Hello Thyroid forum.
First of all, thanks for reading this post because this one in particular means a lot to me of all my posts.

For a long, long time, I have suspected I had what I refered to as a slow metabolism. I was previously on a low fat diet with low calories and high sugar.
I had such a low body temperture that just kept getting worse. It was actually in the 94 degree range.

I exercise daily. i did low carb since May, and I was pretty thin except for the fact that I had the problem of not being able to exercise away fat on my hips by doing cardio. that was wierd, since I really only wanted to lose 5 to 8 pounds of fat. I should have been able to lose that considering how I did pilates, yoga, walking for over an hour. Stretching and was forever on Atkins Induction, even decreasing my calories to 1400 per day.

No one suspected me to have hypothyroidism because I was not overweight. It took nearly everything in me to maintain my weight(if I ate 4 pounds of food and it was not low carb, I gained about 3 pounds plus water weight, for example).

I was also tired all the time. Not physically tired like from exercise. But like I was in an exhausted state. I had like 90% of the thyroid problem signs.

So finally, I was tested for reverse T3, and my doctor said I had a metabolic problem. I never took medication before or have been really sick, aside from just struggling along with my thyroid symtoms.

>>>Cutting to the chase...
Can you please tell me what to expect being on the thyroid pill Armour? I ahve taken it two days now, and I do not know what it should be doing. I don't really feel different yet. My basal body temperture is still low. I actually am usually asleep this time now, but I think that my body is adjusting to the medicine so I'm awake. Plus, how do I know it is strong enough. I am on, 60mg (I think it is.)I take it once a day.
Do I start to notice any kind of changes and if I exercise like normal, eating low carb, should I begin to lose the 5 pounds I am trying to lose?
And lastly, does Armour make you thirsty?
I drank a lot of water today, more so than usual, but it could just be the enviornment making me that way in particular.

I don't know how long it takes Armour to get into your system, but when I got put on my thyroid medication the doctor told me it would take about a month to feel better. I would think it will take at least a couple of weeks before you notice a difference in your temperature and energy levels.

It might take a little while to get your meds adjusted-usually, you will take them for at least a month or 6 weeks and get your blood retested to see what your T3 levels are. Then the doctor can decide whether to up your meds or not. I know I have to get my blood retested once a year just to make sure I don't need my meds readjusted as I get older.

You might also want to go to the website below, if you haven't yet. It has a lot of really good information on hypothryoid.

http://thyroid.about.com/mbody.htm

The about.com thyroid area is really wonderful. I have just been diagnosed with Hashimoto's Syndrome and am about to start taking Armour thyroid. The one thing to remember is not to take any vitamins within 4 hours of taking the thyroid as some of them can interfere with the medication being absorbed.

I also have Hashimotos and am using Armour. I was diagnosed in Sept. 2003. My endo explained the symptoms of using too much Armour, gave me a prescription for the antidote, and then explained how to "build" my dose of Armour every 7 to 10 days. I take 75mg in the AM, 75mg in the PM, and 30 mg in the late evening. It took about a week to start noticing the difference in my energy levels. My basal temp is up a little over 1 degree lately...now 97.5. The About.com thyroid website is wonderful for info about thyroid conditions. I agree about not taking vitamins containing iron within 4 hours of taking your meds. Calcium also affects the ability to absorb your meds. You might want to ask your doctor about splitting your dose...the T3 part in the Armour wears off after about 6 hours. A nice side effect of all this too...so far I have lost 8 lbs!!!

Your history is so much like mine. I went through all the dieting and exercising for years without ever losing weight. But everytime I went through a stressful period I would gain a few pounds that I never lost until I was fat and 40.

Congratulations on being diagnosed, I bet the quality of your life is really going to improve.

I am also low on T3 and began taking armour a year ago. I noticed in a few days that I was in a better mood and walked faster and started talking more. For a few months it seemed like everyday was better than the last. It took several months before my hair and nails got thicker and my eyebrows grew back. My temperature was 96 it took about a year before it came up to 98. I think you should go by the way you feel to know if your dosage is correct, then go by the tests. I also noticed that I started feeling hungry when I took thyroid, for about 4 months I was kind of adjusting and I was way thirstier too. It also affected my workouts and I just walked for a while. I think when your thyroid is low you retain more water and as it increases you start losing that stored water.

I had open heart surgery in 2005 and stents in 2006 because the bypass was blocked. Hypothyroidism was the cause of the problem and I have completely reversed CAD! I no longer take Statins and my arteries are clean.

