Pertinent scientific information on T4/T3 therapy

[artfemme]

I have spent many years recovering my health and have had to fight really hard to convince doctors of my need for T4/T3 therapy because my TSH has always been "in normal range". In order to convince my PCP to test my FREE levels and adjust my meds accordingly, I've had to do a lot of research and present her with science. I went through 5 endos before turning to her for help. Because my improvement is demonstrated in the normalization of my lipid panel, blood pressure, and other comprehensive labs, as well as in my obvious reduction of symptoms, my doctor is now on board. It has taken me 6 years to accomplish this.

I have found the best results with my presentation to doctors comes in the form of papers published in established medical journals. It is a sad reflection on OUR medical system that the most current research (and the research that I find best correlates to my own condition) comes from Europe, Russia, and Denmark.

I have recently started including the term "meta-analysis" when doing Google searches for information and find it gives me more science and less lay opinion, and that it gives me more free access to clinical trials. In my most recent searches, I found the following articles that seem to be the cutting edge in research into variations in treatment for hypothyroidism; refute the American trial that found no evidence of value in treatment with both T4 and T3 over supplementation with T4 only; and seem to reflect the experiences of many of our members who feel they need to take additional T3 to relieve their symptoms.

I hope you will find these studies to be of use to you if you find yourself among those who are having difficulty obtaining proper diagnostic labs for your FREE levels and adequate prophylactic care. These are all studies done within the last 2 years and recently published. Please note that the Italian study was published under the auspices of NIH.

Wishing you good health :

From the Italian study published through NIH:

"A practical consequence of this finding is that normalization of serum TSH cannot always be considered an appropriate marker of euthyroidism in levothyroxine-treated patients."

"In conclusion, athyreotic patients treated with levothyroxine monotherapy show a highly heterogenous capacity of T3 production, although about one fifth of those, despite normal TSH levels, do not maintain FT3 or FT4 values within the reference range."

1)  http://www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3148220
["Levothyroxine Monotherapy Cannot Guarantee Euthyroidism In All Athyreotic Patients"]

2)  http://www.eje-online.org/content/161/6/955.full
["Do we still need more trials on T4 and T3 combination therapy in hypothyroidism"]

3) http:www.eje-online.org/content/161/6/895.full
["Effect of combination therapy with Thyronine (T4) and 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine versus T4 monotherapy in patients with hypothyroidism, a double-blind, randomised crossover study"]

4)  http:// hormones.gr/preview.pcp?c_id=696
PUBLISHED FEB.10, 2012 IN HORMONES INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENDOCRINOLOGY AND METABOLISM
["Combined therapy with L-thyroxine and L-thyronine compared to L-thyroxine alone in treatment of primary hypothyroidism"]

[Barb135]

Thanks, I'll try googling that and see what it gets.

[artfemme]

You're very welcome, Mia ! Hope it helps !

[artfemme]

Yaay for you ! Same for me, I changed absolutely nothing, it was the balancing of my thyroid hormones that did it !

[LazyMoose]

"Because my improvement is demonstrated in the normalization of my lipid panel, blood pressure, and other comprehensive labs, as well as in my obvious reduction of symptoms, my doctor is now on board."

- Yes, normalization of my lipid panel, blood pressure was also the end result of my thyroid being supplemented with T3, via natural thyroid.

My Dr not too long ago congratulated me for exercising and eating more healthy after looking at a much improved lipid panel. My response was that I physically did Nothing different to achieve those greatly improved lipid results. It was from optimal free thyroid levels. Then he compared it to my thyroid labs. Bingo. Funny how I had to point out the obvious to him.

Keep on researching / finding T3 articles for us!

[artfemme]

Barb and everybody...

I think I Googled "slow conversion of T3 thyroid hormone meta-analysis" and then just started searching through  the information.

The reason I typed out all the titles to the articles is so that if the links don't work for you, you can just Google the article itself. I just tried that on #1, Barb, and the article popped right up.

Hope that helps. Busy now, will check in later. Good luck.

[Barb135]

Tried that - comes up with a whole list, but nothing I find has much to do with thyroid.  Can you post a link?

[sunrock]

I looked up the Hormones of International Journal of Endocrinology and metabolism....fascinating to read. I copied out quite a bit to show to my doctor for the next time!
Thank you for sharing this.
Mia

[Barb135]

Very good information.  Hopefully, it will help members  to point their doctors in the right direction for adequate treatment.

There are a couple of the links that I can't open (#'s 1 and 4).  Can you tell us what your search criteria was?  Maybe I can find them another way.