Switching From T3 To NDT

I've been a bit quiet the last few months, so here is what I've been up to so far.

T3 has been working great for me. I can find it in one of the local pharmacies very cheap. In the end I solld the Cytomel brand to someone else and I continued taking the local weaker brand. It was really working fine for me, no complaints there (except I had to remember to take it 3 times a day, but after a few weeks it became natural to just glance at the clock at the right time and take the pills).

What was worrying me though was that it's only T3 and not the whole spectrum of thyroid hormones that the thyroid gland produces. That's why I actually went on and bought 2 year's supply of NDT (brand Thiroyd) from a trusted source. The natural dessicated thyroid gives exactly what our own thyroid makes, namely T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin. While T3 alone is already way better than T4, NDT is what we really need.

Hence the last couple of weeks I started on switching from T3 only to NDT. Basically this is how I do it.

I used to take 3/4 of a pill of T3 (18.75 mcg) in the morning at around 8 am. Then half a pill (12.5 mcg) around 1 pm and another half pill at about 6.30 pm.

To safely switch from T3 to NDT I need to replace T3 with NDT very slowly and only one dose at a time. I tried to start with the morning dose but I really felt bad that day. I guess it was because the NDT will build up the reserve of T4 in the body, but it needs weeks for it to happen. By removing a bit of my T3 and replacing with a bit of NDT, I literally got less T3 for that morning than usual, and that really screwed with my system.

So the next day I started with my evening dose. I would drop 6.25 mcg of T3 (a quarter of a pill) and introduce 30 mg of NDT. Do this for a week, after which drop the 6.25 mcg I was still taking, so now I would only be taking the half pill of NDT.

After about a week I started to work on my lunch dose, the same way as the evening dose. However I felt a bit hypo (I guess I still didn't have enough T4 in my body to convert to T3 on its own), so I actually went with half a pill NDT and also reintroduced the half pill T3 as well.

Now it's yet another week and at this time I could drop the 6.25 mcg for the lunch time dose and, so now I'm only taking half a pill NDT and quarter a pill T3 as I should have done last week, but couldn't. So far now it seems to work fine.

The next week I'll drop the bit of T3 from my lunch dose and the only T3 I'll be taking will be the morning dose.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good. No problems with bowel movements (I do take the magnesium pills every night), the hair stopped pretty much from falling (only a few strands when I wash my hair, it's highly bearable), however I still have dry skin on my heels and feet, so that's something I have to work on. But otherwise I can't compare myself to how I was feeling say last year about this time, sickly all the time.

In the meantime I've also started my journey on detoxing various dangerous chemicals from my body (bromide, fluoride and all that) and started a iodine protocol that I'll be talking about in a next post.

Started On T3 Only

Today is the first day to take T3 only. For the last 2-3 weeks I've reduced the thyroxine from 50 mcg to 25 mcg (took only half a pill at a time) and introduced T3 as well as 25 mcg twice a day. Now the T3 I have (made by Uni Pharma) in Greece is very weak, based on this post at Thyroid-RT3. However this is what I currently have, and while I have ordered Cytomel from the online source that gets quietly passed around between people who want to start getting T3, until the pills arrive, I'll have to take what I have.

However it's good because after reading what I now call the 'Bible of living with T3', the book by Paul Robinson called Recovering with T3, I know now that I have to first clear the synthetic T4 from my body before really working on properly dosing the T3. So the weak T3 that I'm taking now will be just enough to keep me from having heavy hypothyroidism symptoms while the T4 clears out. I love this book and it is at my bedside table, to pick up and read the relevant parts throughout my journey.

So right now the 'weak' T3 will be taken 3 times in same size dozes. I won't worry about taking too much, because, like I said, it's very weak and and this is just to keep me from becoming very hypo. I will adjust and work on finding my personalized dosage once Cytomel comes through the post (in a couple of weeks), which will give the synthetic T4 time to nicely clear (at least most of it) from my body.

I'm taking equal doses of T3 of 12.5 mcg at 8 am, 12 pm and 5 pm. Also started to take my basal temperature, and will do initially 3 times throughout the day for a particular reason. I want to make sure that I don't have adrenal problems. While I can't find in my parts of the world the 24 hrs cortisol saliva test, taking the temperature at various times of day for a few days (always at the same time) and then averaging the data will give me a glimpse into whether the adrenals function correctly or not. If there are fluctuations and the temps are not steady, then I might have a problem, and might be really worth looking into it.

Also taking the temperature has the role of checking for signs of being hypo - lower temps do have the indication of hypothyroidism (especially when I do feel cold and there is no reason to feel that way).

