Headaches, Vertigo And Cognitive Impairment After Starting 1/4 Grain NDT

Broco6679

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I started 1/4 grain of thyroid-s three days ago as I have every symptom of hypothyroidism. My pulse is around 55 BPM, temps don't go above 36.6c, I have regular adrenaline spikes, extremities are always cold etc.

I seem to have had quite a strange reaction. Since initiation, I have felt very dizzy, my balance has been poor, I have developed some speech issues, I've had a chronic low level headache with some intracranial pressure, and I feel slightly nauseous.

My temps have risen quite significantly since starting. Earlier today I took an underarm temp of 37 c, which is the first time I've ever seen an optimal reading in ~2 years of taking my temps. My extremities, especially my feet, reamined cold, however.

I've been monitoring my pulse, blood pressure and temps throughout, and all seem fine.

Resting heart rate: 65 - 75 BPM
Waking temp since starting: 35.8 - 36.2 c
Evening temps since starting: 36.5 - 37 c
Blood pressure: 125-135/60-75

The only times these change is if I have an adrenaline spike, which happens 4-5 times each day.

I'm struggling to decide if this is from the thyroid hormone itself, or some form of reaction to the thyroid-s pills. Various people have reported allergic reactions, and the pills have an insane amount of additives.

Anyone got an ideas as to why I'm experiencing these issues? The fact that my temps have improved and I feel warmer does seem to suggest that I do have a thyroid issue, but I don't want to keep taking this NDT if it's causing damage. All thoughts are appreciated.
 

gaze

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I think its from low liver function/glycogen. are you eating enough protein and fruit? if your eating a lot of starch your blood sugar may also be crashing too easily. Immediate fixes to these issues are sugar and salt, so some marshmellows or fruit with some hard cheese
 
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Broco6679

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Thanks for the suggestion! You're correct in your assumption that my liver function is poor. I can regularly drop into hypoglycemia territory if I go too long without food.

I'm drinking two litres of orange juice, a litre of pineapple juice and two litres of skim milk a day - this comes out to ~370g of sugar. I add a liberal amount of sugar or honey to the milk, so sugar intake is probably close to 500g a day. It doesn't really seem to help, unfortunately.

The milk has about 80g of protein. I eat 2-3 eggs and some lean meat or fish each day, so protein is covered too.

My AM cortisol was below range last time I checked, so that's probably part of the issue.
 

gaze

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Thanks for the suggestion! You're correct in your assumption that my liver function is poor. I can regularly drop into hypoglycemia territory if I go too long without food.

I'm drinking two litres of orange juice, a litre of pineapple juice and two litres of skim milk a day - this comes out to ~370g of sugar. I add a liberal amount of sugar or honey to the milk, so sugar intake is probably close to 500g a day. It doesn't really seem to help, unfortunately.

The milk has about 80g of protein. I eat 2-3 eggs and some lean meat or fish each day, so protein is covered too.

My AM cortisol was below range last time I checked, so that's probably part of the issue.

How much do you urinate? My guess would be low sodium from too much liquid. you could try cutting out the pineapple juice entirely, cutting back on orange juice a little bit, and making up those lost calories in 2% milk and some ice cream. I think 5 litres of fluid is too much unless its very sunny. especially if you arnt abundantly salting youur food. low sodium is a huge cause of adrenaline spikes. probably the main cause in fact, that or blood sugar
 
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Broco6679

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I urinate a lot, especially when experiencing the surge of adrenaline.

I add 2-3g of salt per 750ml of liquid - is this enough, or should I add more? I noticed today that an adrenal spike which started after sugared milk w/o salt was completely solved after consuming 750ml of orange juice w/ 3g of salt, so perhaps that is the issue. How many total grams a day should I be aiming for? Thanks
 

gaze

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I urinate a lot, especially when experiencing the surge of adrenaline.

I add 2-3g of salt per 750ml of liquid - is this enough, or should I add more? I noticed today that an adrenal spike which started after sugared milk w/o salt was completely solved after consuming 750ml of orange juice w/ 3g of salt, so perhaps that is the issue. How many total grams a day should I be aiming for? Thanks

Yea, That's what I suspected. First, I would cut back the liquid. If your urinating a lot plus adrenaline, your issue is definitely low sodium. Simply salting drinks is probably not enough. So I would continue 1-2 liters of milk, but from there only have 2-3 cups of OJ. Don't drink pineapple juice anymore. Instead, salt physical foods to taste, don't aim for a specific gram. Once you cut back on fluids and you can tell how your body responds to certain amounts of drinks, you can begin increasing it while being aware if it makes your adrenaline rise and makes your urinate. You should always balance liquids with salty foods depending on how much you urinate.
 
