Bulking, hypothyroidic, thinking of adding 25 mcg of T3, no AAS, impact on muscle?

[xDecapitatorx]

I was wondering if anyone has ever been in a similar situation to mine and what the outcomes were. So basically I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and have been taking Levothyroxine for years without it really helping with my symptoms. Recently, however, I had my free T3 levels measured and found they were low. So I started looking into T3 replacement, and my doctor agreed to send in a prescription for 25 mcg of Cytomel . I have not picked it up yet, since I haven't decided on what to do (i.e. whether I want to switch to combined therapy), and one thing that concerns me is what the addition of T3 would do to my muscle mass.

I am currently bulking at a slight deficit with no anabolic steroids (I am firm not to go on a cycle), but on TRT to get me into the normal range. I am also doing intermittent fasting, and have eaten this way for years. Would the addition of T3 cause muscle loss and only fat gain while bulking due to the increase in protein breakdown (I know it also increases protein synthesis, but slightly less)? I would only take enough T3 to get me into the normal range, and I would also account for any increase in metabolism by adding calories, i.e. I'd be bulking regardless.

Any input here would be appreciated. And I know I said I don't want to go on a cycle, but the reason I'm asking on these boards is because I see a lot of people here have had experience with T3, as well.

[SEOINAGE]

Normal range and you should be fine. But the stuff metabolizes so quickly it can be difficult to do it just right. Might be better off starting on a lower dose, and take twice a day.

[xDecapitatorx]

Normal range and you should be fine. But the stuff metabolizes so quickly it can be difficult to do it just right. Might be better off starting on a lower dose, and take twice a day.

What would you suggest in regards to the dose? I can run it by my doctor, but this is the dose I got prescribed and I think I'm also just supposed to take it once a day. If I do take it once a day, given that I'm intermittently fasting, should I take it right before training (I train on an empty stomach and start eating afterwards) or would it not make a difference if I took it in the morning instead? Given that it has a half-life of 2.5 days I'm not sure what splitting it up would do after the first dose.

But yeah, definitely just normal range, I'm not looking to play around with this as I'm having enough problems already.

[SEOINAGE]

Do you usually need higher dose of other meds? It's going to be a matter of titrating doses one way or another. I would take in the am if once a day. I take mine prior to my meals. Or first thing in morning if not eating right away. Some docs start people even as low as 10 mcg a day.

I definitely notice a difference most of the time within 30 minutes of taking t3, and it can peak at around two hours. The 2.5 day thing makes no sense to me as I can have high free t3 readings and still have elevated tsh even with multiple doses in a day.

[212OlympiaBound]

I've definitely heard that 25mcg is a decent T3RT protocol. Might be a tiny bit on the high side. If you are trying to do T3RT, I would recommend getting it from a pharma grade source

[xDecapitatorx]

SEOINAGE, I'm not sure if I need higher doses. I'm currently taking 125 mcg of Levothyroxine to get my TSH to 1.69 and Free T4 to 1.15. I forgot what my test dose was, but prior to switching to cypionate , I think I had 125 mcg of test enanthate every 14 days to get me into the 50 - 75% percentile of the normal range. I don't know if those are high dosages or not, but from what I understand at least the testosterone one isn't.

Why would you start with only 10 mcg a day if your thyroid shuts down its own production anyway, though?

Also, how often are you measuring your Free T3? Have you also gone from below normal levels to normal ones or what was your change and at what dose? And with that change, how much has your metabolism increased, i.e. how much more do you burn? I assume going from below normal to normal won't have mine increase by all that much, maybe 100 or 200 kcal at best. And what difference do you notice? Oh, by the way, if you don't want to post any of the info here, please PM me, I'd really just like to hear more on this.

The 2.5 day thing makes no sense to me as I can have high free t3 readings and still have elevated tsh even with multiple doses in a day.

I don't understand this part, though. Why would that be contradictory to the 2.5 day half-life? That just means that after taking T3 half of it is still in your system after 2 days and a half.

I've definitely heard that 25mcg is a decent T3RT protocol. Might be a tiny bit on the high side. If you are trying to do T3RT, I would recommend getting it from a pharma grade source

What do you mean by decent protocol, can you elaborate in what sense? As for pharma grade source, it'd be Cytomel if that's what you meant.

[clarky.]

Your doc will do blood work to make sure your in range and stable so there should not be any muscle wastage from the t3.

[xDecapitatorx]

Your doc will do blood work to make sure your in range and stable so there should not be any muscle wastage from the t3.

