Posted by Cairo on September 24, 2005, at 20:02:54
In reply to Re: T3 Augmentation experiences? » gardenergirl, posted by Phillipa on September 24, 2005, at 12:52:35
T4 (Synthroid) is converted to the active form, T3 by the body. The problem may not lie with your thyroid gland not producing enough, but with faulty receptors or a hypofunctioning HPA axis where the gland is "normal" (thus normal lab values) but which cannot pump out enough thyroid in response to stress because of messed up feedback loop. Same can be said for the adrenal gland and cortisol.
So it's not that simple for many folks. Some do great on Synthroid supplementation, but you can argue that maybe they were hypothyroid to begin with and their symptoms were secondary to that.
I personally went on Synthroid for a slowly elevating TSH level, but despite bringing the TSH down, I don't feel any better.
Long term use of T4 or T3 may also shut the thyroid gland down due to negative feedback, so you need to be careful.
I found it interesting that 5mg of Cymbalta seemed to make some of my thyroid-like symptoms improve (feeling cold, lack of energy, thinning hair, acne). My feeling is that it revved up the HPA axis. My only problem is that at that dose it didn't do what I wanted it to (pain control and atypical depression), so I went off it and the symptoms returned.
Cairo
> So that's what cytomel is used for T3. Does it affect TSH? Fondly, Phillipa
poster:Cairo
thread:558481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050921/msgs/559179.html