How much T3?

Lucy

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I've been wondering about Peat's suggestion to supplement with tiny doses of T3. I tried it and don't feel anything positive from doing it, if anything I feel worse than before (but that could be due to some other factor, not sure). When I used T3 a few years ago I had to increase to 100 mcg daily and take a large dose at once to get a resolution of my symptoms. That was also making me hyper at times, like after a sauna, so I didn't continue taking it for a long time.

Has anyone here had success with T3 supplementation? If yes, how much do you take and how often?
 

cliff

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what you eat is just as important as correct T3 supplementation
 
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Lucy

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I've been tweaking my diet for more than 6 years due to health problems. Last 3 yrs were Peat-inspired, however I swore to never abandon my instincts again after a low-carb failure. That's why I thought I would need less T3 now... I do have pretty bad hypothyroidism running in my family though.
 

chris

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I had success in the form of weight loss, nibbled on a split 25mcg tablet throughout the day, every 3-4 hours. Stopped due to a possible increase in hair loss, nothing major.
 

Ray-Z

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Lucy said:
I've been wondering about Peat's suggestion to supplement with tiny doses of T3. I tried it and don't feel anything positive from doing it, if anything I feel worse than before (but that could be due to some other factor, not sure). When I used T3 a few years ago I had to increase to 100 mcg daily and take a large dose at once to get a resolution of my symptoms. That was also making me hyper at times, like after a sauna, so I didn't continue taking it for a long time.

Has anyone here had success with T3 supplementation? If yes, how much do you take and how often?

I nibble T3 throughout the day (including shortly after awakening and at bedtime), typically consuming around 100 mcg in total, sometimes a bit more during winter. I usually take roughly one nibble per hour; the first and last nibbles of the day are a bit larger than the others. My resting pulse is usually in the 80-90 bpm range, with occasional slight dips below 80 bpm. My hands are usually warm; my feet, less so. I'm a bit more energetic with the T3 than without.

I would describe my T3 regimen as more or less successful, but caveats are in order. In general, I would advise people to be extremely cautious with T3 and increase doses slowly (no more than a few mcg every 2-3 weeks). I'm a big, heavy guy, and my regimen will not be appropriate for everyone. To anyone considering using T3, I'd recommend reading Ray Peat's reservations about T3 in Danny R's collection of emails from Peat (http://www.dannyroddy.com/main/2011/12/ ... tandi.html). (Search Danny's collection for the word T3.) Peat notes that T3 made his heart stop periodically, and that he felt less resilient in the face of stress without some T4. :2cents

I found a T3 regimen that worked for me, and simply have been too lazy to experiment with replacing some T3 with T4. I do think, though, that Peat makes a compelling case for using some T4 rather than T3 alone, to the extent you can handle T4. At some point, I'll be making this substitution.
 

John Eels

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I have started supplementing with 5mcg T3 in the morning. A few months back I did another 5mcg by lunch. With T3 I tend to crave more sugar. Especially in the afternoons I would be like "Let's get a coke". Has anyone any experience with Natural Desiccated Thyroid?
 
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Lucy

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@Ray-Z
That's interesting. I have a high pulse and temperature even without any thyroid so I can't use these to measure results. I can however see them pretty clearly each month - if I still have PMS, I'm not yet taking enough! One thing I worry about with pure T3 is that one doesn't take any during the night. If it's really used that quickly, wouldn't you then become hypo by morning? Or do you think a larger nibble does the trick?

There's another thing I learned from people who supplement T3 and don't know anything about Ray Peat... they say if you take a larger dose all at once you feel a much bigger effect from that than if you split the same dose in two and take them let's say an hour apart. That is with the same total daily amount. So that means you would have to take more T3 in a day if you nibble, compared to taking larger amounts at once. Looking at my own experiments I suspect this might be true. So confusing!

@John
When supplementing thyroid years ago, I went from 100 mcg T3 to 3 grains NDT which worked equally well for my symptoms and didn't make me hyper (or whatever that was, maybe just too much adrenaline still), or at least much less so. Now for some reason I couldn't tolerate even 1/4 NDT again, so I went for pure T3 once again. I can say that when I supplemented enough NDT to get rid of symptoms, I had no cravings for sugar for the first time in my life, and my blood sugar also came up quite a bit (not too high tho). For example I was at the seaside and ice cream was almost repulsive... pretty amazing, really.
 

John Eels

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@Lucy
There is this discussion over whether or not NTD is superior to artificial Thyroid. Broda Barnes says Thyroid is more than just T4 and T3. That's why he's in favor of NTD. Those critical of NTD say it's more difficult to dose. I haven't experimented with NTD.

I am surprised your craving for sugar disappeared on NTD. I thought that more Thyroid required a higher demand for sugar.

