Re: Taking Armour plus T3

[Guest guest]

> I notice she says, "I began to feel that taking both Armour and T3 didn't make a lot of sense so I discontinued the Armour and continued to medicate with pure T3 solely. " > Why does it not make a lot of sense? If you can tolerate a certain amount of T4 and have a partial, rather than a total, conversion problem, doesn't it make sense to take as much Armour as you can tolerate? Firstly it is cheaper than T3, and secondly you get some of the other thyroid factors such as calcitonin.

Hi Miriam,

might have a more detailed explanation for you, but from personal experience I can confirm - NDT and higher dosages of T3 don't mix well in the body.... and I don't even have a conversion problem. I started out thinking exactly along your lines, but in practice it was a disaster. It upset the applecart and it took me over a month and a lot of juggling to get straight again on NDT only.

I can tolerate tiny amounts of T3 (6.25mcg) as a "pick-me-up" on stressful days in between NDT dosing - no problem with that. But to mix daily dosing with NDT and T3 (I tried the T3 dosing first thing in the mornings, followed by NDT during the day) throw me off balance - temps and BP all over the place, felt icy cold all day long, dizzy, palps, disorientated, etc... - not to be recommended.

Best wishes,

[Guest guest]

Hi Miriam,

I would tend to agree with you. I also take both NDT and T3, had to

reduce the NDT initially to get rid of joint pains and increased T3 to

compensate, but on the combo I feel better and more stable than I did on an

experiment of T3 only whch I carried on for 10 weeks.

>

> Thanks to for posting Finola's story on Facebook.

>

> I notice she says, " I began to feel that taking both Armour and T3 didn't make

a lot of sense so I discontinued the Armour and continued to medicate with pure

T3 solely. "

>

> Why does it not make a lot of sense? If you can tolerate a certain amount of

T4 and have a partial, rather than a total, conversion problem, doesn't it make

sense to take as much Armour as you can tolerate? Firstly it is cheaper than

T3, and secondly you get some of the other thyroid factors such as calcitonin.

>

> Miriam

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Miriam,

You'd have to ask FInola. She was working with her doctor and with my book. I

didn't hear about her until Sheila mentioned her progress.

There is no one size fits all solution for people. What may work for you may not

work for someone else. We all need the right balance of T3 and T4 for us

depending on our particular problems.

Most can manage with mostly T4 and a little T3. I'm at the other end and can

only cope with only T3. I can't tolerate any T4. So, everyone is different. I

assume that FInola had reasons for this choice and since her amazing story was

quite long she probably decided to skip over some of the details.

It is always exceedingly dangerous to assume that what works for us will work

for others. I learned that years ago.

Best wishes,

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Miriam

This is where we keep stating over and over, we are all

individuals and we often have to experiment titrating our dose, or adding a

little T4 or T3 to natural thyroid extract. When I started taking NDT, I never

quite 'got there' until I started adding just 25mcgs T4 daily. This happened

until a couple of years ago, when I found I was best taking just NDT. However,

there are a lot of 'users' of NDT who need more T3, some a little, some a lot.

This is because the T4 and T3 in natural thyroid extract are standardised to

the specifications laid down by the USP and those specifications don't work for

everybody. It's like saying a size 5 show fits everybody.

The strange thing with me was that I remained very unwell on

levothyroxine-only as it was not converting to the active T3 so I was

prescribed Armour Thyroid. However, when it was suggested I add 25 mcgs T4 to

my Armour, because I still had lingering slight pains, it worked like magic, so

the natural T4 did something the synthetic T4 did not. If I missed taking my

25mcgs TY4 I would quickly start to get pains back, which stopped immediately I

started taking it again. I am not sure why I decided to stop 2 years ago, I

think it was probably accidental, but at that time, I was fine, and never

needed it since. Seems our needs can change throughout our lifetime.

However, having said that, many people do very well on the NDT

they are taking, which shows the amount of T4 and T3 in their tablet is just

what their body needs, and if they added anymore of either T4 or T3, they would

have a bad reaction to it.

Luv - Sheila

> I notice she says, " I began to feel that

taking both Armour and T3 didn't make a lot of sense so I discontinued the

Armour and continued to medicate with pure T3 solely. "

> Why does it not make a lot of sense? If you can tolerate a certain amount

of T4 and have a partial, rather than a total, conversion problem, doesn't it

make sense to take as much Armour as you can tolerate? Firstly it is cheaper

than T3, and secondly you get some of the other thyroid factors such as

calcitonin.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for all the contributions. Very interesting.

What about the reverse T3 problem? I suppose that is when T4 converts to RT3

instead of T3 and actually blocks the uptake of T3? Why should it do that?

Presumably that is a different issue to cellular resistance, when large amounts

of T3 are needed in order to overcome the resistance?

Miriam

> Most can manage with mostly T4 and a little T3. I'm at the other end and can

only cope with only T3. I can't tolerate any T4. So, everyone is different. I

assume that FInola had reasons for this choice and since her amazing story was

quite long she probably decided to skip over some of the details.