Anyone else on T3 only script?

**SEOINAGE** · 02-04-2015, 09:16 AM

I haven't spent much time on here lately as things have been fairly stable with my TRT protocol. But last year I had a low iron issue that required supplementation at 45 mg a day for most of the year. It brought it back somewhat but at that dose It still wasn't climbing as much as it needed to. Dr decided it was more than likely related to my thyroid.

I have known I have had hypothyroidism for a bit more than a couple years. Back then I went on synthroid and felt horrible, dr bumped up the dose and I just dropped it completely. My current doctor decided to focus on the cause which was Hashimoto's and helped get that under control by removing foods that were causing issues. I had significant changes in TSH and free t3, but was still tired a lot, like that diet had me falling asleep at work really fast. I tried to reintroduce foods and find a culprit but nothing worked.

Fast forward back to after the iron issues my Dr put me on armor thyroid, which once again made me feel worse, I would get blood shot eyes and had complete lack of motivation. I started T3 only just a couple weeks ago, and those issues started to go away. We are doing our first blood work on the T3 only as soon as I am able to get it done. Dr believes RT3 to be the issue and it not allowing receptor sites to use the T3, hence the T3 only protocol.

It has been quite frustrating, but after my failed attempt with synthroid I decided to give this go around the best shot I could, and endure the issues till it was solved. It is getting frustrating to me and I will tell you why.

Before I started synthroid I had lost a bit of weight, and was doing really well physically, I went on synthroid and gained 10 lbs while on, then another 10 lbs when I came off. Last summer I had bod pod and skin fold readings done and was at 12.7% bodyfat and 10.7%ish on those readings. And you could tell by how I looked. I had been taking T3 on my own prior to that low body fat reading for something like 7 weeks and reading was done 6 weeks later. Yesterday I know it isn't accurate, but had the hand held body fat reader take me at 21.9%, I usually don't put any faith in these, but to be honest I probably look dang near close to that.

When I went on the armor thyroid though I was determined to not let myself get fat, but I wanted to see how I felt without having too restricted of calories. So started off trying to eat at maintenance. I kept feeling fatter and fatter as things went on, so I started reducing calories incrementally, then I went as far as dropping carbs entirely some days and for all meals till dinner. I was staying under 1500 calories most days and when I would eat more on my lifting days it wasn't much more. I even got as low as 900 calories some days. All this time never losing any weight, managed to stay about the same weight yet look fatter and fatter. So you could understand why I would be frustrated to look as bad as I do. The fat under my belly button started to protrude greatly, it almost looks like a big ab bulge, top 4 ab areas it is fairly flat, then the lower stomach fat sticks out greatly and it is even wider, looks like a big bar across there, and it looks even worse from the side. And all these reduced calories never gave me an appetite, I never had issues falling asleep, I never got super hungry when I would go to refeed. I went from looking the best I have looked in my life to about the worst I have looked in the past several years, while taking armor thyroid.

I imagine there must be other factors going on. I am determined to get this figured out, I have been giving it a lot of time, even though it frustrates me as I have back tracked in my goals as far as strength and body composition goes, but my hope is when it is all said and done, I have a dialed in T3 dose that allows me to have a healthy fat level while eating healthy, and being able to respond to calorie deficits and surpluses properly. And my hopes are that is the only issue I have, there may be underlying problems in my gut and other contributing factors that my dr will seek out if I don't feel better.

Anyone else end up on Dr. prescribed T3 only? What was your experience like? What were your observations and what did you go through? Any tips to make things better for me? Any other questions about details of what I have done, feel free to ask. I just needed to get this off my chest, as this whole situation has really bothered me, but I would love people's input. I also am curious whether this is commonly genetic, and if I have family members I should be helping with this discovery, I haven't said anything to anyone yet, because I want to see if it even works.

**BallSak** · 02-04-2015, 09:47 AM

I would suspect rt3 issues as well. T4 only(synthroid ) is never a good idea IMO. It can just make things worse. Do you have rt3 labs?

Also, have you had cortisol labs done? You need cortisol to transport thyroid hormone into your cells.

Hopefully the t3 only therapy will clear out the suspected rt3.

**SEOINAGE** · 02-04-2015, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by BallSak

I would suspect rt3 issues as well. T4 only(synthroid ) is never a good idea IMO. It can just make things worse. Do you have rt3 labs?

Also, have you had cortisol labs done? You need cortisol to transport thyroid hormone into your cells.

Hopefully the t3 only therapy will clear out the suspected rt3.

Cortisol is another issue he was going to look at. I live in a remote area, and it is difficult for me to get labs, because of how bad I was doing on armor thyroid after blood work showed levels were proper we bumped up dose slightly as tsh still had some room, but because of lack of improvement and situation he just put me on T3 right away. It would have been nice to out right see the culprit with blood work though.

