Relationship Between Adrenaline, Thyroid and Estrogen

freyasam

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TNT, have you tried progest-e? It's the product Peat developed.

Are you eating any Peat-recommended fiber foods like the carrot salad, bamboo shoots, or well-cooked mushrooms? Cooked oat bran is also recommended.

+1 the advice above to avoid supplemental iodine. Shellfish provides plenty.
 
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TNT

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If you don't have progesterone then estrogen gets trapped inside the cells and cannot be detected via a blood test. Progesterone gets it out of the cells so the liver can do its work to detox it and get it out of the body.

But I'm taking progesterone.

Your TSH is alarmingly high. TSH is inflammatory and may well be why you are having hair loss. Iodine supplementation raises TSH.

Are you working with a doctor? Your T3 is low according to the reference range which is a problem which could account for the hair loss also.

My T3 is in range.
 
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TNT

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TNT, have you tried progest-e? It's the product Peat developed.

Are you eating any Peat-recommended fiber foods like the carrot salad, bamboo shoots, or well-cooked mushrooms? Cooked oat bran is also recommended.

+1 the advice above to avoid supplemental iodine. Shellfish provides plenty.

I was taking Progest-e, but I switched to Progestene. Is there a big difference?

I'm eating mushrooms.
 

mostlylurking

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But I'm taking progesterone.



My T3 is in range.
Have you learned to decipher the thyroid test results? The test isn't calibrated correctly. Read this one: Thyroid: Therapies, Confusion, and Fraud You're at 106 on a scale of 71-180, = below the midway point. High normal, almost out of range to the high side would be much more ideal.

The difficulty about progesterone is that different people need different amounts to achieve the desired results. A lot depends on how severe your estrogen dominance is. If you are unhappy with the results of taking progesterone, it is possible that the dose you are taking is not the amount that you need. The three audio shows about progesterone that I posted earlier would probably be helpful. Of course, it is also possible that a lack of progesterone and too much estrogen isn't the problem after all.... It is important to listen to your body and pay attention to subtle responses.
 
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TNT

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Have you learned to decipher the thyroid test results? The test isn't calibrated correctly. Read this one: Thyroid: Therapies, Confusion, and Fraud You're at 106 on a scale of 71-180, = below the midway point. High normal, almost out of range to the high side would be much more ideal.

The difficulty about progesterone is that different people need different amounts to achieve the desired results. A lot depends on how severe your estrogen dominance is. If you are unhappy with the results of taking progesterone, it is possible that the dose you are taking is not the amount that you need. The three audio shows about progesterone that I posted earlier would probably be helpful. Of course, it is also possible that a lack of progesterone and too much estrogen isn't the problem after all.... It is important to listen to your body and pay attention to subtle responses.

I don't know how to decipher thyroid test results (except the obvious thing -- reference ranges). How did you come up with that number?

What's really weird is that my thyroid tanked soon after I stopped the estrogen. I don't understand that. I'm gonna keep taking ample progesterone, but something is weird in the thyroid/estrogen thing, and the adrenaline surges are coming from somewhere in that mess.
 

sunny

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Short answer: No. I tried that January of 2015 when I had screaming rheumatoid arthritis and could no longer brush my own teeth or pull up my own pants because my thumb joints had eroded away. The rheumatoid arthritis had started about 2 months earlier while I was getting IV chelation for lead poisoning; I quit the chelation. I thought I was being really careful but I gave myself heart palpitations with the T3. I found a new 80+ year old endocrinologist (50+ years of experience) and got my thyroid med changed from Armour to NP thyroid by Acella. The rheumatoid arthritis inflammation pretty much disappeared in a week on the viable natural desiccated thyroid medication. The endo yelled at me for trying to self medicate with the T3. He's a nice guy, knows what he's doing; I like him. He spent about 9 months "optimizing" my dose of natural desiccated thyroid.

I went through a bad time in 2020. I went to the urgent care clinic with the 15 year old M.D. for a uti and they prescribed Bactrim antibiotic. It didn't clear the infection possibly because after 6 days I was careening into walls and felt like hell so I stopped taking it. Then I packed on 25 pounds in about 5 weeks eating the same diet that I had lost 10 pounds on previously. I couldn't get my temperature above 97.6. I thought my NP thyroid was a bad batch, called the company, they said "no" it's not part of a reported bad batch.

Went to a urologist for the uti (3 months into it) and got a better antibiotic, plus an MRI and a sonogram, which showed the beginning of fatty liver disease and a small lesion on my pancreas. Recovered from the uti. But felt severely hypothyroid and had extreme inflammation all over my body. It was lactic acidosis. Tried some thiamine hcl (250-300mg); within 45 minutes my temp went to 98.6 and the inflammation disappeared. So I searched on line for "Bactrim and thiamine" and found this: Bactrim: An Anti-Folate, Anti-Thiamine, Potassium Altering Drug - Hormones Matter Bactrim blocks thiamine function.

