Re: Learning from each other

[Guest guest]

Please forgive me, I'm 9 days late on this, but it has been hectic and also

fun around my house for the last week, what with Christmas, etc......Yes, my

goal is to keep my pituitary TSH suppressed, so that the thyroid won't be

stimulated at all. Now that doesn't mean that I'm yet at my full

replacement dose, and I may never be able to take the amts of thyroid that

some people here do, but Armour is very good at suppressing TSH almost right

away, I'm guessing because of the direct action of the T3 in it. I take it

now 5 times a day, as I can't seem to take any more than 30 mgs at a time

yet. It was upsetting to me that my TSH had risen to a .9 on November 1st,

so I upped another 15 mgs to 135 mgs Armour. It's been 2 months almost, so

I really need to test again at this point, IMO, since my dosage is starting

to get in the higher ranges now. The increments are small, and it's taken

me a yr to get just to this midrange dose, but it will be worth it. I'm

dogmatic, and I'll keep going til I get there. Hashi's is soooo tricky and

frustrating when there is still glandular and antibody activity. I think my

thyroid is probably just as stubborn as I am and just won't give it up, but

considering that this time, my Free T4 was again rock bottom and Free T3 was

barely midrange (last time was overrange!), on a lower dose, I'm guessing

that the gland is failing more and more during the last 2 or 3 yrs or so.

Someone on another site said that they didn't think it was necessary to do

antibody testing more than once in a lifetime, but I'm disagreeing there,

because I think it helps track the history of what's happening to the actual

gland over time. I think that when I started feeling my worst 4 or 5 yrs

ago is when all the high antibody activity started, and noone will ever

convince me otherwise. I felt fine on Levoxyl for 3 yrs, and I've been on

thyroid hormones altogether for about 11 yrs, so it was a gradual downhill

slide from that point onward. Stress and all kinds of things will help wear

it down.

Learning from each other

>

> Everyone,

>

> With Topper's permission I'm excerpting here an email conversation she

> and I had this week. it's long, but I think worthwhile.

>

> As a bit of background I've had Hashi's for about four and a half

> years that I know of, and have been completely untreated for almost

> three and a half. This week past I had a nasty flare up and I am

> starting to make a little sense of these. The first part here is an

> excerpt from my journal: