"We've always done it that way."
This quote disgusts me. Too often I'll find someone chanting something online and someone will happen by, and trustingly commit their advice to memory. Next thing you know it's all the rave and has become the new standard. No one fact checks it, no one questions it, and some even gasp at the thought of changing their methodology.
Your diet and training aside, I'm here to tell you 50mcg is generally not enough T3. Before you close your mind immediately please understand that I would never condone using outrageous doses, we have enough board members doing that already. Allow me to explain.
You cannot say the human body produces 25mcg of T3 a day, it is so much more complicated than that. You have T4, T3, T2, iodine, reverse T3, T3S, T3AC, and so many other factors like insulin and simple carbs to factor in. Saying the human body produces 25mcg a day is a generalization. The problem with being vague in this instance is that our bodies create a wide range of functional T3. It would be more accurate to say we create between 12.5-75mcg a day, and that's not even accurate.
Agreed, that is why the prescribed amount of T3 is between 25-75mcg per day.
And this whole 25% of T4 is converted into T3? I know some of these stickies have been around awhile so I'm going to chalk this fallacy up to outdated information but it's more like 60%. Don't worry, I'll post a source. 20% is also converted to reverse T3, which is non-functional T3 that takes up a receptor but doesn't do anything. It's an additional regulatory mechanism. The remaining 20% is split up into acids and sulfates like T3S and T3AC. Your body uses 90-95% of its TSH for T4 and the rest mostly for T3.
I just had a discussion with my father who now practices endocrinology and he stated that he prescribes roughly 1.5mcg/kg of T3. However he did say he might alter that by a few tenths depending on how low their levels are. Well I'm 100kg so that would be 150mcg for me. Now I don't rule out my father being flawed so I researched and found that much more than 25-50mcg of T3 is prescribed usually.
I believe you are confusing T3 and T4. The article you quoted makes no reference to T3 but says T4 shoulbe be prescribed 1.7mcg/kg per day. I will link another article that states that T3 is prescribed at 25-75mcg per day. Therefore, your father would be prescribing you twice the maximum amount.
Why could this be? Well just as is with any other drug, not all of the synthetic T3 is taken up by receptors and used effectively. How much is? No one has really cared to study that I could find. What I could find is that this particular range of doses is used for a reason, because it is what has worked to keep patients within normal levels.
So the moral of the story here if you're still following is this:
Your T3 could be underdosed. Your diet could be crap, I forgot to mention simple carbs and insulin indirectly inhibit T3 uptake. You're not taking a large enough dose, 100mcg is perfectly ok.
100mcg would only be OK if you are using AAS IMHO. You haven't taken 50+ mcg for a long enough period to see results, especially since you've already lost weight and it is slowing down. And we make more than 25mcg naturally after counting on the iodine molecule loss from the T4.
Treatment of Hypothyroidism - American Family Physician
I've been on T3 for 2 Weeks and haven't lost a single pound. Is this normal?
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Originally Posted by theformerfatkid