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Broco6679

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A couple of days have passed and this is getting worse.
I feel extremely dizzy, can't remember things I read five minutes ago, I've developed carpel tunnel in my left hand, both hands feel weak and the headache is getting stronger and stronger.
This definitely isn't anything to do with diet, because none of this was present before trying thyroid.
I'm hoping I'll get better, but does anyone know why I responded this way to such a small dose?
 

graciousxx

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NDT might have too high of a T4:T3 ratio for you especially if you have liver problems. From what I've read on this forum, I gather that too much T4 coupled with poor liver function can be the cause of the negative symptoms you described and it has something to do with the liver not being able to convert the inactive T4 to active T3 and then it converts to rT3 (reverse T3) instead and this causes unpleasant symptoms. I also was taking Haidut's Tyromax (NDT) and experienced a lot of the same symptoms you described so I stopped and they went away (no hate on Haidut, I love him and his products). I would suggest if you're still determined to take thyroid supps that maybe taking a tiny bit of pure T3 if you can get it or even a mix of a smaller ratio of T4:T3 as Ray Peat has said that a hypothyroid person may need as little as a 2:1 ratio of T4:T3 to relieve hypo symptoms. I have been considering trying Haidut's Tyromix or Tyronene instead but decided that I was going to try and build a healthier foundation with minimal supplementation and good nutrition instead before I try tackling isolated issues, but that's just me - I may consider more supps in the future.

Good luck though! Hope you can figure it out.
 

Energizer

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Does thyroid-s even work? Has Ray mentioned it before? I don't have experience with the brand but have taken a different pimpom product (formerly known as Thiroyd) and was unimpressed with the results-- to be fair I could've been doing something wrong. (Not trying to derail the thread, just wondering).
 
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Broco6679

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Does thyroid-s even work? Has Ray mentioned it before? I don't have experience with the brand but have taken a different pimpom product (formerly known as Thiroyd) and was unimpressed with the results-- to be fair I could've been doing something wrong. (Not trying to derail the thread, just wondering).

I have since experimented with cynoplus and dithyron, and both felt roughly the same as the thyroid-s. The stuff definitely works, but I don't think there's any use for it given sheer amount of fillers it contains when there are much better products out there. I bought it before I found Peat's work, so only used it because it was what I had at the time.
 
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Broco6679

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NDT might have too high of a T4:T3 ratio for you especially if you have liver problems. From what I've read on this forum, I gather that too much T4 coupled with poor liver function can be the cause of the negative symptoms you described and it has something to do with the liver not being able to convert the inactive T4 to active T3 and then it converts to rT3 (reverse T3) instead and this causes unpleasant symptoms. I also was taking Haidut's Tyromax (NDT) and experienced a lot of the same symptoms you described so I stopped and they went away (no hate on Haidut, I love him and his products). I would suggest if you're still determined to take thyroid supps that maybe taking a tiny bit of pure T3 if you can get it or even a mix of a smaller ratio of T4:T3 as Ray Peat has said that a hypothyroid person may need as little as a 2:1 ratio of T4:T3 to relieve hypo symptoms. I have been considering trying Haidut's Tyromix or Tyronene instead but decided that I was going to try and build a healthier foundation with minimal supplementation and good nutrition instead before I try tackling isolated issues, but that's just me - I may consider more supps in the future.

Good luck though! Hope you can figure it out.

Appreciate your advice! Did some research and figured out what was wrong, so no longer have any issues with thyroid supplementation now.
 

mrchibbs

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Hey man, I definitely think it's normal for some weird stuff to happen on thyroid supplementation, especially early on, you're giving your body a stimulatory dose of something which it has been lacking for years. Make sure to take the NDT with a lot of food if possible. Good thing with the NDT is you can take it all at once, with a big dinner at night, as opposed to synthetic thyroid.
 

Energizer

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I have since experimented with cynoplus and dithyron, and both felt roughly the same as the thyroid-s. The stuff definitely works, but I don't think there's any use for it given sheer amount of fillers it contains when there are much better products out there. I bought it before I found Peat's work, so only used it because it was what I had at the time.

Thanks, that is good to know.
 

mgrabs

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A couple of days have passed and this is getting worse.
I feel extremely dizzy, can't remember things I read five minutes ago, I've developed carpel tunnel in my left hand, both hands feel weak and the headache is getting stronger and stronger.
This definitely isn't anything to do with diet, because none of this was present before trying thyroid.
I'm hoping I'll get better, but does anyone know why I responded this way to such a small dose?
How long did it take for symtoms to go away? I stopped the medication because of the hands issue. Has anything improved? Or did it completely foul your body up permanently
 

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