Yeah, I'm supposed to get the tests repeated 2 months after I start. I kind of figure with T3 being in the normal range and not above there shouldn't be any issues, but I've read how the body sometimes shuts down T3 production and conversion when it perceives it's in a sick state and that it does so to preserve muscle. So that's why I'm a bit unsure of going with T3 given that I'm doing intermittent fasting, as well, and if this was the reason for my low levels I'm a bit worried about what would happen with higher free T3 levels when the body is in a fasted state for so long. At the end of the day I'd still only be in the normal range, so that shouldn't cause issues, either, I guess, but for some reason I'm having a hard time convincing myself that's the case,

[mark woods]

25mcg is a replacement dose of a healthy thyroid so you won't loose any muscle...no need to split the dose either as the halflife is long.

[thisAngelBites]

I agree with all that has been said here. As another hypothyroid person, I will say that I take my main dose (I take natural dessicated thyroid, so I don't supplement T4 and T3 separately) in the morning, but that a tiny bit helps me sleep better at night (although I don't know which component helps the sleep - I wouldn't think it would be the T3, but who knows?).

That doesn't seem to make sense, given the half life of those compounds, but I feel it, and many other hypothyroid patients (and the savvy docs) notice it as well. So even though the half life shouldn't make a difference, in practice sometimes it does. So play around with the dosing. I don't think there is one time that is going impact muscle retention (as I said, I agree with what was said above), but you may notice other changes because enough T3 is important and it may help problems you didn't know you had.

[SEOINAGE]

I agree with all that has been said here. As another hypothyroid person, I will say that I take my main dose (I take natural dessicated thyroid, so I don't supplement T4 and T3 separately) in the morning, but that a tiny bit helps me sleep better at night (although I don't know which component helps the sleep - I wouldn't think it would be the T3, but who knows?).

That doesn't seem to make sense, given the half life of those compounds, but I feel it, and many other hypothyroid patients (and the savvy docs) notice it as well. So even though the half life shouldn't make a difference, in practice sometimes it does. So play around with the dosing. I don't think there is one time that is going impact muscle retention (as I said, I agree with what was said above), but you may notice other changes because enough T3 is important and it may help problems you didn't know you had.

This is correct, it fluctuates enough, that some docs have patients taking multiple times a day.

[SEOINAGE]

SEOINAGE, I'm not sure if I need higher doses. I'm currently taking 125 mcg of Levothyroxine to get my TSH to 1.69 and Free T4 to 1.15. I forgot what my test dose was, but prior to switching to cypionate , I think I had 125 mcg of test enanthate every 14 days to get me into the 50 - 75% percentile of the normal range. I don't know if those are high dosages or not, but from what I understand at least the testosterone one isn't.

Why would you start with only 10 mcg a day if your thyroid shuts down its own production anyway, though?

Also, how often are you measuring your Free T3? Have you also gone from below normal levels to normal ones or what was your change and at what dose? And with that change, how much has your metabolism increased, i.e. how much more do you burn? I assume going from below normal to normal won't have mine increase by all that much, maybe 100 or 200 kcal at best. And what difference do you notice? Oh, by the way, if you don't want to post any of the info here, please PM me, I'd really just like to hear more on this.



I don't understand this part, though. Why would that be contradictory to the 2.5 day half-life? That just means that after taking T3 half of it is still in your system after 2 days and a half.

What do you mean by decent protocol, can you elaborate in what sense? As for pharma grade source, it'd be Cytomel if that's what you meant.

From what you are saying it would actually appear that you need smaller doses than some. Another reason to start low and work your way up. You don't know if 10 mcg or 15 mcg or 20 mcg could get your t3 on the upper end of range and keep TSH where it is best, and where you will feel best. You could also instead of replacing the t4, you could take both, in which case you would end up needing less as well. You ever have RT3 checked? and do you feel fairly fine?

To be honest, not a huge metabolism increase unless it is much above needed, and then it doesn't really make me lean, just makes me smaller. I don't know how to quantify it unfortunately. I think your estimations would be somewhat accurate. However I will say I got screwed up when RT3 got to high when I was taking some T4, so the difference in metabolism there was dramatic, but I also felt worse than without medication, lost all desire for doing anything.

As for the TSH statement. TSH is a good measure of the average level of thyroid hormones. If I have elevated t3 as in above normal range two hours after dose, but TSH is still high, it means my average thyroid levels are still low, but at that moment my free T3 levels are great or too high. So by splitting the dose up you can help to deal with this.

[KBall32]

Is there any autoimmune disease associated with your Thyroid problems? This would be my only concern in self medication when it comes to thyroid manipulation. You can go from Hypo to Hyper/Graves pretty easily.

[xDecapitatorx]

25mcg is a replacement dose of a healthy thyroid so you won't loose any muscle...no need to split the dose either as the halflife is long.

