Need For Massive Amounts Of T3? Plus Cough

Beebop

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Jan 27, 2013
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Hi I started asking for help before I transitioned to using T3 here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1822&p=20869&hilit=tips#p20869
But thought this warranted a new thread as I am having troubles. Mods if you want to move it at some point that's fine by me.


Headlines:
1. I am having a crazy coughing fit problem that has been going on for a few days, keeping me awake all night.
2. I need three times the amount of T3 and T4 I thought I'd need.

The story:
I started on 137.5mcg T4. I am sensitive to T4 hence needing an unusual dosage. 150mcg was too much, 125mcg was too little.

The plan:
Drop the T4 from 137.5 to 100, and take 33mcg T3 - a 1:3 ratio.
Drop the T4 gradually over 5 weeks in three stages.

What actually happened:
I started by dropping from 137.5 to 125mcg. I started getting hugely fatigued, bad memory/slow thinking and getting cold crashes. As a result I upped my T3 much quicker and higher than I planned. Two days ago I increased my dose of T4 back up to 137.5 mcg.

I am currently taking T4/T3 - 137.5/80.
(planned to be on 100/30)

Hopefully as the higher T4 kicks in (takes two weeks) I can lower the T3 down to 45mcg. 137.5/45 would be a ratio of 1:3.
But this would mean I would be taking 45mcg extra T3 on top of my original, long-time perfected T4 dose. WTH?

If you've followed all those numbers I appreciate it! Does anyone know if this need for so much more T3 than expected means anything?
:confused


The other problem. My silent acid reflux worsened, I was getting bad sore throats and after a few days my throat started making mucous presumably for protection.

Now I can't feel any reflux but I am having painful coughing fits that are keeping me up all night. It's getting me down. My tongue is raw. The cough has been getting worse not better, despite increasing my T3 every day. I have never had a bad cough before without having a cold/flu.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts - sadface at all the coughing. Thanks guys!
 

jaguar43

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Oct 10, 2012
Messages
1,310
Beebop said:
Hi I started asking for help before I transitioned to using T3 here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1822&p=20869&hilit=tips#p20869
But thought this warranted a new thread as I am having troubles. Mods if you want to move it at some point that's fine by me.


Headlines:
1. I am having a crazy coughing fit problem that has been going on for a few days, keeping me awake all night.
2. I need three times the amount of T3 and T4 I thought I'd need.

The story:
I started on 137.5mcg T4. I am sensitive to T4 hence needing an unusual dosage. 150mcg was too much, 125mcg was too little.

The plan:
Drop the T4 from 137.5 to 100, and take 33mcg T3 - a 1:3 ratio.
Drop the T4 gradually over 5 weeks in three stages.

What actually happened:
I started by dropping from 137.5 to 125mcg. I started getting hugely fatigued, bad memory/slow thinking and getting cold crashes. As a result I upped my T3 much quicker and higher than I planned. Two days ago I increased my dose of T4 back up to 137.5 mcg.

I am currently taking T4/T3 - 137.5/80.
(planned to be on 100/30)

Hopefully as the higher T4 kicks in (takes two weeks) I can lower the T3 down to 45mcg. 137.5/45 would be a ratio of 1:3.
But this would mean I would be taking 45mcg extra T3 on top of my original, long-time perfected T4 dose. WTH?

If you've followed all those numbers I appreciate it! Does anyone know if this need for so much more T3 than expected means anything?
:confused


The other problem. My silent acid reflux worsened, I was getting bad sore throats and after a few days my throat started making mucous presumably for protection.

Now I can't feel any reflux but I am having painful coughing fits that are keeping me up all night. It's getting me down. My tongue is raw. The cough has been getting worse not better, despite increasing my T3 every day. I have never had a bad cough before without having a cold/flu.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts - sadface at all the coughing. Thanks guys!

First i am taking a whole lot more than you, second don't drop it. You have see if the symptoms go away. Thyroid may be increasing your immune system so it may take a few weeks. Are you doing pregnenolone ?
 

4peatssake

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Feb 7, 2013
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jag2594 said:
First i am taking a whole lot more than you, second don't drop it. You have see if the symptoms go away. Thyroid may be increasing your immune system so it may take a few weeks. Are you doing pregnenolone ?
This is good advice. You need to dose symptoms, not worry about what the numbers are. That would be a huge mental distraction and exertion for me and create stress.

Did you email Ray Peat?
 
OP
Beebop

Beebop

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Jan 27, 2013
Messages
289
Ok, yes it seems ridiculous to be concerned about numbers, but it just took me by surprise, and I don't have enough context to know what kinds of doses other people take. So thanks jag that's good to know. How much are you taking if you don't mind my asking?

It's strange to me if I end up taking so much more than I was previously on. I wondered if this was typical of T3 because of some mechanism I don't know about. But as I'd read that T3 is much stronger than T4 and makes T4 itself work better, I didn't expect what actually happened!

I haven't emailed Ray Peat yet, not sure if I want to bother him with this.

I'm not taking pregnenolone, I want to get T3 sorted out before trying Progest-E etc.

Thanks for your replies!
 
OP
Beebop

Beebop

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Joined
Jan 27, 2013
Messages
289
Splitting dose into 5-7 separate times a day. 15mcg each time, sometimes 5mcg in the night, or 10 before bed etc. I will try increasing to 20mcg each time at some point to make it easier.

Thanks for your recipe Jenn. Aloe vera juice is disgusting, but I could give it a try! How did you come up with it?
 

kiran

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Aug 9, 2012
Messages
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Ray recommends no more than 5mcg/hour. My need for T3 reduced drastically after I started dosing every hour or so. Nibble on a 20mcg T3 tablet is what he recommends IIRC.
 
