*Re: Do you think I should up my meds?

November 12, 2004

1) Is there any kind of warning that too much thyroid maybe building up in

the tissues?

2) I jsut took some powdered licorice this evening for the first time and

feel a little bit amped. Is it possible it is affecting my adrenals that

quickly, or might it rather be a coincidence? (I also took a Houston

Nutraceutical enzyme cap for the first time as well)

~inga

on 11/12/04 12:55 PM, lkwetter at saltillo@... wrote:

You can raise your meds as often as you can get away with, as long

as you don't crash your adrenals. For the average person that is

once every two weeks. When I was on all T3, I was instructed to

raise my dose every day or two. Your thyroid adjusts to increases if

it needs to by dropping production of hormone by the amount you

take. The thyroid can adapt to taking pills quite quickly, within a

day. The problem with raises comes from the adrenals. Raising the

metabolic rate with thyroid hormone makes a big jump in adrenal

demand and also increases the loss of cortisol from the body. So,

you can have some real adrenal problems from going up too quickly

and not allowing the adrenals to build up their capacity and

strength between thyroid raises. This can send you to the hospital

or to bed for weeks. The results of overtaxing your adrenals will be

that thyroid hormone will build up in the blood and cannot get into

tissues, so you will get symptoms of thyroid excess, even though you

may still be quite hypo and your hair is falling out and you are

freezing inside, etc., etc. Thyroid cannot get into tissues without

sufficient cortisol from the adrenals. And the adrenals can only

handle raises at a pretty slow rate for most people.

So, if your adrenals are in good shape, you can make increases every

day. Few people are in that good of shape, especially if you have

had hypothyroidism for a long time and your adrenals have become

weak from it.

But, you must be careful when you get up to around 3 to 4 grains.

when you get there, you need to slow down on raises and wait at the

very minimum 2 weeks before another one, 4 weeks is better. The

reason is that you are approaching the level of hormone that a

healthy thyroid would make, which is about 4-1/2 to 5 grains. It

takes a bit of time for T4 levels to stabilize in the blood after

each raise and it is very easy at the upper end to go too high too

quickly. You don't want this. You want a slow rise at the upper end

so that you don't end up in the emergency room getting meds to deal

with way too much thyroid in your system. Any amount of thyroid that

you take that is below what your healthy thyroid would make, your

own thryoid theoretically will drop production by that much so as to

keep blood levels proper for you. But, you don't want more than what

your healthy thyroid would make as the body has few avenues for

correcting it and you will overdose.

Also, low dose thyroid therapy, less than about 2-1/2 grains can

suppress the pituitary and cause it not to tell your thyroid to make

up the difference between what you are taking and what your body

needs. In theory if you take 1 grain of Armour, your pituitary

should sense that and tell your thyroid via TSH to make 3-1/2 to 4

more grains so that your daily total is about 4-1/2 to 5 grains.

But, in reality for many people taking a pill seems to overly

suppress the pituitary and it will not tell the thyriod to make up

the difference. In such people, me included, they will become more

hypothyroid on low dose therapy than on nothing. If this happens to

you, then you will need to get your dose up higher to overcome the

effects of this suppression. Dr. Derry says that that is usually a

minimum of 3 grains. Since doctors are fixated on the TSH test, they

often think the patient is perfectly fine and send them off to a

shrink for those nasty complaints they still have that there is no

basis for. The average thyroid replacement dose before fixation on

the TSH test was 3 to 5 grains a day. This was the average for over

50 years. Doses were adjusted by patient symptoms.

Tish

>

> I have been on 1/2 grain of generic Armour for 12 days. My temp.

> does not get over 97.6 during the day(I check it 3or4 times a day).

> I feel cold and my legs and feet kill me when I am up for only 30

> minutes, I get tired easy. In the evening I get skipped heartbeats.

>

> Do you think it is too early to tell? questions questions!!!

November 12, 2004

Any way to tell if this is happening?

I mean the build-up of thyrois that gives you HYPER symptom and send you to

the hospital.

Or do you just feel the same, and then one day you wake up real sick?

I upped mine form 3 to 3 3/4 quite rapidly....so far I feel nothing

really...but it is so hard to tell, becasue I am sick from mercury too.

I just want to know if I am already in potential danger here without

knowing it.

~Inga

____________

on 11/12/04 4:12 PM, Betty Flager at betty_flager@... wrote:

> >

> > I have been on 1/2 grain of generic Armour for 12 days. My temp.

> > does not get over 97.6 during the day(I check it 3or4 times a

day).

> > I feel cold and my legs and feet kill me when I am up for only

30

> > minutes, I get tired easy. In the evening I get skipped

heartbeats.

> >

> > Do you think it is too early to tell? questions questions!!!

Thanks your post is very informative. I don't know if my adrenals

are in good shape or not. My hair falls out too easy for sure. Maybe

I shall just wait another week to raise the dose to be on the safe