are you on cytomel and synthroid?

[blondee028]

Well for years been having problems with my health due to my thyroid, finally I have found a doc that heard me, he is not  a thyroid doctor he is internal medicine. He has added cytomel to my synthroid, I am taking 100mcg synthroid plus 5 of cytomel and in two weeks add another 5 of cytomel.  I already feel better, no more brain fog, tiredness and seems like the extra weight in the middle is disappearing. I only weigh 125 lbs but already 6 days later I feel much more toned.  I was wondering who is taking cytomel with synthroid.?? the doc was going to write a rx for Amour Thyroid but there seems to be a shorage nationwide he said cytomel is the syntheic for Amour. I feel great! for once in my life>

[Barb135]

Armour thyroid is a natural T4/T3 combination........ Cytomel is synthetic T3 only; synthroid is synthetic T4 only -- that's why you take them together......so you get both at the same time.  

Do you have your latest lab results, along with the ranges used by the lab?  It would be interesting to see them.

I switched from synthroid to levothyroxine (50 mcg) in Jan and added 10 mcg cytome/day.  It made a difference in the way I felt almost immediately...... however, after about 2 months, I began having very rapid heart rate and palpitations.  When I saw my endo at the end of June, we cut the cytomel back to 5 mcg/day and raised the levo to 75.  I began to feel better for a while, but over the past week or so, I've been having a lot of periods of extreme fatigue - sometimes I feel like I just need to lay down and sleep.....which since I work from 5:00 am - 3:30 pm (next week changes to 6:00 am - 2:30 pm), it's not possible to just lay down and go to sleep whenever I want to.........I'm not sure what is causing this fatigue.  

I just had labs done on Tues so am waiting for the results to be sent to me.  I thought I was going hypO again, but the past few days, I've lost a couple pounds (it will probably find me again) and I'm beginning to wonder if I might be slightly hypER instead.........Since my diagnosis, I've not been hypER according to lab results, so I'm not sure exactly what it feels like.   Will be interesting to see.................

I'm not real familiar with Armour, but I had read an article in which one company was supposedly notifying doctors that there was a shortage of Armour, when in fact there was NOT....... I know there are some others on the forum who take Armour, so they most likely will know more about that than I do......

[blondee028]

My doc told me to take the100 mcg snythroid  with  5 mcg cytomel in the morning and then after 2 weeks to take another cytomel around noon.  He said if I get any palputations to back off the second one. He orginally prescribed 30 mcg of amour but the drug stores said that it wouldn't be avalible untill October. So then he gave me the cytomel, so far I feel much better especially with the brain fog and fatigue, I still work full time so I still need my energy.
My results are ( this is the day he gave me cytomel)
Ft4  1.31  range 0.61-1.76
t3 uptake 34  range 24-39
antithyroidgrobulin  39 range 0-40
FT3  1.8 range 2.3-4.2  LOW
tsh  0.460  range  0.450-4.500  before I had no tsh
He said he dosen't do T4, only the free's
my legs felt like ice to the touch , I was always freezing and its 115 degrees where I live. I have to go sit in the sun to get warm.  That is not normal. he said with the Hashimotos my body isn't able to convert the t4 into t3
he said you need t3 for your body to function.   its been almost a week and I feel so much better.
I have to go back in October but he gave me a lab slip so I have my blood done before I go back
another thing is I had really baggy eyelids ( i thought it was from age) they are gone. seems the t3 sucked them back in within two days. I don't want a rapid heart rate, been there its aweful.
Did you take both cytomel at the same time in the morning or did you split it up? like 5 in am and 5 at noon?  Maybe it was too much at once?

tsh

[blondee028]

ignore the typo at the bottom of page that says tsh  I don't know where that came from.