I suspect that my long term core problem is heavy metal poisoning. Heavy metal, especially lead, uses up the body's supply of thiamine. I believe that I have been thiamine deficient because of the heavy metal all of my adult life. I've read a lot about thiamine. I've learned that doctors are supposed to test your thiamine status before chelating you because if you're low thiamine they can kill you via the chelation treatment. Lucky me; I just got rheumatoid arthritis.

My health problems are complicated because of the heavy metal poisoning which has caused a higher than average thiamine requirement. Plus I am hypothyroid. Inadequate thyroid hormone and thiamine deficiency have very similar symptoms because they each block oxidative metabolism. It gets confusing. I thought that I needed more thyroid medication fall of 2020 so I got my blood test done a few months early to check my levels. The test results showed that my free T3 was dangerously high so my endo lowered my dose from 180mg (3 grains) down to 135mg; the T3 level now sits in the sweet spot, just barely within the high limit for "normal". Evidently, overly high T3 makes a thiamine deficiency worse. So much for T3 being the answer to all issues.

I have recovered my health via high dose thiamine hcl (2 grams/day) plus the lower dose of NP Thyroid (135mg). I am truly amazed how well my multiple health issues have resolved with this protocol. It's a balancing act; I need both of these supplements. I take other supplements in addition to thiamine hcl and natural desiccated thyroid. I eat a Peaty diet, without the coffee and careful on the added sugar. I do have the orange juice and I put some maple syrup in my milk.

Sugar uses up thiamine stores but sugar is good if oxidative metabolism is working well because it gets burned as fuel with carbon dioxide as the end product. Too much sugar depletes thiamine which blocks oxidative metabolism resulting in lactic acid as the end product.

Ray Peat mentions thiamine in his writings but he has not written an article about it. Here's a collection of Ray Peat quotes on thiamine: Ray Peat On Vitamin B1 - Thiamine
What brand of thiamine hcl do you buy? Have you experienced any shortages on the acella product recently?
 

sunny

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TNT, are you taking progesterone continuously or taking at least a one week break from it? Ray Peat says a one week break is needed to reset the liver enzymes that excrete estrogen. If no break, the liver then sees the progesterone as excessive and starts to just excrete the progesterone. If you are still cycling, then you take progesterone for the two weeks before the first day of your menstrual cycle. I also use and recommend Progest-e. It is the one formulated and patented by Dr. Peat.
 

mostlylurking

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What brand of thiamine hcl do you buy? Have you experienced any shortages on the acella product recently?
I get thiamine hcl bulk powder from bulksupplements.com; purebulk.com also has it and I get it from there if the other is out of stock.

I have not experienced shortages in the Acella product, but I do have a backup supply of it in case. I went through a long dry period of not being able to get Armour in the U.S. maybe 15 years ago; had to get it out of Canada for months so I'm aware there can be problems. FWIW, Acella is made in the U.S.; at least it still is as far as I know.
 

mostlylurking

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I don't know how to decipher thyroid test results (except the obvious thing -- reference ranges). How did you come up with that number?
I learned about the problems with the calibration of today's thyroid tests by reading and listening to Ray Peat for 7 years while dealing personally with hypothyroidism. Reference ranges on test results are helpful if you understand that the test is not calibrated correctly. Don't just take my word for it; read Peat articles and listen to his wisdom yourself.

Here's an audio show with Ray Peat about thyroid:
https://www.toxinless.com/polsci-080911-thyroid-and-regeneration.mp3 The sound quality improves after a few minutes. It's worth the time to listen to this show.

Here's an article: Thyroid: Therapies, Confusion, and Fraud
What's really weird is that my thyroid tanked soon after I stopped the estrogen. I don't understand that. I'm gonna keep taking ample progesterone, but something is weird in the thyroid/estrogen thing, and the adrenaline surges are coming from somewhere in that mess.
Estrogen is anti-thyroid. The estrogen goes up when the body's progesterone production fails, then thyroid function goes down in response to the unopposed estrogen, then the liver has a harder time detoxing the estrogen which makes the thyroid function worse; it's a downward spiral.

These audio shows explain the issues concerning estrogen:
Good liver function is really important. Low thyroid and high estrogen takes its toll on the liver. It is important to provide the liver what it needs to be able to do its job.

Suggested reading: Hot flashes, energy, and aging
" Each type of cell and organ is subject to injury, and in some cases these injuries are cumulative. In the healthy liver, which stores glycogen, toxins can be inactivated, for example by combining with glucuronic acid, derived from the stored glucose. With injury, such as alcoholism combined with a diet containing polyunsaturated fats, the liver's detoxifying ability is reduced. Even at an early stage, before there is a significant amount of fibrosis, the reduced activity of the liver causes estrogen to accumulate in the body. Estrogen's valuable actions are, in health, exerted briefly, and then the synthesis of estrogen is stopped, and its excretion reduces its activity, but when the liver's function is impaired, estrogen's activity continues, causing further deterioration of liver function, as well as injury of nerves such as Desjardins described, and the systemic energy shifts and stress activations mentioned above."

