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Tissue resistance |
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This is my personal story and why I believe I had RT3 issues. There are more causes of Tissue resistance than RT3. This leads to people, whether self treating or with a Dr's assistance, increasing the levels of T4 meds or Natural thyroid until they feel well. Unfortunately this only works for a while, for me this was my start along the thyroid road, I needed 6 grains of Desiccated Thyroid to feel well when I started treatment. This was OK, the upper end of the normal "3 to 5 grain" range and I felt better than I had for years. The problem with this is that I had too much T4 slopping round in my system my body was behaving as though I was hypERthyroid and started producing RT3 which slowly blocked receptors. I didn't not understand this at the time, the Dr I started with was forced to stop prescribing as the GMC in the UK hated people thinking "outside the box" and actually helping people feel well. (Drs in the UK who have discovered that their training might have gaps in it and who work to help people get persecuted, the latest case is here The result of this RT3 building is that resistance built up and I found I needed more natural each year to eliminate symptoms. By every lab test I would have registered as hyper and yet at a cellular level I was still hypo, my temperatures were stubbornly low. 10 years down the line I was taking 12 grains a day of Natural (that is not a typo, that was 12 grains a day) and that left me functioning pretty well, running a successful business, and able to think. Before I started the thyroid treatment I nearly lost my business thorough not being able to think straight. When Armour reformulated I was one of the first to get the new formulation and felt very strange as a result, a mix of hyper and hypo, I was very brain fogged and yet didn't feel safe to increase. Luckily I had some other natural left when I started the new batch of Armour and was able to swap back. Initially I wondered if I had an infection coming on and I swapped back and forth a couple of times to prove it to myself that it was the Armour. I then ordered more natural of various brands to be on the safe side and at the same time started searching the web for other people having problems with "New Armour". I found one or two and then a rush of them as people people had new deliveries. I even phoned Armour in the States to ask what they had done and check it wasn't counterfeit. In the process of discovering all the new thyroid resources that had sprung up on the web since my days of thyroid searching (my original resources were Usenet, "Alt.support.thyroid" was where I hung out in those days) I discovered there was a Yahoo group called Reverse T3 dealing with thyroid resistance. I joined that, lurked for a while, started correspondence with Val, and then ordered some T3 and started on it. This was in Spring 2009. I followed the usual protocol that is now documented in this web site, had a couple of bumps along the way, and hit what we call "clearance" at around the 12 week mark. I then lowered dose and have re-established dose since then and added some adrenal support. I feel good, the best I have for probably 40 years, I have energy through the day and have started socialising in the evening again and going folk dancing. I have stamina now, no longer have air hunger, can walk up 5 flights of stairs without suffering, and am generally doing very well. The interesting thing is that I still need far more T3 than the normal "75 to 125" that works for "most people". This is my own evidence that I have some other form of "tissue resistance" and that I personally need a lot more circulating T3 to break through this resistance. The good thing about being on T3 though is that this resistance does not build up and get worse. This is why I believe that the only way of treating tissue resistance from other causes is to go onto T3 only, any other way will cause excess T4 which will convert to RT3 and make the resistance worse. Since I cleared in August 2009 Val asked me if I would help out as a moderator in the RT3 group and I have put this web site together as a resource for people going down the journey of thyroid resistance. Nick |