Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

[Guest guest]

That's going to be your thyroid ! I know, it wasn't supposed to be registered, but someone else also said that they had sent theirs registered, when they weren't supposed to. Go get thy Thyroid! That's how mine arrives sometimes (from them), other times it doesn't.

Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

Does MyRxForLess send generic Armour as registered mail?? I did order some on 05-29 & expected it to show up in my mailbox.

In today's mail I got a card telling me that I have a Registered Mail: "large enevelope, magazine..etc.." that I have to pick up at the Post Office..

the (handwritten by post-person), Sender's name appears as :"Agua Pritz, SOR, MEX R." Or is this something else? I'm not expecting anything else from Mexico, certainly... seems odd they'd send it Registered?!

If anyone has had this experience. please reply. OR if not, would someone let me know how to expect it to arrive in the mail? Thanks much,

[Guest guest]

Millions of people are ordering meds from various places. Some they stop, and some they don't. You won't have anyone in uniform waiting for you, unless it's someone from your local postal service, lol!

Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

Thank you so much Jenni & ... I am envisioning 20 guys in uniform waiting for me at the post office! I would think regular mail would be much less obvious?! Can't wait to get the meds tho!

[Guest guest]

linda, thanx for the info - thats amazing about splitting the dose - i wonder if it will work with levoxyl until my dr appt - i think i'll try starting tomorrow - as bad as i feel i don't think i can hurt anything ya know.

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-- Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

Levoxyl is a T4 only med. So dividing the dose doesn't really do any good. T4 is the storage hormone. It builds up in the body tissues (taking 4 to 6 weeks after a dosage change or when first starting on it) so it's very slow acting.

Armour and the other natural thyroids contain the other thyroid hormones too. T3 is the active hormone. It's effectiveness peaks about 2 hours after you take it and is 95% used up in about 4 hours. That's why multidosing the naturals seems to help so many of us.

When you are taking a T4 only med. The T4 gets stored in your body cells until the body is ready and able to convert it T3, it's that T3 that your body then uses to function.

You can help the conversion process a bit by adding selenium to your supplements. You can safely take up to 400 mcg per day. In doses over that it can become toxic. The selenium is that catalyst that is used to convert the storage T4 into the useable T3.

For all of us, it's very important not to skip meals. Low blood sugar levels cause T3 conversion to slow or stop. So eating every 3 hours or so keeps the calorie level in your blood up so that conversion continues uninterrupted.

The mini-meals that I stem from that. I try to keep the meals balanced, unless I'm having a sweet tooth. If that's the case I'll eat protein the meal before and then to the sweet as the next mini-meal.

As for cutting a 200 mcg tablet of synthetic.. I did a lot of that when I was on them and couldn't get enough pills. I'd cut them into quarters to make them last. It can be done with a steady hand and a sharp single edged razor blade. Probably possible with a pill splitter as well, but I've never had one so I couldn't say.

I'd for sure talk to the doc about switching. It is such a profound difference being on naturals, with all the hormones verses the synthetics. I've found out that no matter what I do, I'm a lousy converter. That was proven to me the first night I took a dose at bed time. For all the years that I'd had insomnia and horrible pain in my ribs, back and neck when I woke in the morning. Taking that dose at bed time, the very first night, made that all go away. My body wasn't able to convert enough T3 to last me from my last dose, which had been at 7 pm until my first dose at 7 am. That's why I was so miserable at night.. adding that bed time dose means that I now have direct T3 working for me half way through the night... so I only have to run on my own production 2 or 3 hours now, instead of 12. (in this house, unless everyone else is gone, sleep schedule here is roughly 11 pm to 5 am. There is a bit of variation in that, but one person has a tv blaring until 11.. then other is up with the radio blaring at 5. Both are hard of hearing so they don't hear the other's entertainment, but I'm in the middle room and get hit with both!!!! )

Topper ()

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 21:53:53 -0500 (Central Standard Time) "" writes:

i have a question - right now i'm on levoxyl - 200 mcg but being so small how would you divide it in more than 2 doses? i don't know how big armour is but i will ask my dr for it when i go in july.

