Thyroid T3 Hormone

I am hoping this will help others out there like me who are living without a thyroid and are feeling similar to how I had been feeling.

Since my last post about my weight loss, I had stopped losing weight, was feeling overwhelmingly depressed and tired as well as other physical symptoms of not getting enough thyroid hormone.  I had been searching the internet for months trying to find a link to my fatigue and I knew it had something to do with my thyroid medication.  I came across several articles discussing T3 (the active hormone) and the symptoms of not receiving enough.

According to all my labs though all my levels were "normal".  After a while I finally got my husband on board with researching the cause of my symptoms.  He too came to the conclusion that my body was not converting or absorbing enough the T3 hormone.  He finally came across a site that discussed a drug called Cytomel.  Cytomel, unlike Synthroid, is the active thyroid hormone.  Synthroid is T4 and your body has to convert it into the T3. 

I had been to the doctor 4 times by June, mostly because of sinus infections which I had not suffered from since I had my sinus cleaned out 3 years ago and suddenly I had 3 in 5ish months?  I reluctantly made another appointment with my doctor and brought my husband along with me with the studies he found and a list of my symptoms.  This time the doctor listened and changed my Synthroid dosage (from 125mcg to 100mcg) and added Cytomel to my regime.  I immediately felt better after 1 day and immensely better after day 3.  What a HUGE difference it made.

The same time I started taking Cytomel I was taking Progesterone pills since I had not seen AF since June.  A week in, I started having symptoms of impending AF but she never came.  I then found out that I am expecting my 3rd.  Just days after I found out I was pregnant, I had a follow up visit with my doctor.  He readjusted my Cytomel down (10mcg) because he thought my T3 was too high (reality is it was high because I took it just 2 hours before I had the blood work done so it was showing higher that it really was) and my T4 not high enough (Synthroid changed to 112mcg). 

Not knowing what level of fatigue was from the pregnancy and what level was from the hormone pills, I pushed through (not very well though) it, though my ability to concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds was beyond my ability.  I thought it was my inability to take my Adderall XR (for my ADHD) and the pregnancy.  I finally realized that it couldn't be so I took it upon myself to take the original dosage of Cytomel for 3 days and again felt much better. 

So my last follow up visit I brought my husband (who is btw an RN) along to back up my symptoms that we felt were not due to the pregnancy because I feared my test would come back "normal".  Luckily my T4 was normal but my TSH went from .31 to over 15 which proved I wasn't getting enough T3 and again was the cause of my symptoms.  *PHEW*  So the meds have been readjusted again, this time Synthroid stayed the same but he said to do the Cytomel 15mcg for two weeks and if I'm still symptomatic then to take the 25mcg.