This morning I took my T3 at 8 am and took my temperature at 8.15. It was 36.7 C (98.06 F), which is quite ok. Will take my temps every 3 hours, 3 times a day.

Proof That I Do Need T3 - Treating The Body Based On Symptoms Not On Blood Test

One of the main problems I'm struggling is constipation, and it's especially bad now since I'm hypo. Based on feedback from other people who have this problem (and also confirming with the gastroenterologist), I started to take magnesium and Vitamin C, and like I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm going like clockwork.

About 3 days ago I stopped to take Cytomel (T3) because I was thinking that when I'll have in February the blood tests done, I don't want the results to be skewed with the addition of T3. However much to my surprise, again I started to have constipation from the very next day, even though I was still taking the magnesium and Vitamin C regularly. At the time I put it on 'hm, magnesium doesn't work as it should be'.

Yesterday, however, I remembered that I was no longer taking T3 and started to think...what if? So I decided to take T3 again, so I cut a pill in half, and took 12.5 mg sublingual, and of course as usual, in the evening I took my dose of magnesium and Vitamin C before going to bed.

This morning, after breakfast, finally I had another bowel movement, without any problems, straining and whatnot.

Then I started to think, indeed my body does need the active T3, because without it, the symptoms of hypothyroidism came back with a vengeance, despite me taking magnesium. So then I figured, this is what people talk about when they say that before the blood test became so important for doctors, they were treating people with hypo based on their symptoms, to make them feel better, and not merely relying on a blood test which might imply that the results are 'normal', the thyroid is functioning 'normal', even when the person is feeling like crap.

So from now on  I'll keep on taking T3 and we'll just see what the blood results will show when I'll have them done. Feeling better means more to me than avoiding skewed results in some blood tests that might not even be meaningful for my treatment.

Added T3 (Cytomel) To My Regimen

The more I learned about what I need and what I am still missing from my treatment, the more I realized that T3 is a necessary additive to my regular regiment. Thankfully I found T3 pills at the local pharmacy (pills made in Greece, see image above) - the pharmacist only has a couple of boxes that he orders specifically for 2-3 people who actually are aware of T3 and are brave enough to order it), so he added me to the list as well.

About 4 days ago I started to take T3. The pills I got from the pharmacy are 25mcg, but for me this is quite a big dose to start from the beginning, so I broke the pill in 3 and took 8.3 mcg per day around 2 pm. Basically Cytomel should be started on a low dose and then slowly increased until the optimal level is reached.

The first day I took it, I felt simply great. I had more energy than in a long time - this is when I realized just how debilitating hypothyroidism can be! Without realizing over time I became a recluse, almost anti-social, and my energy level was really bad as well. I didn't feel like doing any work at all, I would just stare at my computer screen for a long time without actually doing anything meaningful. And sadly, because has happened gradually, I ended up believing that this is normal, it's just 'my character'.

Well that day proved that it isn't! I got more work done than in a long long time. I had more energy, was more chatty, I simply felt great.

So I've decided that this is what I'll start with: thyroxine at 7 am with water, after which I would sleep one extra hour (thyroxine need at least 30 minutes to one hour or even more to be taken before food, so it ends up being absorbed in the body). And around 1-2 pm a quarter pill T3, which would start work about 1-2 hours after, so that by the time my energy level is most down and I'm most sluggish in the day, the effect would kick in, almost like caffein. Not because it is an energy booster, but because it gives extra T3 hormones to the body that it so much needs.

The next two days were kind of uneventful in terms of T3, I am now taking it around 1 pm sublingual, so it doesn't interfere with lunch.

Today, however, I woke up in the morning very sleepy, sluggish and quite 'out there'. I think I'm getting a cold because my throat is acting up the last few nights as well, and I'm sneezing quite often in the day. The whole morning I've been quite bad, hardly working at all, so at 1 pm I decided that I'll up my dose of T3 to half a pill, 12.5 mcg. Anyway this dose has to be upped after about a week and properly adjusted until I get the optimal amount of T3 in my body, I just did it 2 days earlier.

Right now as I'm writing this, I feel much better. Still a bit sleepy, but much less than just a few hours before. I actually wanted to go to sleep after lunch, but in the end I might just skip napping altogether.

I will stay on 12.5 mcg for now and we'll see how it goes. If I get too hyper, then I'll go back to 8.3 mcg.

Update: Well, today overall was a rather crappy day. I did go to sleep for about 2 hours in the afternoon, and overall my energy level was very down, and did hardly any work. I just couldn't focus, bring up the energy to do anything meaningful with my time. I felt like somebody gave me some sleeping pills and left me to my devices. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.