Blindly doing this on my own

[Guest guest]

I've been a thyroid patient for 9 years. I have been miserable on T4 meds for

years. I've tried various combos and nothing seemed to work. I'm now

trying/retrying more SRT3 and less Levoxyl. I know I can't tolerate the Levoxyl

but it seems to give my adrenals some level of consistency. My last labs were

in June. My T meds are far different now than they were then. I thought I'd

share them just for some background info.

FT3 2.5 range 2.5-3.9

RT3 217 range 90-350 my level used to be 280 so it's improved

FT4 0.70 range 0.46 to 1.31

TSH 4.54 range 0.34-5.60

I believe I was taking 25 mcg Levoxyl (which is what I'm still on) and I'm

thinking I was at 10 mcg SRT3 then. I can look if it's necessary. Right now

I'm at 25 mcg/T4 and as of last night 13 mcg/SRT3.

I go up and down all of the time with symptoms. One minute I feel normal and

the next I plummet. I can't pay attention to drive, my vision is blurry or I

act like I'm having some sort of asthma attack or allergic reaction when I walk

into building due to the air quality or have terrible heart palpitations. The

air/breathing is by far my worst symptom next to constant sinus infections.

I go from feeling hyper on an increase of T3 to plummeting the next, like I did

this week, and needing an increase asap. Right now I'm pretty much inching my

way up at 1/2 to 1 mcg doses, anywhere from every 4 to 9 days. I kept the

Levoxyl to help things keep steady in me. I've tried to do just T3 alone before

and I just plummeted and had heart problems that would shoot me out of bed.

This is the very first time I've tried taking SRT3 more than twice a day. I take

it 3xs/day. I am taking 6 mcg in the am/pm at 8 hours apart. And I take T3 at

about 8 or 9 p.m. Right now I take 1 mcg at night. I figured it's best to try

to keep the dose about as even as possible. I'm now adding more in the nighttime

and keeping the daytime doses the same until I'm more evened out. I find that

if I don't have enough in me at nighttime the next day it takes me 1/2 the day

to come out of my funk. It's like I'm catching up.

I had cortisol saliva labs done back in Feb. My cortisol then was high in the

morning, low by noon and ok the rest of the day. Their overall assessment of my

coritsol was of a person who was 70 yrs. old. I'm 45 years old.

I'm severely sensitive to medications. I'm finding I'm doing better on

medications now that I've gotten rid of most of my Levoxyl. I've had a hard time

taking Cortef. It seemed to worsen my 'allergic' reactions to air qualities

andI'd feel like I was going to pass out due to lack of air. I've tried some

licorice tincture in water before but I just crash with fatigue so badly. Are

there others out there like me?

I can't work, I can't drive because I can't depend on if I'm going to be ok from

one minute to the next. I'm basically housebound and that's not easy when you

have children.

I'm sure I need to dump my Levoxyl. I tried to do that and by the third day I

was miserable. I don't know if I should've just taken more T3 to replace it or

not. I'm not used to going downhill that fast after dumping T4. I always do

great dumping it until my FT4 level lowers. I feel very 'raw' so to speak on the

T3. The slightest change and I'm miserable. I can't even explain the sick

feeling in the body. I also combat constant swelling only on my left side,

which is why I get all of the sinus infections. I'm on antibiotic after

antibiotic and that has to stop. It's now causing other infections because of

it. So I guess I'm here to see if anyone else is like me. I'm so incredibly

sensitive to meds and I would love to take Cortef but I keep having troubles

with it. It's hard to have a doctor script it and know what they are doing too.

I'm basically doing this on my own, as long as my current doctor doesn't think

my TSH is going into hyper range.

I'm taking progesterone as well. I don't have current labs on that. Though I

take a minor dose 1/4 gram, it causes huge changes in my blood and saliva

levels. I've been on it for 2 months now.

Sorry for the long synopsis of my health story. Thanks for listening.

Sherry