[Guest guest]

Well Topper, you've gone and done it NOW!! This is absolutely THE first time that I've heard the absolutely correct way of the journey from the beginning to the "fixed" state. Ya know, I actually thought for awhile that I was not increasing fast enough, and I know that I was beginning to get in trouble with my dosing because I was balking way back there about upping the Armour from just 30 mgs (fear) to 45. Then I actually discovered way on down the line (just a month ago), that now I was getting TOO daring, as I had made an increase from 120 mgs to 150 to 180, in just a matter of a couple of weeks. After all, many of the folks had been talking about making these fast increases from the first minute on thyroid hormone, so what was wrong with me, right?? I fast found out how right it was that I was making these slow increases that seemed to be taking forever (we want to be "fixed", right?), when I was carrying around a "heat aura" with me, that I just can't describe. Now I was having the opposite problem than I had been having for the last 3-4 yrs or so----I was always freezing to death, but I certainly wasn't any more at THIS point!! As a matter of fact, I was burning up, flushed all over, and radiating heat under an air conditioner that was set on 62 degrees, while everyone else had blankets wrapped around them, and I was wondering what was wrong with THEM!! The 120 mgs had hit me sometime after I increased to the higher dose, and I KNOW that I was hyperthyroid, at least at THAT time. I backed down in a hurry. I think that I am at an appropriate dose for the time being, but I will continue to test often, every 3 months or so, for the time being. I think that the antibody(ies) attacks that have probably been going on for the last few yrs are the marker for a much larger destruction of the thyroid, even though I've been hypo for quite sometime prior to it "going downhill", especially with them in such high #s.

Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

Taking too much hormone can cause the body to react the same as it would during thyroid storm. How much is too much would be an individual thing... thyroid storm (I went through it, no fun, trust me - it's why I had RAI to kill my thyroid) Causes all kinds of complications with the heart and other organs as they struggle to keep up with the greatly increased metabolic rate. My endo told me that most folks who are in storm as long as I was are usually suffering badly from malnutrition.. they don't eat enough food or enough of the correct food and their bodies start eating themselves.

.... but I doubt a 'storm' situation would ever occur while on meds. What can happen, though, is that folks who increase their meds too quickly or increase by too much at a time can find themselves reacting as if they were hyperthyroid....

At first those symptoms can be mistaken for returning hypo symptoms and some mistakenly increase their dose, making things worse. The best way to monitor how your dosage increases are affecting you are to monitor changes in your basal temp and both resting heart rate and respiration... You can easily spot check your pulse and notice if it's creeping up too high and adjust your dosage down before there is undue strain to your heart and other body organs.

The mistake that far too many folks are making is that they are increasing their meds too quickly, for some only 2 to 3 weeks, by the time the body is responding to the starting dose, they've increased the dose 1 or 2 times again.

An example. Imagine you're a person who's optimal dose is 3 (I'm just using round numbers to make the example easy to follow). You start out on 1 grain and take it for two weeks. During this two weeks you start feeling much better at first but then start to feeling not so hot... What may very well have happened is the your felt wonderful at first because it was receiving the hormone that it so BADLY needed and was feeling pretty good. As it began adjusting to having the hormone around and got a bit less and giggly/happy/excited about it, you start losing that great feeling and perceive it as being hormone deficient.. and increase by another grain. You start feeling wonderful again. Thinking life is grand... a couple of weeks go by and that feeling goes away and you increase by another grain... the cycle repeats and in a couple of weeks you increase again, after all, folks are saying that most everyone needs at least three grains, right?

So, here is what is happening as you follow this example:

Start: 1 grain - T4 starts to build up in your body tissues 3 Weeks: increase by 1 grain for a total of 2 grain - T4 still increasing in your body tissues from your starting dose and now increases due to the additional grain that is added. 6 Weeks: increase by 1 grain for a total of 3 - T4 effects from starting dose (1 grain) fully realized, effects from first increase (2 grain dose) still building, now the addition of the second increase (3 grain dose) starting. 9 Weeks: increase by 1 grain to total of 4, because you still don't feel quite right. Effects of first increase (2 grain dose) will be kicking in. Body still working on building up stores from the second (3 grain dose) increase. 12 Weeks: Effects of second increase (3 grain dose) now realized. Body is building up from the last increase (4 grain). You're feeling okay.. but something is not quite right. 15 weeks: You're having symptoms, and not feeling quite right. Your body is now functioning on the 4 grain dose - the T4 levels in your body tissues are built up to that dose. Thinking you might be going hypo again, you add yet another grain for a total of 5 grain. by 18 weeks you're finally realizing that you're hyper.. and will need to drop your dose.. you drop to 4 thinking it was the last increase that did it.. but in reality it was the dose increase 6 weeks ago, you should have stayed at 3...

See the mess you can get yourself in?

Depending on how much you've over dosed and how far you drop your dose.. it can take 6 weeks to 6 months to get the extra hormone out of your body tissues. And if you don't understand that time frame involved in how your body absorbs and stores the T4, you may end up going hypo again, and this time your body has a lot of stress and damage to deal with from the hyper state.... so you're worse off then when you started.

