simple question

[Guest guest]

Hello, can anyone please tell me how many drops of the 2% Lugol's I

would have to take to equal 12.5 mgs (the amount of iodine consumed in

the typical Japanese diet)? Thanks,

SteveD

[Guest guest]

Hi,I am hypothyroid. I started on 50mcg of T4. Tsh 25 which went down to 4.95. Still felt unwell. 8 months later Tsh rose to 12.9 and I was put up to 75mcg of T4. That pushed my Tsh to 3.5 but still felt unwell. Dr did not believe me and sent me to Endo 13 months later. He tested me and found I was Tsh 13.3. So prescribed me 10mcg T3 rather than try

and raise my T4 up to as far as he could go. The T3 suppressed my Tsh to 0.22, my T4 to 13.5 and my T3 went up from 4.4 to 4.7.After 1 year, I have never felt quite right and became quite bad with ill health. This is when I discovered I had really flat adrenals. I went on alot of Adrenal support NAE, Compose, T convert etc. Over the last 2 years, my adrenals have built themselves up but do not seem to get there. Looking back I feel maybe if was T3 that caused some issue. As weak adrenals and T3 should not mix until they are better? So

I was thinking about stopping the T3 and increasing the T4 as far as possible to see if this will help the adrenals. As this was not tried by the doctor or the Endo. They just say your Tsh is 0.22 so your fine.regardsJas From: <christina@...>thyroid treatment Sent: Thu, 11 August, 2011 15:46:45Subject: Re: Simple question

If I wanted to bring my synthetic T3 down by 10mcg and wanted up my synthetic T4 to cover it. How much extra T4 would I need to take? Not quite as simple a question as it appears, Jas ;o) On the basis that T3 is approx 4 times as potent as T4, it would seem that the answer should be "40 mcg". But I have a feeling it does not quite work that way. For once the medics are not all agreeing on the `4x as potent' theory (some say 5x, some say even more potent than that), but more importantly perhaps I don't think that it's a linear conversion. May I ask why you would want to reduce T3 in favour of T4?

[Guest guest]

I started on 50mcg of T4. Tsh 25 which went down to 4.95. Still felt unwell. 8 months later Tsh rose to 12.9 and I was put up to 75mcg of T4. That pushed my Tsh to 3.5 but still felt unwell. Dr did not believe me and sent me to Endo 13 months later. He tested me and found I was Tsh 13.3. So prescribed me 10mcg T3 rather than try and raise my T4 up to as far as he could go. The T3 suppressed my Tsh to 0.22, my T4 to 13.5 and my T3 went up from 4.4 to 4.7.

After 1 year, I have never felt quite right and became quite bad with ill health. This is when I discovered I had really flat adrenals. I went on alot of Adrenal support NAE, Compose, T convert etc. Over the last 2 years, my adrenals have built themselves up but do not seem to get there. Looking back I feel maybe if was T3 that caused some issue. As weak adrenals and T3 should not mix until they are better? So I was thinking about stopping the T3 and increasing the T4 as far as possible to see if this will help the adrenals. As this was not tried by the doctor or the Endo. They just say your Tsh is 0.22 so your fine.

Hi Jas,

Aha... now I understand your motivation. But I am sorry to have to tell you that IMHO you are thinking along the wrong lines. What you are proposing won't work. I'll explain why.....

Your wildly fluctuating TSH tells me that in all likelihood you suffer from autoimmune thyroiditis. So the first thing to do is a full thyroid panel (TSH, FT4 and FT3.... and this time you need your thyroid antibodies checked – TPO, TgAB and for good measure TSI. Your endo might not like that, but the minimum you need checking is TPO and TgAB to establish that you suffer indeed from autoimmune thyroiditis (Hashimoto's disease) if for no other reason you know what you are dealing with. The amount of thyroid medication you took before taking T3 does not really correspond with the wildly fluctuating TSH figures, which is very common in Hashimoto's disease. Since taking T3 your TSH is suppressed – which is what happens inevitably on T3.

Now... if you have weak adrenals, then NO amount of thyroid hormone is going to work. The rule of thumb is – adrenal first, thyroid second. Until and unless you treat your weak adrenals, nothing is going to make you well. In addition it is contra-indicated to take thyroid hormones when the adrenals work insufficiently... although this is all a question of degree.

There is no point in taking thyroid hormones first and then try and stabilize the adrenals – it won't work. You need to stop your thyroid meds altogether for about 7 -14 days (depending on the severity of your adrenal weakness) and THEN start with thyroid hormones from scratch – either with a combo of T4/T3 in the right ratio, or you switch to natural thyroid like Armour, Erfa, Naturethoid etc..

In addition you need to have your mineral and vitamin levels checked – namely Ferritin, Folate, Magnesium, Zinc, Copper, Vit D3 and Vit B12. If you were low in any of those – even low within the ref range, you need to rectify that by supplementing whatever is low. All of those parameters can and should be done on NHS. However, adrenal support and any supplements you may need you will have to finance yourself – I don't think any doctor will be sympathetic to the idea of adrenal fatigue – as far as they are concerned, it does not exist – you will be on your own with this one, but you probably know that already.

With best wishes,