Still not sure it is anything, I’ll wait until the remainder of your labs are finalized.
Progesterone boosts the effectiveness of thyroid hormone. I have a theory that it is raised in subclinical hypothyroidism situations a lot of the time. It has mild thermogenic properties as well from what I recall.
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I also have elevated progesterone btw.
Sounds legit in my case but I never managed to find such info. My strongest hypo symptom is feeling colder all the time compared to all other people. When I was on 6 and 12 mcg t3 this was fixed
My symptoms are simliar:
- Feeling colder than usual
- Low libido/sensitivity/ED issues
- Digestive issues
- Skin issues (dryness)
My Free T3 wasn’t bad, but my rT3 was high which isn’t helping. Why did you not stay on medication btw?
@anon8512651 Which medication the T3?
I’m still taking but only 3mcg. I got sleep issues at some point on more(tried 6 and 12).
According to the STTM site this is due to adrenal issues for which I have full symptoms but the blood work and saliva cortisol do not show clear problems.
As much as I understand to fix thyroid I must fix adrenals and adrenals can very likely be fixed by testosterone.
Why not try some T4. Low adrenal people tend to work better on T4 than the T3.
I take T4 and it is very good for me. I no longer use T3 as it doesn’t help at all. Between 2008-2011 i tried every thyroid protocol going. High T4 usage, high T3 usage, NTH, T4/T3. I eventually settled on 125 T4 and 5 T3, and slowly faded out the T3 usage.
You are much better experimenting with your thyroid meds than use a doc to guide you. You will be able to see what is happening if you add or reduce a particular hormone. Keep a diary and monitor BP and HR to help guide you.
In your position now i would stop the 3mcg T3 and see how you react. If there is no difference after a week you don’t need it. IF you haven’t tried T4 only i would give it a go starting on 25mcg.
STTM group is very anti T4, but T4 for MEN is generally a better bet because we don’t have as many conversion issues women do (because we don’t have as much oestrogen stopping the conversion).
Isnt it better in that case to try NDT?
As much as I researched from 3 different sources the body is not ok to live on conversion alone and I have elevated RT3 which was the original reason to go T3 alone.
And my adrenals are a bit mess because sometimes cortisol is too high, other time too low and I have no idea what is going on there
You have tried a low dose of t3 And the body couldn’t handle it. Some people take 120mcg t3. That’s a mega dose. If I went past 55mcg I became ill and shut down.
The interaction of t3 and cortisol is key. It is hard to know what is happening quite often.
Nth is 1/4 t3. It is not a miracle drug. All you here on sttm website is positive stuff about nth. It was the same as t4 for me.
T4 works very well for many people so just try it. If it works then it is a simple solution and the cheapest… self experimentation is the key. Make a plan and trial some protocols out. All experiments will give you answers.
The t3 experiment confirms that your body cannot handle this hormone at the moment.
I remember a dr Marciano in the USA wrote that patients who have adrenal issues do better on t4.
Another point to make have you read about the early morning t3 protocol which was explained by Paul Robinson in the U.K. he has some books out about it.
Basically you give the body t3 at specific times in the early morning hours and this stimulates cortisol production. You have to wake at 4am and take 5mcg t3 for example. The time and dose can be adjusted
@marsaday
Very interesting post. Thank you
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Ok, this all makes sense but what about my elevated Reverse T3? As I said the idea of taking T3 was to reduce the T4 production
I am in the exact same situation as you, almost with identical labs. I was having a hard time deciding between NDT and T4 also, I spoke to one guy that mentioned rT3 should be ignored completely and he is on 200mcg of T4 only and doing incredible (in great shape with no symptoms remaining). He said that T4 is extremely important for males, specifically for libido/erections.
Curiously, do you have a varicocele or anything similar testicular wise? Vasectomy, etc.
Did all your symptoms improve and how are you doing now?
This thyroid website is very informative. This section on RT3 is important reading.
http://tiredthyroid.com/rt3.html
T4 for men IS a better option. It is the women who struggle with T3 conversion.
T4 is a no brainer to start with your thyroid journey. IF it works then great, it is cheap and easily accessible. If it doesn’t work you then look at alternatives, but you don’t do all the alternatives first and miss out on the most common treatment for low thyroid.
I am not saying here T4 will be your magic bullet. Usually there is other stuff going on, so it has to be multi dimensional approach. I have been taking thyroid treatment for 11 yrs now and i have just started testosterone treatment this summer. It is adding a new dimension to my hormone replacement and there are some adjustments, but generally i am doing well.
Some information to share or maybe someone could provide some answers to this experiment.
At the moment i have just tried MORE T4. It is early days, but i am wondering if my body needs more T4 because of the better uptake of T3 due to a better level of testosterone impacting better cortisol function. It is cortisol which grabs the T3 and drives it into the cell. LOW thyroid patients often have LOW cortisol levels.
Now with other thyroid patients (maybe Vonko) you can have a situation where the thyroid is failing to put out enough T4/T3 and so the body compensates and ups cortisol production. These patients then start to over produce cortisol as a compensatory mechanism for lower T4 production.