There are 4 thyroid hormones produced by your thyroid gland which is located in the front of your neck just below the voice box. They are called T1, T2, T3, and T4. Modern medicine focuses on only 2 of them; T3 and T4. There is not much information available about T1 and T2 and they are never discussed in the literature I’ve seen. However, all of the literature agrees that the one thyroid hormone your body uses to control its metabolism is T3. But, the most commonly prescribed thyroid medication is T4. The T4 most commonly used is called Levothyroxine, or Synthroid. The idea is that your body uses the T4 as raw material to make usable T3. Levothyroxine is synthetic (artificial) and there has been some discussion that it may not be efficiently converted to T3 by many people because it is synthetic.

I came to the conclusion that if the current treatment of my Hypothyroidism did not result in my ability to lose weight, then the treatment was ineffective because insufficient usable thyroid hormone (T3) is available to my body for my metabolism to run efficiently. Since I have never experienced weight loss with synthetic T4 (Synthroid) treatment, I decided that treatment with T4 only was not effective for me, not that the thyroid treatment itself was ineffective. All the research and studies I found focus on the use of T4 - the non-usable form of thyroid hormone, instead of T3 - the usable form of thyroid hormone.

Armour thyroid is desiccated pig thyroid and contains both T3 and T4 in usable form. I take both Armour and Cytomel (T3) now.

I have much more information to share about diets and thyroid, but there is insufficient room here.

I have a blog about my reversal of Coronary Artery Disease, and it is available in Google docs, but I can't tell you the links because I am afraid they will kick me off this site.

"Reply" and I will tell you what you want to know.

Here's a great website:

www.stopthethyroidmadness.com

kiznkittten, I think you would be okay to post your own link, although I am not sure. I tried to send you a pm to ask for the link to your story, but couldn't. I would be interested to read it.

I don't think anyone can receive or send pm's until they hit a certain # of posts.

My answer is too long to post here so I put it in Google Doc's--there are NO ADDS or self promotion!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...?hl=en_US&pli=1

If this doesn't answer your questions please feel free to contact me.

Great write-up. I'm also a 1952 vintage woman who has probably suffered subclinical hypothyroidism for many years. I struggled for years with weight issues - still am for that matter. I had borderline thyroid numbers (probably TSH? This was back in the mid-90s and I was not very well educated then about the issue) that caused my then doctor to send me for additional tests. All I recall from them is that they fell just barely onto the side of "normal" so my doctor said she would not give me medicines, even though the folks at the alt.support.thyroid usenet group I followed at the time told me with numbers like mine I truly *needed* thyroid supplementation.

I'm happy for a medical system and if I fall and break my leg I want an excellent orthopedist to take care of me. But it's very frustrating when you are sure you know what medicine you need to get better - but there is no way on earth you can get it as a doctor must prescribe it, and won't.

So for the next 12 years I had no thyroid treatment, and gained another 100 pounds within that timeframe. Not until 2009 when my TSH went out of whack was my then current doctor willing to prescribe - but she would ONLY do the synthetic T4. When I protested she just washed her hands of me and referred me to an endo - who also ONLY would use T4. Plus she wanted to give me STATINS for my steadily increasing cholesterol. When I asked about natural thyroid she also blew it off as "dangerous" and said she would never prescribe dangerous drugs for her patients (yet she was rabid to put me on STATINS?).

It was not until May of this year, with lots of encouragement from the folks here, that I finally found a practitioner willing to give me natural dessicated thyroid, containing both T4 AND T3, as well at T1 and T2. Even now I'm not a fast weight loser, but I've lost 14 pounds since the beginning of the summer when I began taking Armour. Not to mention my total cholesterol dropped from 295 to 196 in six weeks on Armour (an outcome the endo told me was 'ridiculous' and 'impossible' when I asked her about switching to Armour).

I think we all have to keep telling our stories. The word has to get out. I think there are so many people who are undertreated and badly treated. My parents both took Synthroid for years and years, and it makes me sad to think they might have been mistreated too, but I didn't know any better at the time. Thank you for coming here and telling your story.

P.S. I just moved from New Jersey to Florida last month, and still have to face the issues of finding new doctors down here, including a primary care doctor. Finding one who will support me may prove to be a challenge.

The very BEST primary care/internist I ever had MOVED to Florida three years ago!! Not sure where in Florida but could prolly find out...he 'continued' my Armour Rx from my thyroid doc as a matter of um...just writing Rx for me...had no problem with it at ALL.

Debbie if you want his name, PM me...I'll try and find where he went, but he was really good about wanting his OTHER patients on Armour once I kept 'jacking his jaw' with all my advocation, ha ha (and sent over 35 thyroid patients to him!).

Pam