@everyone
What's the caveat to directly supplement with Pregnenolone?
 
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j.

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John Eels said:
I am surprised your craving for sugar disappeared on NTD. I thought that more Thyroid required a higher demand for sugar.

my sugar cravings disappeared after my thyroid function improving due to months of PUFA restriction. i believe it's because with improved thyroid function, the body manages sugar better.
 
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Lucy

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@John
There is a great anti-sugar cult, with even moralistic overtones, equating sugar craving with morphine addiction. Sugar craving is usually caused by the need for sugar, generally caused by hypothyroidism. - RP

Only calcitonin is missing from synthetic T4/T3 combination if your body can convert T4 -> T3 -> T2 -> T1, but even NDT often doesn't contain calcitonin anymore, as they remove it and sell separately (if I understood Peat correctly). As for ease of dosing, a T4/T3 combo is definitely much easier to dose than T3.
 

Ray-Z

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Lucy said:
One thing I worry about with pure T3 is that one doesn't take any during the night. If it's really used that quickly, wouldn't you then become hypo by morning? Or do you think a larger nibble does the trick?

Your suspicion is correct, and indeed is one of Ray Peat's criticisms of T3-only regimens. A larger nibble at night is not enough to tide you over until morning; the T3 doesn't last that long. I nonetheless sleep tolerably well most nights thanks to consuming significant amounts of sugar, salt (washed down with a few sips of OJ), and coconut oil at bedtime.

Lucy said:
There's another thing I learned from people who supplement T3 and don't know anything about Ray Peat... they say if you take a larger dose all at once you feel a much bigger effect from that than if you split the same dose in two and take them let's say an hour apart. That is with the same total daily amount. So that means you would have to take more T3 in a day if you nibble, compared to taking larger amounts at once. Looking at my own experiments I suspect this might be true. So confusing!

Very interesting. I'm not sure whether this observation is consistent with my experience. I can say that in the morning (when I'm coldest), the very first nibble doesn't accomplish much if it's small, so I make it larger than the others and sometimes separate the first and second nibbles less than the others.
 
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Lucy

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@Ray-Z

Thanks for sharing your experience. We have similar issues it seems - I'm also coldest in the morning and seem to need a lot T3 to see effects. BTW, here's a good book on T3 supplementation (no affiliation with Peat, but the author has been supplementing T3 for more than 10 years and has learned a lot in the process): http://recoveringwitht3.com/
 

Ray-Z

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Lucy said:
@Ray-Z

Thanks for sharing your experience. We have similar issues it seems - I'm also coldest in the morning and seem to need a lot T3 to see effects. BTW, here's a good book on T3 supplementation (no affiliation with Peat, but the author has been supplementing T3 for more than 10 years and has learned a lot in the process): http://recoveringwitht3.com/

Thanks for the interesting link, Lucy.

I ran across this passage in Peat's Female Hormones in Context (p. 77):
Ray Peat said:
If Cytomel [i.e. synthetic T3] is used, it is efficient to approximate the physiological rate of T3 formation, by nibbling one (10 or 15 mcg) tablet during the day. When a large amount is taken at one time, the liver is likely to convert much of it to the inactive reverse-T3 form, in a normal defensive response.

So Peat thinks beyond typical physiological amounts, T3 may get converted to RT3. I wonder how he would explain your observations, Lucy.

I know that Peat has said somewhere (I think one of his books) that larger doses of T3 can be helpful for people with cancer.
 

jyb

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Lucy said:
@Ray-Z

Thanks for sharing your experience. We have similar issues it seems - I'm also coldest in the morning and seem to need a lot T3 to see effects. BTW, here's a good book on T3 supplementation (no affiliation with Peat, but the author has been supplementing T3 for more than 10 years and has learned a lot in the process): http://recoveringwitht3.com/

Does that book contain information on T3 supp not already known here (eg, that T3 should be accompanied by a dose of T4 like in dessicated or dessicated+pure T3)? Also, how does it compare to those reverse T3 protocols freely described online (along the lines of doing pure T3 for a while, doing it in early morning etc)?
 
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Lucy

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Sorry for my absence, my father got diagnosed with eye melanoma (lost an eye :( ) and my mother broke her right arm at about the same time, so I was very busy and under a lot of stress.

I also found out I'm currently super-sensitive to various supplements, many of them give me bad headaches (including Mexican Cynomel). It's probably the excipients in the pills which produce intestinal irritation, not the active ingredient. So right now I'm waiting to receive cyproheptadine, to lower serotonin/irritation, and two other brands of T3; hopefully I'll then be able to avoid the headache issue.

