Not Feeling So Good At Moment

[marsaday]

I am a thyroid patient taking 150 T4 per day (at night). In the last week i have been feeling a touch more anxious and less confident and more tired. To me it seems as if the thyroid hormone is not doing its job.

I have been using progesterone for 14 months now with excellent results. I have just been using 3mcg per day (1 drop of progestE). I think this is related to the progesterone, but i am not 100% sure. More progesterone makes things worse (3 drops).

So today i am trying to see what it is like with no progesterone.

My progesterone is now 8 months old and kept in the fridge. I have wondered if it is loosing its hormonal powers.

Anyway, currently feeling a bit ***t.

This thyroid life is sometimes a real pain to live with.

Anyone have any ideas on what may be going wrong ?

 

[Kasper]

What is your diet?

 

[marsaday]

I don't drink alcohol or smoke, and eat what i think of as a healthy diet. We usually have home cooked food. Meat, fish, chicken, pasta, noodles, rice. My diet doesn't really change much so i can't think it may be related to that area.

My weakness is cakes and chocolate. Always have a cake after lunch and the main meal. Then in the evening i will have some chocolate.

Just going to have lunch now = freshly made chicken soup with vegetables in there. Bread, cheese, cake and coffee.

 

[marikay]

Hi. Ray recommends against taking t4 without t3. From my own experience I understand why. I took T4 only for a couple of weeks and felt terrible. I'd add in 25 to 50 mcgs of t3 to balance the t4 and see how you feel. It should be pretty clear within an hour or two if this is the problem. If you don't want to take that much t3 you could also reduce the amount of t4 you are taking. Cheers.

 

[whodathunkit]

@marsaday, Sorry to hear you're not feeling good.

Is the thyroid new in your regimen? Or is the Progest-E new? Have you been diagnosed as hypothyroid and under a doctor's care, or are you self-diagnosing and experimenting?

You say you've been taking progesterone for 14 months with excellent results. But it's not clear if you've been taking it as Progest-E or some other brand or compounded.

In my experience, it's not wise to stop doing a tried-and-true therapeutic measure when we become destabilized after adding something new to our regimen. Especially if we're stopping the tried-and-true instead of stopping the new thing that probably destabilized us. I say this because I've done it more times than I care to admit, and I've seen so many other people do it, too. It's almost always a mistake. Occasionally the tried-and-true is the problem, but more often it's either the new thing, or the synergy of the new thing with the tried-and-true. Tweaking the new thing is usually the better bet.

Why don't you stop the newest thing in your regimen first, to see if you feel better? If the newest thing is the progesterone, then please ignore the above. :)

In any event, @marikay's suggestion about T3 seems like a reasonable tweak. I've been thinking about trying that myself although my results with Tyromax seem to be pretty good. Could be better, though.

Good luck! :)

 

[marsaday]

I am pretty conscious of specific changes and i cannot work out what has happened here.

I am emailing the maker of progestE to get a response to the life of their product. Mine is 8 months old and i was thinking it maybe loosing its effectiveness.

I have also thought maybe the higher temp because it is summer has caused this issue. It may mean i need to lower my T4 to 125 approx. Over the last 6 months i have actually gone from 125 to 150. I do changes very slowly and first went to 137.5 per day and then 150 about 2 months ago. So it could be the T4 increase coupled with the higher summer temp. Tonight i am lowering to 125.

I do actually use a little T3, but i don't need much. 5mcg per day is the most i need and i have actually been using it every 3rd day since i went up with the T4. I can't see the body reacting well to a bigger T3 dose. I suppose it could be fun to see what a whole 20mcg tablet felt like, but as i understand it Ray Peat thinks small doses work best and this is the way to take T3.

 

[marikay]

I am pretty conscious of specific changes and i cannot work out what has happened here.

I am emailing the maker of progestE to get a response to the life of their product. Mine is 8 months old and i was thinking it maybe loosing its effectiveness.

I have also thought maybe the higher temp because it is summer has caused this issue. It may mean i need to lower my T4 to 125 approx. Over the last 6 months i have actually gone from 125 to 150. I do changes very slowly and first went to 137.5 per day and then 150 about 2 months ago. So it could be the T4 increase coupled with the higher summer temp. Tonight i am lowering to 125.

