So glad to hear that you are doing well. Would you mind posting your test results for Free T4 and Free T3 (including reference ranges), Vitamin D, B12 and ferritin, if you have all those. It is always interesting to see what levels worked for members.
It is not at all uncommon for someone on natural dessicated thyroid such as Armour to have TSH suppressed. It is also not uncommon to have FT3 high but the FT4 to be very low. My wife is in this boat. Fortunately the new Dr was able to take my wife's request and keep her armour dose and add in 25 mcg of T4.
As for GERD. My wife too had this issue and can get another anecdotal testimoy that once my wife started getting sufficient or maybe at least higher dosage of Thyroid medication and her GERD went away.
So I agree with gimel. You need an increase in your Armour. I also agree it is best to take the Armour in split dose.
Insuffiecinet Ferritin also messes up the metabolizm of Thyroid. So getting the Ferritin number up to ideally 70 may help you as well.
Just wondering if you suffered from migraines. Only reason I ask is that my wife did. And when she took care of the GERD with high doses of GERD medication her migraines went away. However when she was able to get sufficeint Thyroid, she was able to completely quit the GERD medication. So it appears they were ALL linked to low thyroid levels!
The medical indistry today is happy as a clam to sell you pill after pill of multiple medications to "treat" you for the multiple symptoms. Rather than work to properly dose you for Thyroid and eliminiate the need for the multiple other medications because solving the Thyroid insufficiency "cures" the other symptoms.
I really don't understand how you could have high hemoglobin or serum iron when taking small doses of iron daily. Something doesn't add up. Ferritin is somewhat a precursor to serum iron levels. If your ferritin is low, then you need iron.
Your Free T4 result at .99 was much too low. It should be about 1.30. Your Free T3 is below the middle of the range. Usually it needs to be in the upper third of the range, about 3.6, or higher if needed to relieve symptoms. So yes, you should talk to the doctor about an increase.
Also, be aware that when taking thyroid med containing T3 it is best to split the dose into half and take in morning and early afternoon. Also don't take your med until after the blood draw for tests in order to avoid false high results.
I am sure that the 25 mg of iron every other day is way short of what you need. My ferritin was 40 and I had to take 50 mg of iron to raise it to 80. I expect that you will need a lot more iron. If it bothers your digestive system, try taking some Vitamin C with it.
Test results and associated reference ranges vary from one lab to another, so it is important to always compare test results from reference ranges from the same lab. Please post the ranges for the Free T4 and Free T3 results.
How much iron have you been supplementing with daily?
When taking thyroid med, TSH is basically a useless test. When taking adequate thyroid med, TSH is frequently suppressed the bottom of the range, or below. So there is no need to be concerned about low TSH and reduce meds. Our members say that relief from hypo symptoms typically requires Free T4 at the middle of the range, and Free T3 in the upper half of the range, as needed to relieve symptoms. So your doctor is directionally correct.
I would bet that your heartburn is more related to inadequate levels of Free T4 and Free T3, instead of being the Armour med itself. The reason I say this is that heartburn/GERD is a common symptom of hypothyroidism. Also, back when I was hypothyroid I was having terrible heartburn so I tried an increase in my Armour thyroid dose and noticed improvement very quickly. In 3 days the heartburn was gone and I was so enthusiastic that I reduced by daily dose of Prilosec from 2 tablets to one. I even tried going without any Prilosec and it seemed to work okay, but the doctor did not want me to do that because of having Barrett's Esophagus.
The weight gain can also be related to still being hypothyroid, so how about posting your thyroid related test results and reference ranges (along with Vitamin D, and ferritin results, if tested) and let us assess your status.