**jasondd1** · 02-04-2015, 09:59 AM

I was converting t3 to rt3 but mine was not autoimmune. Went on synthetic t3 only and it crashed my t4. So went on combo t3 t4 synthetic and perfect. Ive tried 4 grain armour and synthetic just seems to work better. I buy from research companies though. One place its kind of a gel and 2 pumps of each twice a day and i'm good.

**jimmyinkedup** · 02-04-2015, 10:16 AM

Is there a possibility of complete blood work anytime soon?

**SEOINAGE** · 02-04-2015, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by jasondd1

I was converting t3 to rt3 but mine was not autoimmune. Went on synthetic t3 only and it crashed my t4. So went on combo t3 t4 synthetic and perfect. Ive tried 4 grain armour and synthetic just seems to work better. I buy from research companies though. One place its kind of a gel and 2 pumps of each twice a day and i'm good.

I was under the impression it was t4 that converted to RT3 and T3. I also thought you didn't need T4 as it was a long term storage to be used in conversion for later. So you might have felt lousy because being on T3 only was wearing off and you had nothing to make T3 with. As a side note my T4 numbers were always at the bottom of the range, even when taking armor thyroid, and while doing well with the food allergies, and without any of that t4 stayed about the same regardless. Imagine any extra caused it to convert quickly, giving a rise to RT3 and making T3 ineffective for me.

**SEOINAGE** · 02-04-2015, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by jimmyinkedup

Is there a possibility of complete blood work anytime soon?

Meaning test levels and everything else?
I had cholesterol drawn yesterday for work. Work also provides a free panel in april that covers a lot of things. But wouldn't include free T and E2 levels. If I were to request a full panel, my dr would pretty much order anything I ask for.
Doing thyroid panel next week, but would imagine RT3 would be gone after over 3 weeks T3 only.
I have been getting iron and thyroid checked about every two months for a while now, iron since last april.

If it matters, my E2 lvls aren't dialed in, they fluctuate without changing my protocol. without AI they can be anywhere from 35-49 with AI they have been down to 21 but I drop it after a month or so more because they feel like they drop too far, even tried very small doses, but used non pharmacy source, because even splitting a pill into quarters is rough and very uneven, and that makes the problem even worse, as the validity of chinese raws is pretty bad. But I certainly know the dose is not above that which I think I am taking. Being a bit on the fatter side the ai is probably a necessity.

**SEOINAGE** · 02-09-2015, 03:38 PM

Been feeling pretty decent on t3 only, blood work friday. Sad side note stepped on my foot scale with the same crap technology as hand scale and it says 27% bf. I thought 22 was way high.

edit: oh and jacked my hand in a dirt bike crash, so won't be training for reals for a while.

**thisAngelBites** · 02-09-2015, 03:53 PM

I'm not sure what is going with you. Normally, when you are hypothyroid, your metabolism slows and you gain weight. Restoring the proper levels of T4 and T3 can help some people to lose weight gained due to hypothyroidism. The thing is, too much T3 can really increase your appetite. So I don't understand what is happening with this.

The reverse T3 can be high due to stressors like the low iron levels, as well as insufficient cortisol - so that could still be an ongoing problem and might need some investigation.

I'd be interested to see the blood work you have. I can't promise I can help, but I will see if I can say anything useful. I presume the dietary stuff your doc recommended that worked for your antibodies was to be gluten free?

**BallSak** · 02-09-2015, 05:44 PM

Seoinage, here is a pretty good write up on cortisol and thyroid relationship:

Adrenal Fatigue versus Hypothyroidism - DrLam® - Body. Mind. Nutrition®

**OingoBoingo** · 02-09-2015, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by SEOINAGE

Been feeling pretty decent on t3 only, blood work friday. Sad side note stepped on my foot scale with the same crap technology as hand scale and it says 27% bf. I thought 22 was way high.

edit: oh and jacked my hand in a dirt bike crash, so won't be training for reals for a while.

I really don't like those scales. I use the US Navy body fat formula. It seems to work well until around 15%.

**SEOINAGE** · 02-10-2015, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by thisAngelBites

I'm not sure what is going with you. Normally, when you are hypothyroid, your metabolism slows and you gain weight. Restoring the proper levels of T4 and T3 can help some people to lose weight gained due to hypothyroidism. The thing is, too much T3 can really increase your appetite. So I don't understand what is happening with this.

The reverse T3 can be high due to stressors like the low iron levels, as well as insufficient cortisol - so that could still be an ongoing problem and might need some investigation.

I'd be interested to see the blood work you have. I can't promise I can help, but I will see if I can say anything useful. I presume the dietary stuff your doc recommended that worked for your antibodies was to be gluten free?

