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Patient Having Problems With Her Thyroid Supplementation

MY REPLY TO A MIDDLE-AGED LADY WHO CONTACTED ME, AND IS NOW A PATIENT OF MINE, AFTER EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY/DISSATISFACTION WITH HER THYROID HORMONE REPLACEMENT DESPITE HAVING BEEN TRIED ON SYNTHROID, ARMOUR THYROID, AND—AT THE TIME SHE CONTACTED ME—THE VERY ATYPICAL APPROACH OF GIVING T3 ONLY:

(1) If you have your thyroid function tests that were done before you were ever put on Armour Thyroid, that would be helpful.

(2) Knowing your weight would be helpful as well

(3) As you may be aware, the use of T3 therapy in general, and the use of Armour Thyroid and similar products is controversial and nonstandard, at least in the view of most physicians who treat hypothyroidism. That said, I sometimes use T3 or Armour Thyroid, and I think there are some people who do better on them, but I don’t start with them. Most people, myself included, do fine on T4 supplementation alone (Synthroid for example). T4-only is definitely simpler and safer, and is often cheaper. To jump straight to any T3-containing therapy is, to be blunt, in my opinion, bad medicine.

(4) Without knowing the thyroid levels when you had the joint pain on Armour, I can’t say why that was

(5) Synthroid takes 5 weeks to reach a steady state (buildup, that is, to whatever levels it’s going to get to) and its full effect may be delayed longer than that—so, it’s not surprising that you felt “horrible” after only 1 month on Synthroid. That doesn’t mean that a longer time on treatment, or more likely a higher dose wouldn’t have worked. Also, you went from Armour (too little T4 + too much T3, in general), to Synthroid (T4 only where T3 has to be manufactured out of the T4). As mentioned, T4 takes 5 weeks to build up—however, T3 disappears much faster than that. The T3 that you have gotten from the Armour went away after say a week or 10days. Therefore, you weren’t getting much thyroid hormone during this transition period and therefore felt bad. If your naturopath didn’t understand or explain that, then he doesn’t know enough about the pharmacology of these drugs to be doing all this.

(6) Now, you’re not doing well on the compounded T3—50mcg is a pretty decent dose—given once daily I assume? If so, and they haven’t somehow compounded it to be reliably sustained release, then is all getting absorbed and disposed of pretty quickly and therefore you probably don’t have enough thyroid hormone around in your circulation for, say, the latter 12-16 hours of the dosing interval

(7) I presume the reason you chose to go to a naturopath is a desire to pursue therapies that mimic nature as closely as possible, right? Well the human thyroid makes a whole lot of T4 and very little T3. T3 gets made by tissues all over the body depending on their needs at any given time. So, T4-only treatment actually comes closer than Armour, and its definitely closer to T3-only therapy, to the natural situation. FYI.

(8) The high normal TSH and the thyroglobulin both suggest you’re not getting enough thyroid hormone, and the low free T4 and T3 obviously suggest the same thing—so I don’t think there’s any mystery here why you don’t feel good.

(9) I think I can probably improve this situation, but I’d have to be seeing you in my office to do anything beyond just giving advice.

Hope that helps.

Best,

jkr
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