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Help with Thyroid Lab Panel - Thank you!

Hi There ~

I am on Armour Thyroid 90mg but I think I need a boot but convincing my MD will take some ammunition which is why I am here. I think my labs look pretty good, although even my MD agrees that keeping a TSH as low as 0.5 is okay and helps some people feel "Optimal" - with that said, here are my labs and my symptoms:

TSH: 1.46     (0.3-3.0)
Free T3: 3.7  (2.2-4.0)
Free T4: 0.8  (0.8-1.5)

Symptoms: Continued fatigue, mental fog, mood, low heart rate - all the same hypo stuff, I am just noticing again, but the fatigue - energy and mood have dropped ten fold since my TSH has gone up from my low 0.3 to this 1.45 - It's almost like my body has gotten "Used" to the Armour dosage and is starting to poop out a bit or level out. I felt really good when she bumped me up to the 90 then slowly began to feel a decrease in energy and libido, the usual suspects etc and sure enough at the 4 month lab re-draw my TSH is up.

So are my labs at a place where I can ask or convince her to bump me up? or add something? Cytomel? Something to help with the fatigue, energy, libido, weight, etc... (been on weight watchers since Feb and with a trainer and bleeding money to both and only lost 15 pounds....not right!)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!
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Avatar universal
With those symptoms and those labs, I think you might want to ask the doctor to test you for Reverse T3, along with Free T3 and Free T4.  There is lots of info suggesting that the best measure of actual tissue thyroid levels is the ratio of Free T3 to Reverse T3.

I agree with FTB4 about deferring your meds until after blood draw for new tests.  Otherwise, since T3 is so fast acting, it can make your Free T3 look artificially high.  

Hypo patients are also frequently low in other important areas, so I suggest that if you haven't been tested for Vitamin D, B12, ferritin and a full iron test panel, that would be a good idea.  
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Avatar universal
Taking Cytomel would more thatn likely make you hyper since it is all T3, its surprising your TSH is not lower with your Free T3 and T4 right about where they should be. I would try just bumping the Armour just a bit at a time until you feel better. You should not be concerned about the TSH anyway, its how you feel that counts, I take Armour and my Free's are very similar to yours, I take 3/4 of a 90 twice a day, do you split up your Armour, if not maybe just take 1/2 in the am and another half in the afternoon, many on Armour take it that way, the T3 runs down after about five hours, this way you can spead it out. The other thing I would advise is "Do not take your medication on the morning you take your blood draw, this can give the lab results an erronius high level, when in reality you want the draw done with just the residual in your system.  Good Luck FTB4
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