Posted by tendency on July 15, 2007, at 20:43:58
In reply to Anyone helped by cytomel with synthroid I'm crashi, posted by Phillipa on July 15, 2007, at 16:04:35
Yes, I currently do and have never felt better.
Remember? I posted on this already. But I'll re-elaborate! :-) You MUST find a competent endo that REALLY knows what they're doing...I know..can be hard to do but I went through two endos that were terrible and life was MISERABLE.
But I digress..What worked for me, and what my endo typically recommends, was to take ~80% of body weight in synthroid and then 10-15% of the synthroid dose as cytomel. So, for instance, if you weigh 100 lbs. you'd take 80mcg of synthroid (ONLY USE NAME BRAND - NO GENERIC!) and 10-15mcgs of Cytomel (again, no generic).
How are you dosing? T4 (synthroid) should be taken all at once upon rising (aim for same time each day). T3 (cytomel) can be taking one of two ways a) all at once with T4, or, b) in two doses, half with T4 in the AM and the other 1/2 4 hours later. BID is, I'm told, typically the preferred method of T3 dosing as it has a short half life.
Finally, get total T3 and T4 blood tests done. This is CRITICAL. The only way to know if the T3 and T4 doses are correct is through systematic blood work. You want the results of these two tests to come back in the high-normal range of the reference scales.
When are you crashing? Is it before you take your AM dose? Mid-afternoon? All day?
I can't tell you the difference proper treatment of thyroid has made in my life. I'm no longer 'bi-polar' (in fact my endo pointed me to a colleauge of his at UCLA that has had great luck treating bi-polar by treating the thyroid) meaning no mania. Moods are very stable. No more brain fog. Mentally clarity is vastly improved as is my cognition in general. Sex drive is way up..(you've got me going now..) very interesting to note is the entire synergy of what is called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This includes the thyroid and the sex hormones. These are all interdependant and what happens, often, over time, is that a dysfunctional thyroid will cause the adrenals and sex organs to overcompensate leading to adrenal burn out and a decrease in sex hormones. This is a devastating 'triple-whammy'.
Finally, it's amazing what an augmentary (did I just pull a Bush?) effect the thyroid has on supplements and drugs. Many supplements that didnt work for me before or worked sporadically now work at much lower doses and far more consistently. Same goes for prescription meds.
Remember - the thyroid regulates the metabolism therefore energy level of EVERY cell in the body. Every cell in the body has receptors for thyroid hormone so you can see the UTMOST criticality of making sure this system is functioning properly.
Ok, I'm off my soap box. Good luck!
poster:tendency
thread:769742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070710/msgs/769781.html