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Re: Thyroid » Sad Panda

Posted by Cairo on July 22, 2004, at 17:24:12

In reply to Re: Thyroid » Cairo, posted by Sad Panda on July 20, 2004, at 22:18:39

> If your thyroid isn't making enough T3 & T4, what does it mater if you ask it to make less? I take 300mcg of T4 myself.
>
> Cheers,
> Panda.

The thyroid is making enough T4 and the conversion to T3 is not faulty. There is either a problem with thyroid (receptor) resistance

http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/thyroid/receptors.html

or stress related inhibition of the thyroid axis:

http://www.endotext.org/adrenal/adrenal8/adrenal8.htm

Either way, your thyroid gland functions properly, but the problem is elsewhere. Giving T3 or T4 in these cases may initially produce improvement, but in the long run the negative feedback to the thyroid would cause it to produce less when your body needs it.

There is a Dr. Lowe who advocates very high dose thyroid to sort of bombard the faulty thyroid receptors and I think a gradient effect takes place, but I've been told by my endo that this is very dangerous long term and is not addressing the root problem. When I ask about physiologic doses of T3 however (eg. substituting a portion of the dose of T4 which stabilizes your TSH around 1.0, give or take, with T3 (as advocated in The Thyroid Solution book), but most endocrinologists won't go there if your T3 is normal saying that your body will produce needed T3 from T4. I know of one person who tried Armour Thyroid (a "natural" mix of T3/T4) who initially did well as her muscular and other hypothyroid symptoms improved, but after awhile everything came back with a vengeance, probably because her thyroid was shutting down.

What I would like to know is if psychiatrists find that adding only T3 is beneficial, or if using T4 has been tried. I haven't done a search for that, yet.

I'm not saying that the use of thyroid is never beneficial, but that you need to be careful and not indescriminately prescribe it.

Same goes for giving cortisone to people whose adrenals are hypofunctioning. There can be receptor resistance or HPA axis hypofunctioning:

http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030525/msgs/229989.html

I don't what the answer is, but I'd rather keep trying to find the right combo of ADs first to help the HPA axis recover from dysfunction rather than give thyroid or cortisone, though if you have primary hypothyroidism or Addison's, then of course it is indicated.

Cairo


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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040719/msgs/369082.html