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Boy your story sounds like mine, I would NEVER see an endo again, saw different ones 3 times and that was enough.. they may be fine for diabetes but not thyroid...the push the synthroid and the syn sales people line up in their offices giving them more samples to get new patients on that drug.
I just added a post in Alternative Medicine on Natural vs Synthetic Thyroid supports.
Yep, we chatted about this before. Ironically, we are trying to raise my dose as I still have a ton of hypo symptoms, but my GYN goes strictly by TSH (and 100% clean eating) and doesn't think I need to be raised. My ND said that the original endo I saw way back when will now use NDT if you ask for it - unfortunately he's cutting back on his hours and is not accepting other patients. So I'm still looking.
My thyroid panel just came back. Dr. NoGoodAwful says my T3 is low (2.2), but says she isn't worried about it and it's not the cause of my symptoms.
Symptoms:
- She recently diagnosed me with an 11.4cm (4.3") grapefruit sized, intramural fibroid tumor making me look 16 weeks pregnant. She masochistically wants to yank out ALL of my lady parts, to deal with this one fibroid. (I have a second opinion this week to just remove the the fibroid and never intend to see Dr. NoGoodAwful again. I've also spoken with a fibroid (myomectomy) specialist who operated on my mother out of state who agrees she's NoGoodAwful.)
- scale won't budge despite super clean and lowered calorie eating (1200-1500/day)
- bouts of extreme fatigue & insomnia
- heat/cold sensitive
From my reading, my massive fibroid is due to estrogen dominance, linking to thyroid dysfunction. I've been trying to read up on how this happened and how to heal low T3 and am still confused.
Do I need to see an endo to deal with the T3? Any tips or suggestions? Appreciate any feedback.
Next time you have blood work done, request a full thyroid panel including free T3 and free T4. My doctor added Cytomel only after seeing how low my free T3 was from the lab results, and it made a difference in my energy and over all health. A simple thyroid blood test would not have caught it.
Thank you for your comment. Did you need to get desiccated support from an MD? I will have to check if my insurance will cover an integrative MD.
I also see an integrative MD who handles my thyroid issues. I am also on desiccated thyroid medicine. MUCH better than synthetic, IMO. The desiccated support is prescription and is covered by my insurance, but I think it's relatively inexpensive even if your insurance doesn't cover it (don't know why they wouldn't). My integrative MD takes insurance. A lot don't, but many do. You may have to look around for one. You may have luck posting on a local board in search of a functional / integrative med doc who takes insurance.
Thank you for all the comments. I refuse to have a hysterectomy at this time, even if it requires multiple fibroid myomectomies. I will try and find a good thyroid doctor. Second opinion is tomorrow to evict the tumor monster. The last thyroid labs that were done, were a full panel, or at least I thought? TSH, T3 & T4 were tested and I posted the results above.
It's nice to read so many of you have been helped with desiccated support. Fingers crossed to get some answers for myself!
Sorry, my bad! You have to have them write in the FREE T3. Not just the T3. Yes, you otherwise had a full panel but not an antibody test (which is also separate).
Best of luck with this. Btw, my natural thyroid meds run almost $39 a month. Generic levothyroxine would cost me $4 a month. Big difference in cost, the desiccated is not as reasonable. However, imo very worth it.
Sorry, my bad! You have to have them write in the FREE T3. Not just the T3. Yes, you otherwise had a full panel but not an antibody test (which is also separate).
Best of luck with this. Btw, my natural thyroid meds run almost $39 a month. Generic levothyroxine would cost me $4 a month. Big difference in cost, the desiccated is not as reasonable. However, imo very worth it.
Thyroid meds have gone up in price, and when I started with Armour back in 2002, it was Much Less than Synthroid at that time. It's gone up over the years, companies changed, formulations changed and now I use Naturethyroid and thankfully my MD writes a 3 month supply with a year's refills. I take 120mg daily and the 3 month supply costs me $50-60 something...I will get a refill soon and we'll see if the price is up again. It's amazing how insurance pays for the synthetics generic but not desiccated which is a script.
The price of Armour went up significantly when it was sold a few years ago. I am on WP Thyroid (prescription) and it is only $11 and change a month.
And I agree - you need to have all of your antibodies tested, free T3, etc. Most doctors won't do those tests (I have one endocrinologist flat out refuse to do them). That's why I think finding an integrative doc is the way to go. Doesn't need to be an endo, a PCP can order and interpret these tests too.
Wow! I am a new Graves diseaser, so was interested in this thread, but my gosh, it's like another language. I guess I have a lot of reading to do on this seemingly very complicated subject before I'll be able to decipher any of this. Are any of you knowledgeable on the normal range of numbers on the function test? I'd like to see where I fall at the moment.
OP, have you considered your iron levels? All of your symptoms are also symptoms of low iron. Low iron interferes with thyroid function. If the fibroid is causing heavy menstrual cycles, you probably are anemic. The lack of iron makes it hard for the thyroid gland to convert T4 to T3.
When I had fibroids, I opted for a myomectomy and endometrial ablation. Best decision ever!
The reason most doctors prefer to use Synthroid is because there is a great probability that the patient will do well on it. I suspect most of us would prefer to use the cheaper product if it works for us, and the generic versions of Synthroid may be available for as little as $10 for a three month supply. My part D Medicare benefit does not charge a copay for it at all.
As I mentioned above, the chemical structure of Synthroid is the same as the chemical structure of the hormone produced by the human body. It is not in some way "unnatural" just because it is made in a factory. It is puzzling that anyone would consider ground pig thyroid to be more "natural" than the human hormone.
I did find one study that showed that about half of the participants preferred the extract over the Synthroid, even though there was no difference in improvement in symptoms with either treatment except for a four pound weight loss with the extract. The study was blinded, so neither the patients nor the doctors knew what preparation was being administered. All patients took both treatments. Of the other half of the patients, most had no preference and some preferred the Synthroid.
What this tells us is that there is at least a 50% chance that the Synthroid will work and even possibly be preferred over the desiccated thyroid. That makes it worthwhile to at least try it, and that means giving it time, perhaps two or three months.
In the OP's situation, one question is whether the T3 is truly low or not. T3 is hard to measure accurately.
"Most FT4 [free T4] methods give diagnostically reliable results when binding proteins are near-normal, provided that a method-specific reference range is employed. However, both TT3 [total T3] and FT3 [free T3] immunoassay methods tend to be inaccurate in the low range and have no value for diagnosing or monitoring treatment for hypothyroidism, although T3 measurement can be useful for diagnosing or confirming unusual cases of hyperthyroidism."
That is why I suggested simply repeating the measurements to see whether there is a trend in any of them. Is the T3 going down? T4 going down? TSH going up?
Although there are many internet thyroid gurus who disparage the TSH, the fact is that it is a very sensitive test of thyroid function. Those same gurus will insist that someone is hypothyroid based on symptoms alone, even when the entire thyroid panel is normal. That is hogwash. There are many symptoms of hypothyroidism that can be caused by entire lists of conditions that have nothing to do with thyroid function.
What happens if you are not hypothyroid and you take thyroid medication? It just switches the thyroid off. For most people, no harm is done. However, a few can actually be a bit hyperthyroid if they get too much, and that can be bad for the heart and bones.
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(I have a second opinion this week to just remove the the fibroid and never intend to see Dr. NoGoodAwful again. I've also spoken with a fibroid (myomectomy) specialist who operated on my mother out of state who agrees she's NoGoodAwful.)
but not an antibody test (which is also separate).
