Guest guest Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Is it ok for her to do this? And how much should she take? ______________________________ Yes, it is just fine to do this if she will. My mother sure won't. Nutri+meds thyroid have about 1/4 grain per tablet. I have used them for my total thyroid replacement with no problems. It's just more expensive than Armour. I would just add it on top of her Synthroid or convert the Synthroid to Armour dose and give her all nutr+meds. The conversion is 4 Nutri+Meds = 74 mcg Synthroid. The 4 nutrimeds may also have a stronger effect than 74 mcg of Synthyroid depending on the person. It is only a rough conversion. Be careful increasing doses on older people. You must go up in small increments (1/8 to 1/4 grain at a time) and slowly (I would wait 4 weeks before another raise). To monitor her progress you can use temperature, pulse, and a diary of symptoms. Temperature is a measure of metabolic rate, which is controlled by thyroid and adrenal output. To read about doing this, go to Dr. Rind's site at: http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp This is how thyroid doses were adjusted for 73 years before the TSH test. If her pulse exceeds 84 drop the thyroid dose down. The healthy thryoid produces 4-1/2 to 5 grains of Armour equivelent a day. So, if she gets hyper symptoms below about 4 grains, this is most likely caused by low adrenal. In low adrenal you must be very careful with thyroid in older people. Low adrenal causes thryoid to build up in the blood and can adversly affect the heart. Low adrenal is very common in hypothryoidism as the thyroid regulates the size and output of the adrenal glands. They become weak in hypothyroidism. So, my advice is go slow and very carefully. ______________________ > P.S. I've been taking 1/2 grain of generic armour for a week and half now. I haven't really noticed anything good or bad yet. I will increase to 1 grain on Wednesday. I will have been on it for 2 weeks. ________________ If after a month you don't notice anything you don't need it. Healthy people have no reaction to thryoid. Your own thryoid is just dropping it's production by 1/2 a grain to keep blood levels where they were. Anything you take less than the thyroid makes, if you are healthy, the thryoid drops that much in production. It's a zero sum game in a healthy person. Tish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Is it ok for her to do this? And how much should she take? ______________________________ Yes, it is just fine to do this if she will. My mother sure won't. Nutri+meds thyroid have about 1/4 grain per tablet. I have used them for my total thyroid replacement with no problems. It's just more expensive than Armour. I would just add it on top of her Synthroid or convert the Synthroid to Armour dose and give her all nutr+meds. The conversion is 4 Nutri+Meds = 74 mcg Synthroid. The 4 nutrimeds may also have a stronger effect than 74 mcg of Synthyroid depending on the person. It is only a rough conversion. Be careful increasing doses on older people. You must go up in small increments (1/8 to 1/4 grain at a time) and slowly (I would wait 4 weeks before another raise). To monitor her progress you can use temperature, pulse, and a diary of symptoms. Temperature is a measure of metabolic rate, which is controlled by thyroid and adrenal output. To read about doing this, go to Dr. Rind's site at: http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp This is how thyroid doses were adjusted for 73 years before the TSH test. If her pulse exceeds 84 drop the thyroid dose down. The healthy thryoid produces 4-1/2 to 5 grains of Armour equivelent a day. So, if she gets hyper symptoms below about 4 grains, this is most likely caused by low adrenal. In low adrenal you must be very careful with thyroid in older people. Low adrenal causes thryoid to build up in the blood and can adversly affect the heart. Low adrenal is very common in hypothryoidism as the thyroid regulates the size and output of the adrenal glands. They become weak in hypothyroidism. So, my advice is go slow and very carefully. ______________________ > P.S. I've been taking 1/2 grain of generic armour for a week and half now. I haven't really noticed anything good or bad yet. I will increase to 1 grain on Wednesday. I will have been on it for 2 weeks. ________________ If after a month you don't notice anything you don't need it. Healthy people have no reaction to thryoid. Your own thryoid is just dropping it's production by 1/2 a grain to keep blood levels where they were. Anything you take less than the thyroid makes, if you are healthy, the thryoid drops that much in production. It's a zero sum game in a healthy person. Tish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Is it ok for her to do this? And how much should she take? ______________________________ Yes, it is just fine to do this if she will. My mother sure won't. Nutri+meds thyroid have about 1/4 grain per tablet. I have used them for my total thyroid replacement with no problems. It's just more expensive than Armour. I would just add it on top of her Synthroid or convert the Synthroid to Armour dose and give her all nutr+meds. The conversion is 4 Nutri+Meds = 74 mcg Synthroid. The 4 nutrimeds may also