I am not an expert. The TRT clinic I work with (considered a pretty good one by most), thought that it was too high to get the benefits of high FT3. RT3 competes with FT3, so the thinking is that if RT3 is high, only a portion of FT3 will do it’s thing, so even if FT3 is high you will have lower metabolism and energy in the presence of high RT3.
I have read only a few articles on it, and it seems to logically make sense, but also I am not an expert.
@mnben87 It seems logical for me, my FT3 is not that bad(2.8) but I have excessive FT3 as well, lower body temperature most of the time and I dont regard my metabolism as good
You mean “excessive RT3”, right?
It does seem like based on looking online, that different opinions exist in regard to RT3. Some don’t think it is all that important, and some seem to think it is important.
I’ve seen people here post about “stop the thyroid madness dot com” as a place to go ti better understand thyroid issues.
I’ve read that RT3 binds to the same receptors FT3 binds too and in that case, the FT3 doesn’t do anything because it has no open receptors to bind to at the cellular level.
My pre armour thyroid RT3 was 14.3 (range 9-27).
On 1.5 grains of armour thyroid my RT3 is 15 (range 8-25).
My TSH has dropped a lot and my FT3 has improved, but is still just at the mid point if the range. Something is happening where I am converting my FT4 to RT3 more than I should.
I’ve recently increased my armour thyroid to 2.25 grains, but it’s been a month and don’t have blood work in the higher dose. I suspect my RT3 is still elevated because I haven’t noticed much of a difference on the higher dose at all. Maybe I’m warmer, but that’s about it.
I’m going to talk to my doctor about trying straight T3 along with my armour.
You are going down the right path. Since my FT3 was actually pretty high, but RT3 was over range, they just put me on cytomel (synthetic T3 that is slow release). The doctor said using T4 / T3 combo would not work as well as I would probably end up with even higher RT3. For you, since your FT3 was low doing a combo treatment makes pretty good sense.
When you do T3 only therapy, your body down regulates T4, and conversion also slows down (since there is less to convert). Then you get good FT3 levels, and good RT3 levels. BTW, you do want some RT3.
Thanks for your reply @mnben87.
Here are my most recent labs on 1.5 grains of armour.
It doesn’t look like my FT4 is that high, but it seems like a lot of it is getting converted to RT3? Which would in theory block my FT3 from binding to the receptors, right?
I increased my armour to 2.25 grains to see if that would help, but not sure its doing much.
Would you think I should still take the 1.5 grains of armour supplemented with Cytomel? Thanks again!
This would likely work better than just upping the Armour Thyroid. Combo treatment really lets you optimize things.
Just my feeling on the matter, but it seems like the doctors that are trying to optimize well being of their patients are paying attention to RT3, and the general practitioners are not really paying attention to it. I think TRT is a really good analogy. Some doctors go off of ranges and what has previously been done, and some go generally by the tests, but also consider well being of the patient and symptoms.
Thank you!
I do my trt through a urologist and he’s pretty good about asking how I’m feeling opposed to ranges. He writes a generous script of 200mg and I’ve played around with my dose. Last blood work in office came in at 1080 for TT and he was fine with it… Said it might be a tad high but as long as I was feeling good and my HTC wasn’t high, he was fine with it.
I’ll have to talk with my doc about Cytomel. What time if day do you take yours?
I take it in the morning, 30 minutes before eating.
@bcostigan41
Your RT3 is fine. I wouldn’t start messing with cytomel unless it gets way up there. RT3 goes up and down naturally. Just focus on getting the right dose of Armour. I was told you increase your dose until you get hyperthyroid feeling and then back off a little and that’s your dose.
At 15 Rt3 is probably good. I was told you want to be above 10, so you don’t have much to gain.
Thanks. I definitely don’t have a hyper feeling. I have 90mg pills (1.5 grains per pill). I take 1/2 a pill right when i wake up and then a full pill around 3pm each day, totaling 2.25 grains. All on their own, without food.
Honestly haven’t noticed much of a change from 1.5 grains to 2.25 grains. Maybe a little warmer, but that’s it.
Guess I need to try 3 grains a day to see what that does? Very confusing, this thyroid stuff is.
Here are my latest Thyroid bloods after 6 weeks on Armour 30mg a day:
T4, Free 0.9 ng/dL (0.8-1.8)
T3, Total 94 ng/dL (76-181)
TSH 1.72mIU/L (0.40-4.50)
Cortisol, A.M. 14.0 μg/dL
Acth, Plasma 15pg/mL (6-50)
My total T3 only raised up from 82 ng/dL to 94. So I’m asking to increase dose to 60mg/day.
Thoughts?
I’m clearly no expert, but I think you’d need to see free T3 and reverse T3 to get a full picture of what’s happening. I’m learning as I go along here too.
Edit: I think the free T4 is then converted to T3… Some free T3 and some reverse T3. If the reverse T3 is too high, that blocks the free T3 from binding to the receptors at the cell.
@dextermorgan He are my last thyroid tests:
| TSH | S | 1.74 | µIU/ml | 0.27 - 4.20 | ECLIA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Т4 (fT4) | S | 14.66 | ng/l | 9.30 - 17 | ECLIA | |
| Free T3 (fT3) | S | 2.79 | ng/l | 2 - 4.40 | ECLIA | |
| Reverse T3 | S | 232 | pg/ml | 90 - 215 | RIA | |
| ТАТ (Tg Ат) | S | 10 | IU/ml | 0 - 115 | ECLIA | |
| A-TPO (MAT) | S | 5 | IU/ml | 0 - 34 | ECLIA |
From one doctor I was advised to try armour 1 grain, from another cytomel due to the Reverse T3 - to start 5mcg cytomel and increasing it by 5 per week until 25.
The issue is neither I can find in my country but I contacted a Greek compounding pharmacy now
@vonko1988
Google aipct
@roscoe88
Everyone I know on Armour is at 75mg/day or more. I’m sure they worked up to that level first. I was told you go up in dose until you start having hyper symptoms and then back off a little and that’s supposed to be the ideal dose. I wouldn’t get hung up on numbers when on thyroid meds. On the thyroid forums the dose that makes many feel good doesn’t necessarily show perfect levels on the labs. Obviously don’t base your protocol off of what I’m saying because I’m not on thyroid meds but just giving you info I read to check out.
what?
This
Only once daily? Which thyroid med was taken 2-3 times a day? Was that armour?
