Help with Thyroid

Dc if you can search our member list and find Astroman or cd3764 and email them - they are a fountain of information on thyroid.

If I had a thyroid problem of any kind that is who I would seek information from.

Hopefully one of them will see this and answer.

They are very knowledgeable in thyroid.

Sorry, I am not.....

I have the ranges cortisol 0.07-0.93,
TSH 0.4-4.50,
T4 free 0.8-1.8,
T3 free 2.3-4.2,
T3 reverse 8-25
Those are quest labs ranges.

Also, why did they change your med - was the first one not working?

Caramba - now that you mentioned it, I think that the starting dose of Armour is 30 mg?

But, if DC28 was already taking something...prior to switching...not sure.


Astroman - where are you? lol - I think he sometimes comes on in a little later.

DC28 the symptoms that you are experiencing are more than likely from a number of things. First you are in adrenal fatigue which produces those symptoms. Second, your thyroid numbers are too low. Specifically the FT3 as that should be at least mid-range. Most docs like to see that minimally at 3.5. Third, your FT4 is too low as well. That should be at least be 1.5-1.7. The value that really makes the true difference is the FT3 for most in how they feel.

Now because of your adrenal fatigue, raising your thyroid hormone can further exacerbate the situation. What most docs like to do is to give you some thyroid support, but not enough to further aggravate the stressed adrenals.

Starting low dose hydrocortisone can also give you some of those symptoms. There is an argument among docs with regard to the best way to introduce low dose hydrocortisone. So say, 2.5mg a day and work up. Some say (stopthethyroidmadness.com), recommends low dose 4x a day. Something like, 7.5-10mg, 5mg, 5mg, then 2-2.5. I can't tell from what you've written what times you take it.

Your body is probably not going to make good use of the thyroid hormone until the adrenals come up a bit. What was the initial dosage of compounded that you were taking?

I'm assuming your thyroid is functioning so you may want to try herbals for the thyroid as opposed to armour while you are working on the adrenals. Otherwise, I would recommend lowering your dosage of armour and titrating up slowly. Like .5 every 2-4 weeks depending on how you feel. Are you taking the 60mg all at once?

Did they check your iodine levels?

I've been dealing with thyroid (hyper and hypo)issues for over 10 years so I've learned a lot 😊. It is a very complex area and it takes quite a bit of tinkering to sometimes get it right.

Key info you presented:
That LAST test shows your low in free T3 and free T4., and this is on Armour. But I didnt see where you were at on the previous compound med.

What we do know is that old compound med had a different T3 to T4 ratio, it was more even. Armour is higher in T3 less T4 (just like 4 legged pigs).

Your Armour start dose is pretty high, you need to so slow to avoid hyper symptoms.

There is a lot going on at one time here.

So these symptoms could be from:
1)Changing thyroid med, even brand will create symptoms
2)Starting to high to fast on Armour, start @30mg then add 15mg per week to calculated dose,( per their old website)
3)Being low per the last test, not enough Armour
4)From the hydro-cortisone (this is tricky stuff) and it can effect thyroid levels.
5)Combination of the above

Many people use herbal adrenal adaptogens before trying H-cordisone.

All in all, changing these two hormone levels will creat symptoms while your body gets used to them, sometimes 1.5 months till feeling better,a little better every week.

AND-this takes patients, many people start/stop hormone replacement like their changing their socks, cant do that, it makes symptoms just changing that. What you take today, you feel weeks later with T4.

If it were me I would:
1) Concentrate on the thyroid, maybe take a little less and re-test in 4 and 6 weeks. Go minimal on the cortisone, the thyroid might bring that up some. Take some adrenal adaptogen herbs like holy basil- this might help the symptoms for now. Once your thyroid is stabilized ( per 6 week test), see how you feel for a few weeks. If you keep feeling better great, it takes the body a while longer to catch up with the lab results. If a new lab test says your good, wait 2 more weeks to see if you actually FEEL better. If not feeling better despite thyroid labs, then re-test adrenals and crank up adrenal treatment more.

Unfortunately speeding up to symptom free from hormone changes takes longer than we want it to. The herbal adapogens can help the symptoms, but have few effects on actual lab levels.

Post Edited (astroman) : 10/4/2016 11:31:29 PM (GMT-6)

I've had the opposite issue - my adrenals crashed my thyroid. They work together, so bringing them back up together will give you the best results. This is where I'm stuck as well. I don't tolerate my Lyme and company treatments well, because of the extra stress that being in treatment for those bring to the game.

My understanding is that you need to have a saliva test for cortisol, with saliva collected either 3 or 4 times a day. Otherwise you only get "a snapshot in time" of what the adrenals are doing, instead of seeing what they are doing all day long. This will give you and your doctor a much better understanding of how to control them better.

Holy basil will lower cortisol, so if you are supplementing to bring this up, you don't want to be using holy basil - it's something I'm careful to avoid. Ashwagandha will help balance both adrenals and thyroid, which is what I use as well as thyroid and adrenal meds.

It can take a very long time to heal adrenals, simply because we can't avoid the stress that pushes them to produce more cortisol, which for me, keeps me from healing as they are depleted.

I would encourage you to get a good doc that will look at both the thyroid and adrenal and work with you to heal them.

from an Adrenal perspective Ashwagandha is also a good adaptogenic to help normalize it, I don't think it would hurt to add that to the mix. Licorice also helps adrenal, but is not adaptognic I think.

Krimpet, I forgot you have experience with thyroid. I will put you on my list of "in the know!"