Posted by tealady on February 25, 2005, at 20:23:30
In reply to Re: Cholesterol is down! Yeah fish oil! » gardenergirl, posted by KaraS on February 25, 2005, at 15:16:51
> > I haven't tried Armour, although I was interested in it. My PCP and I haven't talked about it, but my pdoc said she thought it was less consistent than the synthetics. I don't think it's a problem with MAOI's, though. What are your thoughts about it's consistency. Notice any fluctuations in how you feel?
HI gg,
Consistency is fine for me if chemist mixes it up enough (about 10 times as long as he thinks he should I've found!)..but then I'm on compounded THYROID, not the Armour tablets..not available in Oz. Brand name Armour tablets appear more consistent than T4, with recalls in the US on some T4 drugs for inconsistency..it's a nasty rumour, supposedly put out but the T4 drug marketers. I agree ,with Kara, look at Mary Shomon's site for the articles on this.
That said in your body T4 is sometimes functions more "consistent" than Armour in a lot of people, probably due to the fact that Armour by itself has too low a level of T4 for most of us and as T4 is kinda the thyroid hormone store.
Any extra stress,like a cold day, means we have not enough reserve to call on, if your Ft4 levels are lowish. On Armour alone my Ft4 levels sat at the low normal border level. This is fairly typical. Some can cope by increasing their Armour, but for many like me it puts their Ft3 too high and they experience hyper symptoms.
Armour is really dessicated pig's thyroid. Over 100 years ago low thyroid was treated by consuming pig's thyroids, so its been around for way longer than the synthetics.
Human thyroids make a ratio of T4:T3 roughly equal to taking a "numerically " equal dose of t4 and Armour
like 60mgArmour +60mcgT4
or 75mgArmour and 75mcgT4.
This gives a real T4:T3 ratio of about 93:7 about a human equivalent.
So a human equivalent of T4 and T3 would be around 100mgT4, 7.5mcgT3. This is just replacing in the proportion that our own thyroids make.Looking at your test results , I'd say you need some more T4 to bring your TSH down to level between 1 and 2. What dose are you on now..and what dose were you on when you went hyper?
It also depends on your symptoms. If you have depression, I'd probably start aim for a "human thyroid" ratio of T4 and T3 and enough to bring your TSH between 1 and 1.5 and see how you feel then.Sorry no idea what you are on but my guess is a 25mcg T4 increase at least is needed together with maybe 7.5mcg cytomel for starters depending on how much T4 you are on now.
Then retest in 6 weeks TSH, FT3, Ft4 and see where you are at then.
(Above said as I know your age range from earlier when you went hyper, please noone else follow this especially if older or hypo for a long time or just starting meds...)> >
> > I did take Cytomel with Synthroid for a time, but my PCP over-prescribed it, and I got hyperthyroid. (I knew he should have cut the synthroid down, but does he listen to me? No...)
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> > gg
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poster:tealady
thread:462910
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050225/msgs/463437.html