Armour Thyroid & Lyme

I have an MD who prescribed Armour Thyroid knowing that I may have Lyme (my t3 was low). I started at 60 mg and didn't help. The doctor increased it to 90 mg and worked for about a week but now extremely tired again. Now she is increasing it to 120 mg. I am wondering if this is even going to help me if I have Lyme. I never did get my T3 level re-checked. I've been on Armour Thyroid for about six weeks.

Thank you for your responses. I haven't had my adrenals checked at all. Is there even much that can be done for the adrenals? I keep wanting to start some natural herbs recommended for the Lyme. However, I can only add one thing at a time or my body wacks out. Since I keep increasing dosages of Armour Thyroid, I keep holding off to try the herbs.

Yes, there are things that can help the adrenals. I use a supplement designed just for that.

There's a chain of events that goes on with the various organs and the adrenals precede the thyroid gland in that change, so it needs to be addressed too, according to what I've read.

I would suggest that you take a look at this site, as it's helped me understand a bunch about the adrenals and the thyroid:

www.stopthethyroidmadness.com
Be sure to get the 24 hour saliva test for your adrenals, as it's the only test designed to determine just how much cortisol the adrenals are putting out during what part of the day. This is the only way to know if they are functioning properly, or just dumping a bunch of cortisol all at once.

When I first went to see my Practitioner that eventually helped me to heal, she almost didn't take me on as a patient due to my adrenals were in the process of crashing. It's taken a lot of work, but they are healing. I've taken a couple of different types of adrenal supplements to help me heal, but the one that has helped the most had raw adrenal in it to help replace what my adrenals couldn't make while they were healing.

I have bought all of my adrenal (& thyroid) meds at my local health food store. I'm also happy to report that about 2 months ago, I was able to drop on dose of my adrenal meds!! So I only take 2 pills a day of that now! Proof positive that they are healing! Woo hoo!!!

One more question about adrenal function. Do you know if I have low T3, do you think that would rule out adrenal problems?

According to the site, Stop the Thyroid Madness(link above):
"if your free T3 is mid-range or lower, and in the presence of hypothyroid symptoms, you may have hypothyroidism, no matter how low the TSH."

Many believe that low T3 is directly linked to inflammation. Lyme disease is an inflammatory disease, even causing intracellular inflammation.

From what I'm seeing - although I haven't actually done any research into this - most are saying that if you have low T3, thyroid meds won't help.

So I would suggest that you take some time to really research this on your own - specially looking at low T3 and what it means, as there are too many variances and questions that I would have to ask ....and could misinterpret since I'm not a doctor! LOL!

Glad I could be of help!! I hope you find your answers soon!

While this is a highly complex issue, I was mainly just glancing at articles and forums, but here are some of them:

From this guy:chriskresser.com/about
chriskresser.com/low-t3-syndrome-i-its-not-about-the-thyroid

chriskresser.com/inflammation-strikes-again

I liked this site because it's more clear-cut wording:
tinleyparkbbt.com/thyroid

You may find this article helpful as well:
www.holtorfmed.com/treating-thyroid-conversion-disorders-with-t3/

In this article, if you find the word inflammation, it's followed by the numbers for article citations - and there are a lot!
nahypothyroidism.org/how-accurate-is-tsh-testing/


Also keep an eye out for "Euthyroid sick syndrome" - According to this and many other sites(www.netplaces.com/thyroid-disease/the-unhealthy-thyroid/things-that-can-go-wrong.htm

"Euthyroid sick syndrome — sometimes called sick euthyroid — can occur with many illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, and renal problems. It may also occur with gastrointestinal disease, inflammatory conditions, and sepsis. Some people have it after surgery, trauma, or burns.

In most cases, levels of T3 are low, and reverse T3 is high, a condition called low T3 syndrome. It's possible that when the body is ill, reducing the amount of T3 — and thereby slowing bodily functions — is the body's way of conserving its resources."

I'm so sorry to hear that you basically just had such a major surgery! I do hope that it helps whatever condition you had!

And yes, steroids are not a good choice for us!

Again, I'm just glad that I could be of help!! I'd be interested in knowing what you discover if you are up to it!