Thanks, I would have to dig to find everything again. The doctors thought was because I was taking t4 it would convert to RT3 and that would occupy the receptors preventing T3 to function on that receptor. So blood work can look decent but still have hypothyroid symptoms. I'm sure he will keep up on monitoring my iron, cortisol was next after we get the T3 only dialed in and I still have more issues.
And no, I was able to have gluten, I didn't have any gluten allergies.

So I broke my thumb in two places, ligament and a tendon both pulled off bone, so typing and using the PC is tough. Hopefully I don't balloon up, but won't diet for a while, needs to heal.

Ballsak I started reading that but some of it goes against a few things I have read in the past. Maybe some symptoms people had that were previously correlated with hypothyroidism aren't anymore. I'll look into it more.

And ya Oingo, they are trash imo. Stick with my infrequent bod pod and skin folds.

**SEOINAGE** · 02-26-2015, 01:37 PM

Doing much better compared to armor thyroid. Blood work had T3 at top of range, and TSH at 4.5+. Was on 10 mcg twice a day, doc said go to 15 mcg two times a day, but after talking to me we decided on 10 mcg x3 times a day. Expensive route I guess as the compounding pharmacy charges the same per pill. I can't believe how expensive it is. I mean it is such a low dose, the drug cost is virtually non existent and you are paying for the encapsulation process. It makes making my own a tempting option. I mean 100 dollars of t3 can translate into like 600,000 dollars of cytomel . But of course legal risks, accuracy risks etc. Pretty nuts if you ask me.
Hopefully this change will get things working right for me again. Killing me how terrible I look compared to last summer, the whole being patient with armor thyroid and everything else really set me back significantly.

**BallSak** · 02-26-2015, 01:58 PM

T3 or free t3 at top of the range? Your TSH should drop off if you're in good range.

Do you have brain fog or any cognitive issues?

**SEOINAGE** · 03-02-2015, 04:21 PM

Sometimes I do. Free t3 was top of range. So I'm kind of assuming TSH is a bit slower to respond. I had to have been at a peak for free t3. According to my doc my T3 medication peaks and drops off fairly quickly. Plus I am a hyper-metabolizer. I felt pretty good on my self administered 25mcgx2 a day. Will see how things go at 10 mcg x3 a day.

**SEOINAGE** · 04-14-2015, 03:26 PM

At 10 mcg 3 times a day my TSH was still over 3 and my free T3 was slightly lower. switched to 20 mcg twice a day, and now trying 20 then 10 and 10.
Going to do full blood work in a few weeks.
Seem to be doing better but still get really sleepy at times. Mostly in the am and then afternoon.

**Lee_1978** · 04-14-2015, 06:03 PM

I'm on T4 and feeling generally alright with it. I'm hypothyroid but naturally ecto, so my metabolism is fast ( which doesn't make sense) but I began losing weight taking 100mcg ED. I'm on 50mcg but feel the dose is low, so l may up it to 75mcg. I also get lethargic around the late afternoon and my brain fog seems to have subsided somewhat.

I think it would be beneficial to monitor your TSH with regular bloods.

**SEOINAGE** · 05-21-2015, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by Lee_1978

I'm on T4 and feeling generally alright with it. I'm hypothyroid but naturally ecto, so my metabolism is fast ( which doesn't make sense) but I began losing weight taking 100mcg ED. I'm on 50mcg but feel the dose is low, so l may up it to 75mcg. I also get lethargic around the late afternoon and my brain fog seems to have subsided somewhat.

I think it would be beneficial to monitor your TSH with regular bloods.

Yeah that is pretty odd to be hypo and have a fast metabolism.

I ended up staying at 20mcgx2. So with a change from 30mcg a day to 40 mcg a day my TSH didn't change at all, it increased slightly and is still over 3. My Dr. is wanting to test in several months and keep the dose the same, because he says TSH can fluctuate, which I understand, but he does say we have room to increase the dose, so going to ask him about that. From what I can tell I still have significant room for improvement.

Had other bloods tested, E2 was good, iron was good, test was a bit high so lowered dose, DHT was top of scale but he said it was fine.

**SEOINAGE** · 05-26-2015, 03:35 PM

Dr is willing to bump up dose again, so might be 20x3, 25x2 or 18x3, haven't had the script called in, but some of the options we talked about. Glad he is willing to get this where we both feel comfortable with the dose.

**Roger11** · 05-27-2015, 05:03 AM

Subbed to thread mate.

Really Really interesting what happens to people physically/mentally when they have thyroid issues, it just makes me wonder how thyroids aren't fked up when people using T3 during a cutting cycle and they recover fine yet there are people out there like yourself who have issues with thyroid production whom have probably never used T3 for a body comp change(cycle) . I find it quite intriguing.

Will be following mate and hope it all works out for you. GL