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How is it treated |
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The treatment for too much RT3 involves stopping more being made and waiting for what's in the body to decay or be excreted. This is relatively easy but there are pitfalls along the way. A lot of Drs are worried by people doing this as things happen too quickly to be done by lab tests, patients need to adjust dose by symptoms and vital signs. RT3 is only made from T4. If you get rid of T4, both from your own thyroid and from supplements, then no more RT3 gets made. In order to do this and stay alive an alternative source of the bio-active T3 is needed and this is readily available in the form of synthetic T3 hormone. The basic treatment is to stop all meds containing T4 and start T3 instead, The dose of this is slowly increased week by week as the T4 levels in your body diminish. After 6 weeks or so the T4 and RT3 levels in your blood will be very low. You need to keep going longer than this though as it takes around 12 weeks for the RT3 to clear the receptors as well. During this time you can often increase the T3 levels you are taking to clear most hypo symptoms but if you take them that high be prepared to drop them when resistance clears. This can be dramatic and you can end up needing half what you needed the day before when the resistance clears. This is one of the reasons that you need to go by symptoms and pulse/temperature, things happen too fast to base it all on lab numbers. You can of course keep the dose lower and put up with feeling hypo for longer, when it clears you simply end up feeling less hypo. If you need to get on with life in the meantime you probably can't afford to stay hypo for another 3 months. |