@Ray-Z I wonder about this too. When I wrote to Peat last time, asking about headaches on Cynomel, he told me 25 mcg, split in tiny doses throughout the day, should slowly lower my cholesterol and prolactin (both really high ATM). So I guess I'll first try his suggestion and wait a while, and if I get no response, I'll up the dose. What I still need to find out is, how long do I need to wait. Maybe in the past I wasn't patient enough?

@jyb Not sure, but the book is very detailed and rather technical (Robinson is a smart and skeptical guy, he read loads of medical literature - which of course is often biased - and he conversed with hundreds of people who also take T3 so has lots of experience). I'd say it would be a good read if you tried what Peat said and still aren't responding to thyroid meds. Robinson looks at it from a different angle and that can be useful.
 
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Lucy

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There is another thing relevant to this discussion that I've been thinking about, and I think it might explain what Ray advised me (to take only 25 mcg T3 and things will slowly normalize). It's the last few sentences - one of my favourite Peat quotes actually - from the article on osteoporosis:

Vernadsky's description of an organism as a "whirlwind of atoms" is probably a better way to think of how "causality" works. The moving air in a whirlwind forms a self-intensifying system, with the motion reducing the pressure, causing more air to be drawn into the system. The atoms moving in coordination aren't acting as separate things, but as parts in a larger thing. The way in which increased metabolism in the bones acts favorably on the metabolism of kidneys, blood vessels, lungs, liver, digestive system, etc., which in turn favors the bones' renewal, is analogous to the tendency of a whirlwind to intensify as long as there is a source of energy. The intensity of oxidative metabolism is the basic factor that permits continuing coordination of activity, and the harmonious renewal of all the components of the organism.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/os ... ging.shtml

I think this could also explain at least some cases of so-called reverse T3 clearing - maybe the organism at some point becomes more balanced and requires less T3, hence the sudden hyper symptoms...
 

narouz

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Here's a little wrinkle in the thyroid resistance world:

I'm the opposite from a lot of hypothyroid people
in that I have way too much iron.
So I donated blood yesterday.
After I gave blood at about 1:00 I came home and took my small, 6.25 dose of T3
(I've been doing the straight T3 for about a week and a half now).

The entire remainder of the day I couldn't take any more T3
because my temps and especially pulses were unusually high for me.
The pulses were in the 90-100 range all the way until I went to bed, late, at 1:30.
I debated with myself, but decided to take another 6.25 dose
because it usually helps me sleep better.
But I hardly got any sleep because of the rather intense heartbeat
and I just felt kinduv hyper/wired.

So I ended up taking considerably less T3 for the day,
but felt hyper and had high metabolic rates after that blood donation.

Even now, this morning, first thing, my temp is 98 and pulse 84: much higher than usual for me at waking.

One angle could be that I got rid of some iron through the donation
which allowed my body to use the thyroid better.

I have just recently come across the idea that excess iron can cause thyroid resistance.
Maybe there's something to it.
 

charlie

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Lucy, sorry to hear about you dad. :(


Narouz, finally! Gave blood and got yourself a nice metabolism boost. :rockout
 

jyb

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narouz said:
Here's a little wrinkle in the thyroid resistance world:

I'm the opposite from a lot of hypothyroid people
in that I have way too much iron.
So I donated blood yesterday.
After I gave blood at about 1:00 I came home and took my small, 6.25 dose of T3
(I've been doing the straight T3 for about a week and a half now).

The entire remainder of the day I couldn't take any more T3
because my temps and especially pulses were unusually high for me.
The pulses were in the 90-100 range all the way until I went to bed, late, at 1:30.
I debated with myself, but decided to take another 6.25 dose
because it usually helps me sleep better.
But I hardly got any sleep because of the rather intense heartbeat
and I just felt kinduv hyper/wired.

So I ended up taking considerably less T3 for the day,
but felt hyper and had high metabolic rates after that blood donation.

Even now, this morning, first thing, my temp is 98 and pulse 84: much higher than usual for me at waking.

One angle could be that I got rid of some iron through the donation
which allowed my body to use the thyroid better.

I have just recently come across the idea that excess iron can cause thyroid resistance.
Maybe there's something to it.

I donated blood for the first time a few weeks ago but it doesn't seem to have changed my low temps. If excess iron is a factor, then one donation (a bit more than 400ml) might not be enough depending on how much excess. It might take a few, and continued reduced iron absorption from food, to lower it enough.
 

chris

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jyb - I see you're from the UK. I went to give blood yesterday but they were only doing platelets, so I am going again tomorrow. I saw a big notice as I entered explaining an experiment being done by oxford and cambridge unis on the frequency of blood donations. When I go tomorrow I am going to ask if I can get involved, hopefully they will take blood from me more than the 3 months interval they do now. Something interesting to think about.
 

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