Thyroid Labs Advice - high T3

[MarkLA]

Hi,

I have been taking 3/4 grain Naturethroid and 20 mcg Cytomel at about 3:30 am when I wake up to pee.

At 8:15am, I did a blood draw.

Results:

TSH 0.922 (0.45 - 4.50)
FT3 6.1 (range 2.0-4.4)
FT4 0.67 (range 0.82-1.77)

Am I taking too much cytomel or is this just a function of testing a few hours after dosing?

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Mark

 

[MarcoFL]

no info on how you feel??? before and after???

 

[Vince]

Hi,

I have been taking 3/4 grain Naturethroid and 20 mcg Cytomel at about 3:30 am when I wake up to pee.

At 8:15am, I did a blood draw.

Results:

TSH 0.67 (0.45 - 4.50)
FT3 6.1 (range 2.0-4.4)
FT4 0.67 (range 0.82-1.77)

Am I taking too much cytomel or is this just a function of testing a few hours after dosing?

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Mark

You're doing labs, when your thyroid meds are at their highest point. I'm sure if you didn't take them in the morning, your levels would have tanked.

 

[MarkLA]

I feel OK but not great. Towards the end of the day I do feel cold and my body temp may be in the low 97's. It seems like I need more thyroid in the colder months.

I am going to retest tomorrow before taking the meds and get a trough.

 

[MarcoFL]

would really need to know RT3 as well.

 

[MarkLA]

OK, so I did labs at trough:

Free T3 2.5 (range 2.0-4.4)
Reverse T3 9.9 (range 9.2-24.1)

So, Reverse T3 is OK, which is probably not surprising because it's made from T4 which was low.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Free T3 trough is a little low at 2.5. At peak it was 6.1. Lowering the Cytomel dose and/or spreading it out throughout the day seems like a good idea.

Free T4 is low (Post 1). I know T3 is where the rubber meets the road, but I think it's good to have decent T4 as well because there is conversion of T4->T3 in all cells.

TSH at 0.922 (Post 1) is not too suppressed. Going based on this, I think the overall dose is pretty close.

What I did:

Naturethroid 3/4 gr -> 1 gr. Why? Increase T4 a bit.

Cytomel 20mcg 1x day -> 10 mcg spread over two doses. Why? Drop peak FT3 levels, reduce T3 dose overall, keeping in mind that the additional 1/4 gr Naturethroid has a little T3 too.

Thoughts?

 

[CaptianCurious]

looks okay if you want all t3.

that's still hardly any t4. Body makes 100 mcg/day, and absorbs 60-80% of oral t4, so that's a little over 20 mcg t4 hitting your system, or 20%.

 

[Vince Carter]

Too add that it's VERY common to see T4 on the low side and I'm not convinced that that's a problem or the problem to be concerned about in Thyroid matters.

 

[Vtail]

Too add that it's VERY common to see T4 on the low side and I'm not convinced that that's a problem or the problem to be concerned about in Thyroid matters.

Based on what I've learned over the last year - I agree with you. I've been supplementing with Cytomel, and consequently my Free T4 and RT3 are below the lab ranges and my Free T3 is well above. More importantly I feel good (no more mind fog, and good mental energy throughout the day) and no hyper symptoms at all. However I've been considering adding Synthroid just to get my Free T4 level to within the low end of the lab range, just in case the body needs Free T4 for something maybe we don't yet understand. Any thoughts on whether this might be a good or bad idea?