Hi guys,
Spent hours last night reading tons of Cytomel related posts here, and was surprised at how many there were. I didn’t know how many guys on TRT/AAS are also doing thyroid treatment!
My psychiatrist and I decided around September to augment my AD (Nardil, an MAOI, been on it for quite a while with no issues) with Cytomel. He’s had good experiences, and is also on TRT himself, so decided to give it a shot. 25mcg for a month, 50mcg for a month, and then a week on 75mcg but that felt like way too much. Was all jittery and anxious within a couple of days. Went back down to 50mcg.
Got bloodwork done after another month on 50mcg, and he wasn’t too thrilled about my TSH and T4 being so low:
Please ignore the prolactin, it’s irrelevant, I promise. Long off topic story, it’s actually in the teens and spot on per my neuroendo.
So we retested about a week later:
He asked that I stick to either 25mcg or 50mcg for another month and retest.
Hopefully I’ll make you guys proud when I say that I actually listened to him, and lowered the dose half a tablet (12.5mcg) a week at a time, and have been fighting the urge to change things all over the place lol. I’ve gotten better at having some patience, I swear.
Thing is, even after 3 days on 37.5mcg, I started showing some clear new symptoms:
- Beard getting annoyingly coarse, hair on head slowing growth (only shaving once a week now vs 2-3x)
- Trouble staying asleep
- Easily exhausted
- Vertical white cracks in nails, but this has come and gone for a while now
- Temp when waking up today was 96.8F and that was after laying in bed awake for a while
- Very obvious constipation
- Sometimes feels like I have to consciously breathe esp at night laying in bed
- Itchy skin esp at night
- Mentally sluggish…was calculating measurements for some acoustic panels I’m making and it took me FOUR hours and countless redos to figure it out. And I’m in charge of finances for a small business!
- Depression, aggression, mood swings - by far the most obvious symptoms. 3 days after dropping to 37.mcg, I woke up absolutely miserable. I won’t get into detail, but I’ve been driving the girl nuts being a hopeless brat, and getting absurdly snappy with people. The only other time this happened was a while back when I forgot my Cytomel dose for 3 days while traveling internationally. I can’t stress how bad and uncontrollable this has been, I feel like I need to be taken to the ward.
Now regarding the bloodwork, I’m not 100% certain that I fasted 12 hours (maybe 6-8) both times, nor am I certain that I didn’t take the Cytomel following the bloodwork. I read last night it shouldn’t be taken with magnesium either, which I do in the afternoon (I split the Cytomel dose, PM dose is with 320mg magnesium citrate). AM dose I was taking with my morning smoothie, thus with calcium from the almond milk - apparently another no-no.
FYI I should add that on 50mcg I was doing great; others commented on my positive attitude despite having a tough year. No anger whatsoever, but a little anxiety maybe. Was working on quitting the drink though…44 days sober today! Helped me get over my cat and grandmother passing too. I did notice some side effects the last week on 50mcg (around Halloween):
- Relatively amped up and much more chatty
- Time perception felt so fast every day, I almost thought my clocks was fucked
- Some hand cramps
- Some weight gain (~5-7lbs), but was traveling, not working out, and not eating the best
- Sore legs/calves without stressing them, but again lifestyle was not the cleanest then
- Slightly blurry vision, just had to wear my glasses more
- Slept like a baby some 10+ hours a night. TBH this wasn’t the worst thing as I’ve always struggled with sleep
Before I run myself in circles, I wanted to hear what you guys think from your experience in thyroid meds, and what I should consider. Writing it out sounds like sticking to 50mcg sounds ideal, but want to think it out before jumping around. Thanks.