starting desicated meds

[ozzy1000]

hi guys,
I've been taking levotyroxine now for 3 years and still have persistant symptoms. I'm currently taking 175mcgs of levo' and would like to try desicated pig stuff. so I'm wondering how i handle the transition. I'm technically euthyroid, at the last measure my TSH was low and my t4 was at the upper end (can't remeber the details).... but despite this I still have huge trouble with fatigue, headaches, fatigue, depression, fatigue, puffy face, more depression..etc......

so from what i can gather i'll probably need 1.75grains - 2grains of desicated?? how should I change over?? I don't want to go hypo but i've read that i should probably started on 1 grain for a bit, then move up, what do people think??

cheers, o

[magpieannie]

Yes she did! You can read my journal articles if you'd like. It has been like night and day for her. It hasn't always been easy keeping her on a good desiccated med however, as things in the U.S. formulas for Armour and Nature-Throid brands kept changing on us plus their have been supply issues. This is why we went with the Canadian desiccated because it is more like the original Armour and Nature-Throid formulas which she did well on also. Is the chemist going to compound your  desiccated thyroid and is he just calling it "Nature-Throid"? Or is he getting the actual Nature-Throid brand made by RLC labs here in America for you?

[ozzy1000]

Thanks, I have my blood test booked for a weeks time and then I'm meeting with my Drthe next day to discuss. The reason I bought the 'nature thyroid' was that I was under the impression you could only get desicated in the uk on private prescription (nhs prescriptions are free) I went through the purchasing process online from a reputable online chemist and at no point was I asked for a prescription??? from what I can gather 'nature thyroid' is ok, but I only have online stuff to go on......

I'm meeting with my Dr so i'll see what he says before i stick any of it my body. He'll will probably push for me to go back on synthetic t3+t4, but I'm keen to campaign to give desciated ago...

did your daughter have dramatic improvments from t4 to desicated??

thanks, O

[magpieannie]

It takes about 6 weeks for the synthetic t4 to be out of your body. It has a long half life (reduces by half each week). This is why you slowly add in the desiccated incresing by 1/2 a grin or so every week or 10 days. When I switched my thyroidless daughter over to desiccated from Synthroid her doctor had us quite the Synthroid all at once and then began adding in the desiccated hormone very slowly each week, paying close attention to symptoms. We also split her Desiccated thyroid into two doses at first and later into three as we slowly got to her optimum dose.The trick to all of this is going slow enough to not go hyper, but fast enough to not become hypo. It can be tricky. Also, I'd be careful of any desiccated thyroid that was gotten without a prescription. My daughter is on prescription Erfa desiccated thyroid from Canada (6 months now) and is doing fantastic on this.

[ozzy1000]

thanks, yeah I agree now...I've looked at the conversion table which says, 1grain= about 100mcgs, I think for the first step I'll swap 0.5 of a grain for 50mcgs of levo... does sound more like it??

I remeber when my GP gave me some sythetic t3 it was in 20mcg tablets (I think) I cut them in half and had half in the morning and half in the evening. but we didn't adjust the levothyroxine, (I'm sure my gp doesn't get this at all), at the time I was taking 150mcgs of t4, so it was like adding another 80mcgs of t4 ontop of that. I breifly felt great but soon realised I could sleep and was loosing wieght..... I ws totally wired and panicky.... whoops....  i'm not going to make that mistake again... f

[gimel]

My only concern with that is going with .75 grain of Nature-Throid  (Is that what it is?) as the initial dosage change.  You get a fast impact from the T3, and it takes weeks for the T4 to deplete to its new level.  If you should have a short term reaction to the change,  it could set back your whole timetable.  I totally understand the desire to feel better as soon as possible, but caution is why I suggested the more conservative approach of .50 grain.  The .75 grain should be okay, but It really is dependent on how your body reacts, and there is no way to know for sure in advance.  

Best to you.

