A Thyroid question

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
An interesting good-news update. I re-tested myself yesterday (just $8 here for the blood work at the same lab as last time, therefore very easy to do ) and after just 3 weeks my TSH had dropped from 12.15 to 7.5.

I attribute that entirely to

1. Stopping daily iodine supplements, which I'd been taking for years (in retrospect, almost certainly too much)
2. A heaped teaspoon of maca every morning with my coffee and raw cacao.

My most sincere thanks to everyone who so very quickly jumped in with heaps of excellent advice and support.

And more good news. I tested it a third time this morning, and sure enough it'd dropped way down to 4.33 — now within the normal range.

[kanishk]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Dear Friends, we already have a thread about hyperthyroidism, titled Hyperthyroidism - Overactive Thyroid. But I have a question about the opposite — hypothyroidism.

I'd noticed in past months that my blood pressure was low all the time. Not clinically low, but typically about 105/65, which is 'low normal'. That's hardly anything to complain about!

But it used to be 'normal normal', meaning about 120/75. So I saved up some $$ and treated myself to a heart scan, which I do every year anyway purely as routine. Everything was 100% strong and fine. And I also did a blood test for any markers that might be connected with lowered blood pressure.

Everything was normal, except for my TSH, a thyroid-stimulating hormone produced by the pituitary gland. That was very high, at 12.15. It's supposed to be 4.5 or less. The high TSH means that my pituitary is working extra-hard to try to boost my thyroid. My Free T4 was normal, but on the low end (0.94).

So all this is an indicator of low thyroid activity, one of the knock-on effects being... low blood pressure. It seemed to fit.

But the other symptoms of low thyroid (fatigue, gaining weight, feeling cold, anxiety, depression, muscle soreness, etc etc etc, OMG!), are all 100% absent. It's just the slightly lowered blood pressure, nothing else at all.

My questions: (if anyone has any easy answers at their fingertips, maybe from their own experience?)

1. How to remedy low thyroid activity naturally? (All the mainstream health sites recommend a pharma drug called levothyroxine, which is a synthetic T4 hormone. Of course, I will NOT take that. )
2. The small amount of reading I've done suggests that taking extra iodine is not the solution, because (as best I understand it) that can sometimes make an underactive thyroid worse. Does anyone know more about this? (I do take iodine every day.)

You should also test FREE T3 along with FREE T4, because that FT3 is what effects body and Pitutory too. Because Free T3 is low your pitutory is producing high TSH to eventually obtain more Free T3 levels in blood.

The Optimal TSH is below 1.5
above 4.5 is when doctors precribe medicine.
TSH above 1.5 means going towards hypothyroidism, low metabolism, prediabetes, diabetes etc etc... difficult to get it below 1.5, but still we can always try.

Have you been eating Sea Food? Sea Kelp 5 mg max per day is good they say and higher doses of Sea Kelp than than can.hamper your T3 production capability. If you have taken such high doses of Iodine. There are more tests related to Thyroid that check about those processes such as
Anti-Thyroid Peroxidase (Anti-TPO) Antibodies: Checks if your immune system is attacking a crucial thyroid enzyme.
Anti-Thyroglobulin (Anti-Tg) Antibodies: Measures antibodies against thyroglobulin, a protein in your thyroid gland.

Kanchanaar Herb heals the glands, and there's a ayurvedic medicine prepared using Kanchanaar and Guggulu and some other herbs.
Its Name is
KANCHANAAR GUGGULU
Buy Dhootpapeshvar Brand from Maharashtra state or Any other south indian Brand like Vaidyaratnam. Actually this is cheap medicine to prepare, so even normal brands will work too.

Homeopaths say that taking THYRODINUM 3X (made using goats thyroid glands) for 3 months heals all the problems related to Thyroid. Brand ReckWeg from Germany is the best brand for Homeopathic medicines. SBL from India is good too, but not for some high potency formulas such as Natrum Muraticum 1 M.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by kanishk (here)
You should also test FREE T3 along with FREE T4, because that FT3 is what effects body and Pituitary too. Because Free T3 is low your pituitary is producing high TSH to eventually obtain more Free T3 levels in blood.

Many thanks, and yes, I understand all that. (And we're delighted to see you here on the forum again! )

I did test those, in December: my Free T3 was 3.72 (normal range 2.0 - 4.40), and my Free T4 was 1.34 (normal range 0.8 - 2.0). That was when my TSH was 7.52 (still too high), but lowered quite a lot from a VERY high level since I stopped taking an iodine supplement.

So the normal T3 and T4 was a bit of a mystery. I'll re-test my TSH quite soon to check it's all still going in the right direction — and this time also check my T3 and T4 again to be 100% sure.

[Denise/Dizi]

I see you have solved the issue, I just wanted to add that I too, was prescribed Armour thyroid years ago... My mother in law was prescribed Synthroid (spelling)... later... It was short term, and I no longer take it, but I have had a hysterectomy when I was 24, long before I took the thyroid medication and I had zero issues from such a situation. The medication worked well, and eventually I was able to stop taking it and maintaining my levels...

I can say, having an imbalance in your thyroid function can throw your body completely out of whack, so this is a great topic to be approached... I just want to say, whenever possible, try bio available products like Armour.. My mother in law had side effects which I never did, and I believe it was because she was taking a created version of the medication versus something that occurs naturally in the eco system...