I do actually use a little T3, but i don't need much. 5mcg per day is the most i need and i have actually been using it every 3rd day since i went up with the T4. I can't see the body reacting well to a bigger T3 dose. I suppose it could be fun to see what a whole 20mcg tablet felt like, but as i understand it Ray Peat thinks small doses work best and this is the way to take T3.

I agree that small doses of t3 are the best way to dose it. But five mcgs every third day is really a small amount considering you were taking 150 mcgs of t4 every day and t4 builds up over time. Ray thinks the ratio of t4 to t3 should be 4:1 or even 3:1, which means you would be taking at least 25 mcgs of t3 spread out over the entire day (four or five mcgs at a time) to balance out the t4 you are now getting. The ratio in cynoplus (which Ray recommended before Grossman stopped making the drug) was four to one t4 to t3. He now recommends Novotiral which is five to one so some of us have added in a little extra T3 (from blue sky peptides or somewhere else) to get the four to one ratio back.

The symptom you mention above is pretty standard for the too much t4 and not enough t3 problem many people face when they go to the doctor and come away with just t4 in the form of synthroid or something.

And just as an FYI: I've had a bottle of ProgestE for over a year now (unrefridgerated) and it is till working fine. Good Luck.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

I have been using progesterone for 14 months now with excellent results.

You take progesterone as a male? (this was posted in the "male issues" thread)

I know males can take it. But not for that long. It's supposed to be used to get you out of a temporary situation, for most people.

I took a large dose of it once and my legs went numb.

 

[tara]

I am emailing the maker of progestE to get a response to the life of their product. Mine is 8 months old and i was thinking it maybe loosing its effectiveness.

I'm still going on a couple of bottles I've had for more than a year. Pretty sure it's still doing something. I think Peat has said the vit-E is more prone to deterioration than the progesterone.

 

[marsaday]

I do convert t4 well so T3 is always top of range. I have been doing really good on a little T3, so i don't think it is the lack of T3 causing this problem. I suppse i could always try a bit more. I do have an issue with taking T3 in the morning as it doesn't seem to do much. If i take 5mcg after lunch or the afternoon i can feel a positive effect. But if i take it in the morning there is nothing. I am wondering if the dose is to small in relation to cortisol as cortisol is highest in the morning, so you need a bigger dose to match the cortisol.

I take progesterone in small doses = 1 drop per day and it has been very good for me. No harm at all. Big doses are not recommended for a male long term.

Goo to hear everyones progesterone is still ok as this rules this problem out.

I do think this is too much T4 because it has become much warmer. So i dropped last night and will see how i get on. May try a 10mcg dose T3 this morning to see if this gives any effect.

My back has been put right out with this issue. Basically whenever i have an issue with my thyroid my back goes and i become a cripple for a day or two (putting socks on is hard). Fingers crossed i pull everything back.

 

[whodathunkit]

@marsaday, for the record, I thought you were a woman and maybe had stopped a higher dose of progesterone, which could be problematic for some in that case. Couldn't tell from your post or your avatar exactly what you were. Oops. :)

 

[sweetpeat]

I have also thought maybe the higher temp because it is summer has caused this issue. It may mean i need to lower my T4 to 125 approx. Over the last 6 months i have actually gone from 125 to 150. I do changes very slowly and first went to 137.5 per day and then 150 about 2 months ago. So it could be the T4 increase coupled with the higher summer temp.

This was my first thought too. I've noticed in my own case that the spring and fall seasons tend to be a little rough on my health as my body tries to adjust to the increase or decrease in temperature and light. Generally, an adjustment in thyroid dosage is in order to get things back on track. I hope it's as simple as that for you!

 

[marsaday]

Good news. Felt a lot better this morning after only taking 100 T4 at bedtime. Will revert back to 125 T4 tonight which i will hold now for the summer (still 25 less than what i have been taking).

I took progesterone and T3 (5mcg) in the afternoon and this certainly didn't help. So just going to see how the body responds to a lower T4 dose and try leave out the T3 and progesterone for a few days.

And yes i am male :)