OP
Beebop

Beebop

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Jan 27, 2013
Messages
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kiran said:
My need for T3 reduced drastically after I started dosing every hour or so.

That's very interesting. Could you describe this? How much did it reduce by?

That would mean the most you could take in 16 hours would be 80mcg.
 

kiran

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I had detailed excel files, but unfortunately they were on my old hard disk, which is currently in storage across the world. :(

The summary is that I felt at my best when I took doses of at most 5 mcg at one time.
IIRC I had tried 200mcg+ of T3 based on the Yahoo RT3 group recommendations. I was kinda reading Peat at that time and wondering whether to take his advice on physiological doses of T3.

What I ended up doing differs slightly from Ray's recommendations. He suggests at most 5mcg/hour, I did multiple doses of 5mcg per hour. If I wanted to take say 120mcg, then I would space the doses 45 min apart, so I'd get 3x5mcg in 2 hours. I'd skip doses during nap time or when I just forgot (Face it, It's really hard to remember to do something every half hour). Fairly large doses, but then I had some moderate CFS back then. Over time that number dropped to about 40mcg then 20mcg then even less right now.

Now, I just nibble on a 20mcg cytomel. I don't usually finish it in one day though.
 
J

j.

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kiran said:
He suggests at most 5mcg/hour, I did multiple doses of 5mcg per hour. If I wanted to take say 120mcg, then I would space the doses 45 min apart, so I'd get 3x5mcg in 2 hours. I'd skip doses during nap time or when I just forgot (Face it, It's really hard to remember to do something every half hour). Fairly large doses, but then I had some moderate CFS back then. Over time that number dropped to about 40mcg then 20mcg then even less right now.

You've been taking those T3 doses without T4?
 

kiran

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j. said:
kiran said:
He suggests at most 5mcg/hour, I did multiple doses of 5mcg per hour. If I wanted to take say 120mcg, then I would space the doses 45 min apart, so I'd get 3x5mcg in 2 hours. I'd skip doses during nap time or when I just forgot (Face it, It's really hard to remember to do something every half hour). Fairly large doses, but then I had some moderate CFS back then. Over time that number dropped to about 40mcg then 20mcg then even less right now.

You've been taking those T3 doses without T4?

I figured out that I feel better with a bit of T4. Pretty consistently taking half a grain (half of 1 ECI 60) of erfa, which should contain 18mcg of T4 + 4mcg of T3.
 

jaguar43

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Oct 10, 2012
Messages
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Beebop said:
Ok, yes it seems ridiculous to be concerned about numbers, but it just took me by surprise, and I don't have enough context to know what kinds of doses other people take. So thanks jag that's good to know. How much are you taking if you don't mind my asking?

It's strange to me if I end up taking so much more than I was previously on. I wondered if this was typical of T3 because of some mechanism I don't know about. But as I'd read that T3 is much stronger than T4 and makes T4 itself work better, I didn't expect what actually happened!

I haven't emailed Ray Peat yet, not sure if I want to bother him with this.

I'm not taking pregnenolone, I want to get T3 sorted out before trying Progest-E etc.

Thanks for your replies!

I am pretty sure that when he says to take only taking 4 mcg an hour, he is referring to the normal/healthy person without issues. Plus he does that amount because he has been taking thyroid for ages, he is adapted to that type of metabolism. As you increase your metabolism over time, you would need less than the first time taking it. He has also stated that people who eat well, do not always have to take thyroid. The person just starting is going to need a bigger dose, but a gradual increase, in my opinion to be able to feel the effects. Size, weight, sex, symptoms and other characteristics are involve in dosing.

If you taken it before, stop, and retook it then you are going to need a bigger dose because you body has adapted to the coming and going of thyroid. Food intake in my experience has to increase to sustain a higher metabolism.

A key sign that ray peat doesn't talk about is myxedema. Just because you look thin doesn't mean you don't suffer from it. A quick test would be to feel the skin on your elbow, then go to your upper thigh and upper arm and see if the skin is somewhat loose like the one the elbow. If you can barely grab on to skin, then you probably have myxedema. In mark starr's book Hypothyroidism type two, he explains it in further detail ( even though I do not agree with most of what he says). Also there are other studies showing higher need of t4 and t3 to overcome the low metabolic rate.

I don't want to give my dosage out because I don't want you guys to get ideas. I think one should study there reactions, get more information on it.
 
J

j.

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kiran said:
Pretty consistently taking half a grain (half of 1 ECI 60) of erfa, which should contain 18mcg of T4 + 4mcg of T3.

That's one dose, correct? And you take that about... 4 or 5 times a day?
 
J

j.

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kiran said:
No, the erfa is a single dose at night.

But that's only 4 mcg of T3, you take something else to complete the 20 mcg per day, correct?
 

kiran

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j. said:
kiran said:
No, the erfa is a single dose at night.

But that's only 4 mcg of T3, you take something else to complete the 20 mcg per day, correct?

Yes, I nibble on a 20mcg cytomel all day, and take the erfa as the last dose at night.
 
J

j.

Guest
kiran said:
j. said:
kiran said:
No, the erfa is a single dose at night.

But that's only 4 mcg of T3, you take something else to complete the 20 mcg per day, correct?

Yes, I nibble on a 20mcg cytomel all day, and take the erfa as the last dose at night.

Alright. Am I correct in concluding that you take 18 mcg of T4 and 24 of T3 per day, so you have a ratio of 4:3 T3 to T4.
 

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