So something to think about: can this higher level of cortisol result in the body readapting and putting out more RT3 ???
So a person who is experiencing a lowering in thyroid production gets hit by a double whammy and the body does a cruel trick and throws out more blocking RT3 because it doesn’t like the higher cortisol level.
For me the interaction of thyroid, testosterone and cortisol is the key. They all affect each other. How you find your balance is all down to trial and error carried out by yourself.
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Very informative, thanks for that response!
My cortisol (salvia) has always come back within normal parameters for the 4x a day test. Here are some older labs of mine:
Thyroid
Free T3 - 3.45 ng/dL ( 2.1 - 4.4 )
Free T4 - 0.73 ng/dL ( 0.61 - 1.12 )
TSH - 0.68 mU/L ( 0.3 - 4.2 )
Total T4 - 0.73ng/dL ( 0.61 - 1.12 )
Total T3 - 1.1 ug/L ( 0.7 - 2 )
Sex Hormones
17 Beta Estradiol - 41 pg/nl ( 10-50 )
Progesterone 0.42 ug/L ( < 0.2 )
Total Testosterone - 5.29 ng/mL ( 2.6 - 10 )
Free Testosterone - 11.7 pg/mL ( 8.3 - 40.1 )
Reverse T3 showed up at 0.26 (range goes up to 0.29 I believe), though this was on a prior test before TRT.
Would be curious to hear your feedback if you have time!
As a side note, ignore the sex hormones as those were before a TRT change (increase).
Do you think my FT4 is low?
| TSH | S | 1.75 | µIU/ml | 0,27 - 4,20 | ECLIA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Т4 (fT4) | S | 14.28 | ng/l | 9,30 - 17 | ECLIA | |
| Free T3 (fT3) | S | 2.96 | ng/l | 2 - 4,40 | ECLIA | |
| ТАТ (Tg Ат) | S | 10 | IU/ml | 0 - 115 | ECLIA | |
| A-TPO (MAT) | S | 5 | IU/ml | 0 - 34 | ECLIA |
A friend of mine will give me 50 pills NDT Thyroid-S to try. One of these pills was equal to 25mcg T3,right? I think I should not start on more than a half
FT4 is lower in the range but your body is happily converting to T3.
T3 is the important hormone our bodies run on.
As an example someone with a really failing thyroid may have an Ft4 well below range, but a higher TSH, so aiding conversion via the deiodinase increased activity. The end result is a healthy FT3 level. This is a very common thing to happen in the thyroid world and a doctor will provide treatment even though the patient feels good. When they get on the T4 the TSH shuts off and conversion drops. They end up with a better FT4 level, but a really poor FT3 level and feel crap.
I would say your thyroid labs look good and very normal. I think most healthy people have mid range Ft4 and slightly higher FT3.
I assume you don’t feel fully well because you are posting here. Do you think your issue is not testosterone related but really the thyroid ?
Your labs look fine, but how you feel is more important. This is why i would trial some T4 on myself first above other thyroid meds. What does a small amount of T4 do for the system ? Does it impact T3 production at all ? Trialing 25mcg T4 and then getting bloods done 2 weeks later would be a good idea. Maybe even 50mcg T4. T4 dosing is done around 1.8mcg per kg of body weight if going for full replacement, but doing a small top up can be done with thyroid without shutting down the whole feedback system. Something which is harder to do on testosterone i think.
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I don’t think your Ft4 is low.
NTH comes in grains and one grain has 36mcg T4 and 9mcg T3. This ratio is far to high for my liking. Dr Blanchard (USA thyroid doc now deceased) reckoned T4 with a little T3 was the best form of treatment. His ratio was around 98:2. So for every 100mcg T4 you would use just 2mcg T3. He used slow release T3 as well. He has a lot of books on amazon and i think his approach is the best out there in the thyroid world.
So why not use T4 and T3 and work out your own ratio. Much better in my opinion.
You have already tried different T3 levels and so you know what T3 will do to you at a certain level.
So if you try 1/2 grain of NTH this will be 4.5mcg T3 and 18mcg T4. If you feel good on this you can certainly deduce it is nothing to do with the NTH, but rather the introduction of T4 into your system. so my question would be why not just try some T4 first to see how this goes and work up your own ratio.
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@marsaday To be honest I would be happy most if I can use NDT because it is not synthetic. I know this is debatable about whether matters, but still there are other hormones like t1 and t2 there
And Im tired of cutting pills to so many pieces. The t3 pills are 25mcg and cutting them in 4/8 is extremely difficult.
On the other hand I would not like to take T4 alone because I know at some dose I will very easily shut down thyroid and I would like to avoid that as well.
Maybe if NDT does not work I will try to get a recipe for t3/t4 compounded combo, I have pharmacies in my city that produce it although I have no idea of their quality.
Do you know something about the quality of Thyroid-S? Lately I hear a lot of people complaining from the different NDT brands