....adrenal question

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Did you ever have any problems with your glucose being elevated? I know there is a common term called "adrenal diabetes" but can't quite figure out if it's too little or too much output from the adrenals...nor what, from the adrenals, causes it.

I've always had a very low Free T3, however, when on thyroid meds it drops lower than when I'm not on meds. One of my "best" labs was a TSH .84 and Free T4 of 1.6 (with high range of 1.8) however, my Free T3 dropped to 2.5 (low range 2.3)

Four months after I started thyroid meds, my glucose was up from 112 to 129. About a year ago, my doctor agreed to try Armour to see if we could get the Free T3 up. Granted, I think we started on too high of a dose (at my request) but within 6 or 7 weeks, I was having fluid retention (which I've never had) but we only checked my thyroid labs.

About 6 weeks later, we also did a metabolic panel when we did the thyroid ck. My glucose was 319! I've apparently done some serious damage because, even now, without taking any thyroid meds, my glucose will not go down without meds...officially, I'm now Type II diabetic. However, now that there is no involvement of thyroid meds, while both my Free levels are low, the Free T3 is actually above the Free T4....which it never was on meds.

I know that adrenals can "control" the T4 to T3 conversion, if they are not functioning correctly....so I suspect that, as long as I was on T4 (Unithroid) only, they may have simply shut most of the converstion to T3 down. However, when I dumped a good size dose of Armour on them, they couldn't control the T3....and did I ever pay for that!

Does any of this make sense or are you aware of anything that would cause this that might be adrenal related? I'm doing a 24hr urine cortisol test this week, but don't know what is "normal" and what is considered "abnormal". I've been dealing with the thyroid many years now, within my entire family, so I already know not to buy into the old "you're within the range, so your normal".

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Faye-

RE: Re: Vertigo Question... autoimmune diseases

Imelda, I just wanted to add something about the vertigo symptoms. It most certainly can be thyroid related, although I used to have vertigo and a feeling of fullness in my ears before I was tested and it was discovered I had a milk sensitivity. Once I stopped milk products that kind of dizzy/veritgo stopped. HOWEVER, I just recently started feeling severe vertigo again....and the same kind of vertigo some of the other gals described, like it was in your head and vision, not just balance or in your ears. I just got a call a few minutes ago from my primary care physician and she said my tests from Quest were back and my FREE T4 is now below range at .5 (range .6-1.7) I am beyond irritated at my other consulting female doctor in Houston. I kept telling her since we started on T3 only therapy in May (now up to 15 mcg. a day in timed release)

that initially I felt somewhat better then started to feel MARKEDLY worse. My FREE T4 started out at 1.4 in May then dropped about .1 point every six weeks. The last test 6 weeks ago was .9,,,,now it's at .5, now BELOW range!!!!!! My FREE T3, measured in the a.m. prior to meds is still round mid-range at 2.43 and TSH is now 1.72. After my primary care physican did my blood tests a week ago Monday, I had just had ENOUGH and on my own I started taking some Armour every morning. Just 7.5 mg. and now I'm going to increase it. I have to go slow because I have 's, which means non-functioning adrenals. My full replacement hydrocortisone has to be balanced with my thyroid meds or I have all kinds of nasty side effects. But suffice to say that the only thing that has changed in the past couple of months is that I've become more and more severely hypothyroid and with that has come increasing vertigo, increasing

heart palpitations, hardly able to move fatigue, increased resting heart rate and off-the-scale anxiety and sleep disorder. But,,,,,,it's one of those 'thank God' moments!!!! Half the time I don't KNOW what's wrong, this time I do. Now, I have to either wrangle with my consulting doc or jettison her and find someone else. Luckily for me I have lots of prescriptions on hand for all my meds to cover the next six months, so hopefully I can just talk my primary care doc into treating me. Steph S.

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