"Besides lowering the liver's detoxifying ability, stress, hypoglycemia, malnutrition, hypothyroidism, and aging can cause estrogen to be synthesized inappropriately and continuously. With aging, estrogen begins to be produced throughout the body--in fat, muscles, skin, bones, brain, liver, breast, uterus, etc. Polyunsaturated fats are a major factor in the induction and activation of the aromatase enzyme, which synthesizes estrogen."
 

sunny

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I would also recommend reading the book that Dr Peat often refers to - Hypothyroidism, the unsuspected illness, by Broda Barnes.
 
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TNT

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TNT, are you taking progesterone continuously or taking at least a one week break from it? Ray Peat says a one week break is needed to reset the liver enzymes that excrete estrogen. If no break, the liver then sees the progesterone as excessive and starts to just excrete the progesterone. If you are still cycling, then you take progesterone for the two weeks before the first day of your menstrual cycle. I also use and recommend Progest-e. It is the one formulated and patented by Dr. Peat.

sunny, thank you! I was taking it cyclically, but in the last few months, I'm taking it continually. I'm not menstruating anymore, so how do you recommend I do the progesterone? And what's better about Progest-e than Progestene?
 

sunny

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sunny, thank you! I was taking it cyclically, but in the last few months, I'm taking it continually. I'm not menstruating anymore, so how do you recommend I do the progesterone? And what's better about Progest-e than Progestene?
If not menstruating Ray Peat recommends stopping for one week each month to reset the liver enzymes. The liver gets used to the progesterone and starts excretion it. If your product is Idealabs its probably fine. I thought you might have been taking a pharma progestigin.
 
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TNT

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If not menstruating Ray Peat recommends stopping for one week each month to reset the liver enzymes. The liver gets used to the progesterone and starts excretion it. If your product is Idealabs its probably fine. I thought you might have been taking a pharma progestigin.

I'm taking Idealabs (Progestene). So that means I don't need to take a break?
 
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replying to your reply on my post. here is what i think is going on. not sure how old you are - but without having your homones tested you dont really know where you are . i would say that the iodine is driving your estrogen down - and your TSH up if you are also supplementing with Progesterone you are going to end up Progesterone dominate- which believe me is no bueno. The only way you would know is you liver is inflamed if if you have had a scan unless you are saying you liver enzymes are high ??? when you say your Vit D is perfect what does that meanI? If you are here on the Ray Peat Forum - I am assuming that you have read his work - and one of his main staple teachings is how to use heart rate and body temp to see your thyroid status. I would argue that you are putting yourself in almost a hyper thyroid state ( maybe ) but for sure you are pushing your estrogen too low. You hair will fall out , you period will stop or get weird , and also taking iodine everyday is going to wreck your gut bacteria. I would get at least an Everlywell home hormone test to see where you are before continuing with iodine or Progesterone. If you are anywhere near peri meno- you are going to have bigger issue going forward. I would argue that you need to come off iodine for about a month and see how you feel as well .
 
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TNT

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replying to your reply on my post. here is what i think is going on. not sure how old you are - but without having your homones tested you dont really know where you are . i would say that the iodine is driving your estrogen down - and your TSH up if you are also supplementing with Progesterone you are going to end up Progesterone dominate- which believe me is no bueno. The only way you would know is you liver is inflamed if if you have had a scan unless you are saying you liver enzymes are high ??? when you say your Vit D is perfect what does that meanI? If you are here on the Ray Peat Forum - I am assuming that you have read his work - and one of his main staple teachings is how to use heart rate and body temp to see your thyroid status. I would argue that you are putting yourself in almost a hyper thyroid state ( maybe ) but for sure you are pushing your estrogen too low. You hair will fall out , you period will stop or get weird , and also taking iodine everyday is going to wreck your gut bacteria. I would get at least an Everlywell home hormone test to see where you are before continuing with iodine or Progesterone. If you are anywhere near peri meno- you are going to have bigger issue going forward. I would argue that you need to come off iodine for about a month and see how you feel as well .

@danishstargazer , I'm confused. Since we are in a Ray Peat forum, driving estrogen down is good, no? Yes, my liver enzymes are high. And my Vitamin D is just under 80. As for iodine, I'm taking the same dosage I've been taking for years (2 drops of Lugol's per day), but something has changed in my body, so that can't be the iodine -- that hasn't changed. Although your idea about me being hyperthyroid is worth considering, my symptoms -- hair loss, loss of eyebrow hair on the outer edges, constant coldness (except when I'm having hot flashes), and weight gain -- seem to indicate low thyroid
 

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