Changing to Armour this week, I hope.

March 1, 2005

Hello everyone!

I diagnosed myself with hypothyroid recently. I had Graves and RAI

nearly 20 years ago and I was put on T4 (levoxyl). Anyway, I have

been pretty low energy the last 20 years and it has gotten worse and

worse in the last two years. That and being unable to lose weight

despite extreme calorie restriction and exercise, cold, eyebrows

diminishing, dry skin, feeling extremely tired all the time, sleeping

a lot... on and on. As I " m sure you've heard 1000's of times, I was

told my TSH was normal. So that was that.

Anyway, I finally put 2 and 2 together and I started to research it

all and I got an appt schedule for my doctor, but it was going to be a

month away! So I got my own FT3&FT4 tests done and by golly, my FT3

is not even in the range. My TSH is 2.04 but the FT4 is at the top of

the range.

This indicates to me, I need some T3. Well, feeling so miserable and

having my appt so far away I figured I'd bump up the T4 (after the

blood tests) to see if it helps. And it does help, I feel

substantially better. However, I am concerned I don't have enough

usable T3 so I'm going to ask my MD to write me a presciption for

Armour. I was on .125mcg of Levoxyl which clearly wasn't enough. So

I figured I'd ask him for 90mg of Armour and another prescription for

30, to make it easier to get the dose right. I also intend to take

half on rising and half 6 hours later.

I'm a little nervous about changing. How should I do it? Just go

switch over one day? Or should I phase the Armour in? I don't want

to get myself all hyperT in the process. My sleep seems to be very

disrupted when I upped my T4, although it is better now that I'm

adjusting.

Any advice for me (with no functional thyroid gland)?

Thanks all!

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