[ozzy1000]

hang on.... I might have to re-jig my plan, heres the conversion table that suggests nature is slightly stronger than I thought;

http://www.nature-throid.com/conversionChart.asp

cheers, O

[ozzy1000]

hi gimel,

right so, based on the available tablets, here's my logical appraoch;

I currently take 175mcg of t4 which i need to replace.

in one grain there are t4=38mcg and t3=9mcg which given the potency of t3 is eviliant to about 75mcgs of t4.

so;

in the first few weeks i'm probably going to chop my t4 by 50mcgs (leaving 125mcgs) and replace with 0.75 of a grain, which should give me an equivalant to a slightly higher does than i've been on, about 185mcg's of t4.

then in the next 'phase' I'll probably go to  chopping 75mcgs of t4 (leaving 100mcgs) and replacing with 1 grain of desicated. this should mean that my total hormone replacment is equivialnt to about 175mcgs of t4 (spot on).

I guess I could just stay on that for abit and see how it feels, but then stage would have to be somthing like 1.25grain + 75mcgs of levo, this would again be slightly over replacing, but I guess I'll just have to see...

how does that sound as a plan???

[ozzy1000]

I've found a uk based online chemist that sells nature thyroid, they had armour but only in 1grain tablets, so I went with nature as they had the different denominations that i'll probably need to start with. I've jumped the gun and ordered some (they didn't ask for a script?? i was sure you needed a prescription for this here?), I've got a blood test next week, and I'm going to talk with my GP about my plans. My gp is pretty cool, he's given me t3 before, he'll probably roll his eyes and tell me that he'd prefer I used synthetic but if I want to try this then its fine..... he'll probably then attrbiute any improvement I might feel to placebo, but conclude "if it makes him happy"....lol!

i'm quite excited at the possibility of feeling better.!! I remember when I started taking t4, it felt like I was changing the way I feel rather curing a problem.. yes I was able to get up go to work, but I had this new metalic type sensation in my tummy that has been with me everyday since, i've recently come to the conclusion that is probably my adrenalin gland working overtime to keep me functioning, this's also explain my erractic moods... I have had periods of feeling relatively ok, but I allways feel like theres illness in the background tainting things. the one time I tried T3 was to only time I had real respite, it felt like someone had flicked a switch and I was well.... unfortunatly that all ended in me going hyper.. but hey i lost my flabby belly and swum a mile a day!! :)

so I'm hanging out to see if this works for me!!

cheers

[gimel]

Just realized that I did not account for the T4 in the Armour.  For each half grain of Armour added, you would need to subtract about 45 mcg of T4 med.

[gimel]

You are right about the 75 mcg and one grain of Armour.  I was just suggesting that you start the transition by starting with only a half grain of Armour and increasing by the same amount every 3 weeks, offsetting that with a reduction of about 20 mcg of T4 each time.  

I was on 200 mcg of Synthroid for many years, with lingering hypo symptoms.   Only after learning about FT3 on the Forum and finding mine to be low in the range, was I able to get my meds switched to Armour.  I felt much better on 2 grains of Armour, but then it was not available for awhile.   Back on it now and may tweak slightly.  We'll see how I feel.

[ozzy1000]

hi gimel, you always seem to repsond to my posts!! thanks :) i was under the impression that 1 grain was quivilant to about 75mcgs, not 40mcgs....?? my gp has no idea about how to prescribe this, or in fact how to dose/prescirbe t3 at all... so i'm just basing this on what i've read....
on 175mcgs i've felt pretty rough but am technically as well any dr would have me think is possible.... i work in health care and i was talking to a gp the otherday, he actually said to me in a conspirital fashion that "thats just the thing, we treat people and they stay alive but pretty much everyone just has to live with the residual symptoms"..... if i have to accept this then so be it... but i'm not really prepared to with out trying everything else first......

so does 2 ish grains sound about right as a good goal??? the partial t4 transition thing sounds eminantly sensible.. it almost makes sense to keep a tiny bit of t4 in the mix to balance the ratio abit??

cheers, O

[gimel]

I'm sure you are aware that the half life of T3 is less than a day, while for T4 it is about one week, so that is the reason for having to transition your meds.  I've done that very thing so I can suggest to add 1/2 grain of Armour and drop the equivalent amount of T4 each time (about 20 mcg).  If you have any reservation about your reaction to meds, then the cautious approach would be to increase only every 3 weeks, by 1/2 grain.   This avoids the possibility of too much too quick, and also gives your body a bit more time to acclimate and have an effect on symptoms, which tend to lag behind changes in blood levels.  

I have to own up and say that I was not as patient, but then I didn't have much of a clue at the time, either.  LOL