I agree with all that has been said here. As another hypothyroid person, I will say that I take my main dose (I take natural dessicated thyroid, so I don't supplement T4 and T3 separately) in the morning, but that a tiny bit helps me sleep better at night (although I don't know which component helps the sleep - I wouldn't think it would be the T3, but who knows?).

That doesn't seem to make sense, given the half life of those compounds, but I feel it, and many other hypothyroid patients (and the savvy docs) notice it as well. So even though the half life shouldn't make a difference, in practice sometimes it does. So play around with the dosing. I don't think there is one time that is going impact muscle retention (as I said, I agree with what was said above), but you may notice other changes because enough T3 is important and it may help problems you didn't know you had.

Yeah, that's what I read elsewhere, as well. That the half-life is long enough for it to not make a difference, but that people still notice it. So now I'm really torn on what to do, although I guess the good thing is that you can't really go wrong with splitting.

By the way, how much of T4 and T3 are you getting daily then?

From what you are saying it would actually appear that you need smaller doses than some. Another reason to start low and work your way up. You don't know if 10 mcg or 15 mcg or 20 mcg could get your t3 on the upper end of range and keep TSH where it is best, and where you will feel best. You could also instead of replacing the t4, you could take both, in which case you would end up needing less as well. You ever have RT3 checked? and do you feel fairly fine?

To be honest, not a huge metabolism increase unless it is much above needed, and then it doesn't really make me lean, just makes me smaller. I don't know how to quantify it unfortunately. I think your estimations would be somewhat accurate. However I will say I got screwed up when RT3 got to high when I was taking some T4, so the difference in metabolism there was dramatic, but I also felt worse than without medication, lost all desire for doing anything.

No, I feel like shit most of the time now on 125 mcg of Levothyroxine, it hasn't helped my symptoms at all. Brain fog, no motivation, waking up and feeling like a train hit me, needing to summon mental energy to get a drink, all that good stuff. It's been like that before I started treatment, but unfortunately T4 hasn't helped.

Oh, and my new dose would be 75 mcg of Levothyroxine and 25 mcg of Cytomel , so I wouldn't be ditching T4. My worry with going too light at the start is that I won't be getting tested for 6 - 8 weeks, so if I get too little and shut down my T3 production/conversion due to getting it exogenously, it's going to make matters even worse. And I don't want to spend another half a year to a year feeling like this, it's been way too long. On the other hand, I don't want to go hyperthyroid, although 25 mcg shouldn't get me there, even with taking 75 mcg of Levothyroxine, should it?

Is there any autoimmune disease associated with your Thyroid problems? This would be my only concern in self medication when it comes to thyroid manipulation. You can go from Hypo to Hyper/Graves pretty easily.

I got tested for a lot of things and the doctors seemed to have excluded any autoimmune disease. They said it could be because I lost too much weight (I was slightly underweight according to BMI for a while) and that the whole axis just shut down, so it'd take a year to two to fully recover. But I wouldn't be self-medicating, I'm doing all of this with my doctor's approval and prescriptions. It's just that it's up to me now whether I'd like to go from T4 only to T4 + T3.

[xDecapitatorx]

OK, so today was my second day on 100 mcg T4 + 12.5 mcg T3 (from 125 mcg T4 only). So far, no positive changes or adverse side effects (although today I had to sleep more than 10 hours, missing all of my classes, because I just couldn't get up, and even when I then woke up, I felt like a train hit me; I'm not sure this has to do with Cytomel ). I'm eager to change to 75 mcg T4 + 25 mcg T3, but what I was wondering is whether side effects such as heart palpitations occur the same day (since T3 enters the bloodstream so quickly) if the dose is too high, or does that take time, too? Because if they show right away, then it seems that I'm not having trouble with the current dose and could increase to the higher one already.

Any thoughts?

[clarky.]

Give it time two days is nothing imo i would wait a few wks before changing your dose.

[xDecapitatorx]

Give it time two days is nothing imo i would wait a few wks before changing your dose.

Hmm, well I'd definitely be upping the dose to 25 mcg after, say, 8 days, because that's the agreed upon dose with my doctor. I was just wondering whether I would already be experiencing negative side effects such as heart palpitations if even 12.5 mcg was too high. Because if so, then I'd rather up my dose sooner than later and get to the prescribed protocol. I namely don't only want to see the effects, I also want to get tests done as soon as possible, and this intermediate dose was basically just my suggestion based upon being told that many people start lower and that it might not be a bad idea to do so for side effect reasons.

So basically my question still remains for those that have experienced side effects. Would I already be experiencing them if the dose was too high?

[clarky.]

If the dose was to high yes you would.

[xDecapitatorx]

If the dose was to high yes you would.

Thanks, I think I'll start with the higher T3 dose tomorrow then.