General Medicine

» maxuxta - armour and lab tests

When treated with Armour Thyroid, is TSH a reliable reference corcerning your dosage or do you have to pay attention to FT4 and FT3 only?
I have been told that when treated with a T3 supplementation, TSH drops dramatically... Can anybody explain?

-- posted by maxuxta

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» Elaine Moore - armour and lab tests

In response to armour and lab tests posted by maxuxta:

Hi,
When we're on levothyroxine (T4) alone and have severe hypothyroidism, we're usually still lacking in T3, T2 and T1. Deficiencies of these hormones cause our pituitary to still secrete TSH. Still, TSH can stay suppressed since the antibodies that cause Graves' disease and atrophic thyroiditis falsely decrease TSH.
When we're on Armour, the pituitary recognizes that we have adequate levels of all the thyroid hormones. Since we're dependent on exogenous replacement hormone and not producing much if any hormone, we don't need TSH. TSH only has the function of ordering thryoid cells to grow and produce thyroid hormone. Since there's no need for TSH the pituitary stops secreting it.
Most, but not all, doctors understand this and rely on FT4 and FT3 levels to gauge our thryoid status. No matter what treatment you're on for hypothyroidism, FT4 and FT3 give the most precise indication of your true thyroid status. Best, elaine

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