Thyroid Supplementation Route

Erica

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Oct 23, 2016
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Hi all,

While I recognize self-experimentation is paramount and necessary in making any decision, I would greatly appreciate your input on my current situation for the sake of acquiring varying perspectives devoid of the emotional component that I'm inevitably influenced by.

As for a little background on me, I'm female, 5'4", 26. I've suspected an under-active thyroid for at least a couple of years now as I've been plagued by increasing symptomatology including extreme fatigue, eyebrow balding, eczema/dermatitis/dry skin, sluggishly paced weight loss despite eating (relatively) well, numerous food intolerances, bloating/gas/digestive distress, constipation... all that fun stuff. My dieting history has been rather tumultuous, starting with the ever-so-common stint in under-eating/overexercising during my mid-teen years, dabbling in soy-heavy veganism for a couple of years after that, followed by raw-veganism, discovering I had celiac disease at 22, going completely gluten-free, and then embarking on various paleo-type protocols with varying levels of success thereafter. Every time I've attempted a lower-carb approach it's never worked for me so I've been pretty vigilant in making sure I've kept carbs up (in the form of fruit, dark chocolate, starch) throughout my paleo dabbling.

Right now, my diet consists of fruit, vegetable-fruits, some dried fruit, collagen/gelatin, some bone broth, rinsed carrot salad (thinking this may be causative in my current bloating so going to eliminate hereon-out), soy-free eggs, shellfish on occasion, liver on occasion (bleh), ruminant meat on occasion, dark chocolate here and there, a little coconut oil. After being off dairy for around 1.5 years, I recently experimented in adding it back. At first I felt all was going well until I started experiencing major sharp and uncomfortable stomach pain as well as abdominal bloat that would occur immediately while consuming it. I haven't eaten dairy in 3 weeks now. Eggs are also a food I've had major digestive problems with in the past (similar symptoms as dairy gave), so I've been treading lightly with them and monitoring myself after consumption. I suspect that I've been getting insufficient amounts of choline, calcium, vitamin E, and zinc in my diet for quite a while considering the foods I've notoriously had to eliminate due to horrible symptoms. For the record, I also can't consume any nightshade vegetables as I discovered they were instrumental in my skin flair-ups, especially the hard, dry, red, flaky crusts that would develop above and in my eyebrow region.

As for official labs, I had my thyroid levels checked back in August, and again in October. My TSH has held steady at around 1.5, but my free t4 and t3 levels were borderline low in August, and both actually low in October. My waking temperature hovers around 97.3, and seldom rises above 97.6 throughout the day. Pulses are erratic, but stay around the 65-85 ranges. Since I've started to implement some Peat principles (it's only been a month), my pulses seem to have slightly improved.

Early in 2016 I had a 24 hr hormonal urine exam done in which most all of my steroid hormones came back as low, including free t3 and t4.

Sleep is good overall, around 8 hrs per night. I do get up to go to the bathroom on most nights however. I know that is said to be stress hormone related.

I'm currently not doing any real exercise other than some walking, and weight-baring twice a week for about 30 minutes.

I've been dabbling on and off with vitamin D/k2 supplementation, as well as a little eggshell calcium, but I've halted both temporarily to try and get to the bottom of all the excess bloat/suspected water retention. These variables likely have nothing to do with the stomach issues, but I'm taking precaution.

I suspect, due to the nature of my most recent thyroid lab results, that the issue has to do with t4 to t3 conversion rather than an actual problem with my thyroid gland, but that's just my guess. I do believe I'm an obvious candidate for thyroid supplementation of some sort, and some guidance as to where to begin would be great. I've been hesitant to go the NDT route as I've read some less-than-stellar results (weight gain especially, but also increased hypo symptoms). Should a t3-only supplement be potentially viable seeing as my liver may be compromised and unable to convert well? I wouldn't want to potentially have the t4 convert to rt3 and compound my problem further.

Thanks for reading! Any and all suggestions are welcome!
 

papaya

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Mar 2, 2016
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it's not exactly "peaty", but maybe u should start by 1st trying iodine. luckily, you're also just in time to be able to get cyomel/cynoplus which seem to be the preferred thyroid supps. i def wouldn't go ndt cuz your tsh is already low & that's the job ndt seems to do best.
 
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Erica

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Oct 23, 2016
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Thank you for that. I've heard great things about cyomel/cynoplus but I was under the impression that it contained gluten? I have celiac so if that is indeed the case it wouldn't be a possibility for me. As an alternative I was thinking of tyronene from @haidut
 

sweetpeat

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With your history of under-eating and your current food restrictions, I'm wondering if low calories are still part of the equation? With the low levels of t3 and t4, plus low-ish TSH, it looks as if your body is trying to down-regulate, as it would in a famine, to keep you alive. I mean, there could be other things going on too. You said your steroid hormones were also low, but you could still be estrogen dominant if estrogen is higher in relation to progesterone. Stress is another thing to consider. Waking at night is usually a sign of stress of some kind. All of these things will affect the output of the thyroid gland.

I'm not saying you won't eventually need to supplement thyroid, but if it were me, I'd first want to explore any possibilities of getting my own thyroid gland running as optimally as it can.
 

Blossom

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I'm doing well with tyronene. I hadn't heard that cynoplus and cytomel contain gluten! I've taken both in the past without any problems.
ETA: +1 for @sweetpeat's reply.
 

A.R

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Thank you for that. I've heard great things about cyomel/cynoplus but I was under the impression that it contained gluten? I have celiac so if that is indeed the case it wouldn't be a possibility for me. As an alternative I was thinking of tyronene from @haidut
Tyromix will be a much better option for you imo as it is much slower acting than pure T3 (Tyronene).

Also Iodine on its own will be useless without supplementing selenium along with it.

IMO I would get prolactin tested and start to supplement with some selenium tablets, along with topical progesterone cream. If you see positive results from this then move on to Thyroid

I've personally had positive effects with natural iodine (kelp) thrown into the mix aswell.
 
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A.R

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High Prolactin can be a major cause of excessive tiredness/sleepiness
 
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Erica

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Oct 23, 2016
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Really appreciate all of your responses.

Re: prolactin, it was at 7 on my last blood test.
 
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Erica

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Oct 23, 2016
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I haven't tried progesterone cream, no. I've notoriously had adverse reactions to supplementation in the past so I tend to be apprehensive when incorporating anything new.
 

A.R

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