have a stronger effect than 74 mcg of Synthyroid depending on the person. It is only a rough conversion. Be careful increasing doses on older people. You must go up in small increments (1/8 to 1/4 grain at a time) and slowly (I would wait 4 weeks before another raise). To monitor her progress you can use temperature, pulse, and a diary of symptoms. Temperature is a measure of metabolic rate, which is controlled by thyroid and adrenal output. To read about doing this, go to Dr. Rind's site at: http://www.drrind.com/tempgraph.asp This is how thyroid doses were adjusted for 73 years before the TSH test. If her pulse exceeds 84 drop the thyroid dose down. The healthy thryoid produces 4-1/2 to 5 grains of Armour equivelent a day. So, if she gets hyper symptoms below about 4 grains, this is most likely caused by low adrenal. In low adrenal you must be very careful with thyroid in older people. Low adrenal causes thryoid to build up in the blood and can adversly affect the heart. Low adrenal is very common in hypothryoidism as the thyroid regulates the size and output of the adrenal glands. They become weak in hypothyroidism. So, my advice is go slow and very carefully. ______________________ > P.S. I've been taking 1/2 grain of generic armour for a week and half now. I haven't really noticed anything good or bad yet. I will increase to 1 grain on Wednesday. I will have been on it for 2 weeks. ________________ If after a month you don't notice anything you don't need it. Healthy people have no reaction to thryoid. Your own thryoid is just dropping it's production by 1/2 a grain to keep blood levels where they were. Anything you take less than the thyroid makes, if you are healthy, the thryoid drops that much in production. It's a zero sum game in a healthy person. Tish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Hi, Shelli, Do you have copies of your mom's, and your, labs and the ranges? I don't think it's a wise idea to add another source of thyroid hormone to what your mom is taking now unless you know for sure that she needs a increase in her dose. There are things that can lessen the absorption of synthetic hormones, and she may also be on too low a dose.. so, first you need to make sure that she does indeed need an increase before adding more... IMHO, of course. I can understand her reluctance... she's trusted her docs for many years.... And yes, being low on thyroid does make you doubt yourself.. so she's not out of line in saying that she thinks it's in her head.. she has a doc that is telling her that her medication is just fine and she trusts him... and yet she doesn't feel as good as she thinks she should so there hangs the doubt.. doc says she's fine.. so it's got to be in her head. How much Synthroid is she on now? How does she take it (empty stomach or full, what time of day)? For yourself... you have to keep in mind that it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the thyroid hormone to build up in your system so that your body is experiencing it's full effect.. increasing too quickly can put you in a situation where you can be over dosing yourself weeks before you even realize it.... and then it takes weeks to wait until the excess is used up and you can start back up on the correct dosage again. When you start out on a small dose, as you did.. your body's first reaction is to reduce existing thyroid function... so you end up having the same amount of hormone in your system... the dose that you are taking, plus what your gland is putting out. As you increase your dose the gland will put out less... until you are relying more on the replacement and less on your gland. What is your diagnosis? Why are you taking thyroid hormone? The ideal is to get the level of hormone in your system to the point where you feel your best. There are ways to keep an eye on your metabolic rate on your own, between labs. Your metabolic rate is a good indicator of your thyroid levels. You can check out a page on our web site for ways of doing that... It might not be a bad idea for you and your mom to see how you are doing. It's not hard to draw up a simple chart and mark your numbers each day to see if there are any changes. www.thyrophoenix.com/self_monitor.htm Topper () On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:13:22 -0500 "Shelli" writes: My mom has hypothyroidism and of course in on Synthroid. She still feels awful and I keep telling her to ask her Dr. for Armour. She won't for some reason. She doesn't believe her problems are from her thyroid. She keeps saying things like "I think it's all in my head" and "it's stress", etc. I was considering buying her some nutri-meds thyroid to add to her Synthroid. Is it ok for her to do this? And how much should she take? I'm even thinking, if she starts to feel better, she could slowly cut down on the Synthroid and see how she feels. I don't think she could feel worse. She's tired and depressed and can't lose weight among lots of other things. Shelli P.S. I've been taking 1/2 grain of generic armour for a week and half now. I haven't really noticed anything good or bad yet. I will increase to 1 grain on Wednesday. I will have been on it for 2 weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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