Okay, yes, I exaggerated the dosage increases, to keep the numbers simple.. but the time frame is valid.

It takes 4 to 6 weeks for the effects of the T4 building up in the tissues to affect your body fully. What does that mean? As the T4 builds up in the tissues the body is able to make more T3. So you are increasing your dosage, which increases your T3 intake.. and while you are doing that, your body is converting more and more and more of the T4 into T3... that is where the hyper symptoms start kicking it...

The increase you make today.. won't be fully affecting your body for another 4 to 6 weeks! Yet how many are making increases at 2 and 3 weeks? Okay.. so you say you're only taking 1/4 or 1/2 grain increases? If you're increasing at a rate that is faster than your body is realizing the effects of that change... you're gambling that you are going to know the correct dose and stop at that dose before going over.

And all of this is based on very little, if any, output from your thyroid gland. If you have Hashi's, or still have some partial function from your gland.. that will also cause levels to fluctuate... throwing yet another wrench into the mess. How? Well, Hashi's cycles between hypo and hyper until the gland burns out.. and if you still have partial function, the gland will drop it's own production as hormone meds are added...

Checking basal temp, pulse and respiration is the BEST way to go, even with labs, these levels will tell you how your body is reacting day to day and allow you to adjust, as needed, BEFORE things become severe.

To be fair.. that's why docs are so funky with choice of meds and how to dose.. they don't understand this stuff, they aren't taught it as a normal part of their training and so they end up with folks that are showing symptoms of hyper and they have no idea how it came about... so they limit increases and total doses to avoid that mysterious case of hyper that suddenly creeps up.

Ponder on it... Baby steps forward to reach your goal safely makes a whole lot more sense the huge steps forward only to find that you have to turn around and go back and start over... much more tired now...

Think about the tortoise and the hare.

Okay, okay.. soap boxing first thing in the morning, I'm guilty... but it's a huge concern for me... the more folks that end up increasing doses on their own and causing themselves to have issues with hyper the more likely it will come about that the powers that be will make sure that we can't hurt ourselves by taking away our sources of meds. That means that everyone will be required to see docs for meds. That could mean that Armour (Natural thyroid) will get the bad wrap and pulled off the market, or it's use prohibited in the US. Then we'd have only the synthetics, with no options. For those of us that are poor converters, that's equivalent to a death sentence. No, we won't die, but we'd be better off dead... and for those of us with no insurance or money for docs.... we go back to being without any meds at all. I was without meds for three years, you think you feel bad now?

I've been self-medicating with Natural thyroid since July of 2002. I started on 1/4 grain and took about a year to build up to 2 grain. Some of my increases were 12 weeks apart.. my body was having trouble adjusting. I'm now up to 2 1/2 grain. I've tried twice to go up to 3 grain, cause I'm not 'quite right' yet.. and both times I went mildly hyper and had to drop my dose way down to purge.. then build back up. I'm now holding at 2 1/2 again.

I suspect that I'm having problems with ferritin or the Bs.. but that requires labs and I've not been able to get that done yet.

I KNOW that, if done correctly, we can take better care of ourselves than most docs can... but it has to be done safely and with knowledge of how the hormones work in our bodies....

..... and I'm gonna stop right now.. this is turning into a book... and I think I got my thought across... anyone with questions to clarify.. feel free to ask, I think it's important to understand the complexities of this...

Topper ()

*hyperthyroid from puberty to early 30s, thyroid storm for about 1 year, RAI to destroy thyroid, 10 years on synthetics from docs, 3 years with no insurance or meds, 2 years self medicating with naturals*

[Guest guest]

I have taken the very unpopular route. I am at 2 grains and have been there for 5 months. I am just starting to have hair issues, broken nails, fatigue, so I am adding 30 mg. I added 15 mg and that is not enough. I have been tired for a week. I felt good up till now.

Re: Re: Help! One Grain ARMOUR at MyRxForLess

Well Topper, you've gone and done it NOW!! This is absolutely THE first time that I've heard the absolutely correct way of the journey from the beginning to the "fixed" state. Ya know, I actually thought for awhile that I was not increasing fast enough, and I know that I was beginning to get in trouble with my dosing because I was balking way back there about upping the Armour from just 30 mgs (fear) to 45. Then I actually discovered way on down the line (just a month ago), that now I was getting TOO daring, as I had made an increase from 120 mgs to 150 to 180, in just a matter of a couple of weeks. After all, many of the folks had been talking about making these fast increases from the first minute on thyroid hormone, so what was wrong with me, right?? I fast found out how right it was that I was making these slow