

 

[alunddk]

Hi Nathan, what other would i need than T3 or T4 ?

Currently I'm also taking, vitamins, fishoil, Noni juice.

 

[Herbie]

“Several groups (Powers, et al., 2006; Everitt, et al., 1980; Telford, et al., 1986) have shown that removal of the pituitary gland can greatly extend lifespan, if thyroid hormone is supplemented.” Ray Peat.

 

[Herbie]

Be careful of fish oil Fish Oil/Omega-3

 

[NathanK]

If you are hypopituitary then you are gonna need more than just thyroid to get by.

To feel like a normal functioning human being, I would look into all of the various pituitary hormones. If your ACTH is low then that would mean a deficiency of cortisol which is critical for life. Others might be along the lines of your gonadatropins. Prohormones like DHEA and pregnenolone will be necessary as well. Before looking for any more advice, I would have all your labs in order to know where you stand.

 

[tara]

Currently I'm also taking, vitamins, fishoil, Noni juice.

I haven't taken any supplementary fish oil since I read this article of Peat's a few years ago:
The Great Fish Oil Experiment