Janet’s Story

Janet was clearly making too much RT4 from her T4 use due to her adrenals, so using the T3 in the early morning hours has helped her adrenal function, besides improve her health.

Like many people I have been on a long journey trying to get my health back on track. When I was finally able to get a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s I was put on Diotroxin (synthetic T4 and a little synthetic T3 in a single tablet). It worked in the very short term as I was able to function again and lost all the weight I had put on but it was short-lived. I never ever felt great and kept searching. I finally found a Dr to prescribe Armour and while the progress was very slow I was never able to lose any weight and still picked up every infection going around. I always felt my adrenals needed to be addressed but couldn’t find a doctor to help me with them.

Long story short I lost a tooth filling and got a major infection that went rampant in my mouth and landed up losing half my teeth and piece of my jawbone. I had 4 long surgeries getting implants etc, got a pulmonary embolism on the last one and my body just shut down. I was in complete adrenal exhaustion but couldn’t find any help. Finally travelled to see a functional medicine doctor in Harley street and discovered all about RT3. I was taking 4mg of armour but for long time felt like it was doing nothing. So, between lot of nutritional deficiencies from not eating properly for a year during the surgeries, leaky gut, RT3 and adrenal exhaustion was in a very bad way. She started by addressing leaky gut and also halving my Armour. This threw me into biggest medical crisis. I went severely hypo and for four months was barely able to lift my head off the pillow. I cried all the time. Was covered in 7 blankets all the time, ached everywhere, lost so much hair and piled on the weight. Both my husband and I everynight when I went to bed knew if I would wake up in the morning. I was taking 150 supplements a day and was so weak that I couldn’t even hold my phone to text.

After 4 months the dr decided to try T3 alongside NDT to help with the RT3 as well as HC. It was a very slow process and then 2 months in I had 2 very scary collapses where I was virtually unconscious so she backtracked and we weaned back to NDT and I finally took control. I realised I was not converting the T4 and so went back on T3 very slowly.The change has been amazing. My girlfriends said they knew I would live when I started to talk with my hands again.

I have been slowly tweaking the T3 treatment. I am off the HC for 5 months now. Lot of the gut issues are resolved, still bit sensitive stomach but nothing like it was. Adrenals were doing better and I have been able to resume my life. I am driving again after a year of not being strong enough too. I am also working part time as an interior designer again which I had missed so much. I have had few backsteps. I got very bad flu over this past Christmas and was not doing well at all. Then tested ferritin and it has gone very low again so busy building it up again. I am on Glucophage for insulin resistance and in 4 months have lost 10kg. Still at least another 10 to go but at least the scale has moved.

In early December I decided to go it alone with T3 and then in January started using the Circadian T3 Method. I take my first T3 divided dose at 4am and it has made a huge difference to being able to function in the morning. After that I have 5 divided doses through the day. I am on slow release T3 but when this batch is finished I am going to give the pure T3 a bash. My biggest issue that I am still battling with is low bp. I take a licorice plus extract. I am also going back on DHEA as I have been off that for 5 months and will see if that helps.

I feel like a new person and after reading Paul’s book over Christmas I know I am doing the right thing and will just continue to tweak the treatment.

I have a very supportive GP who while he doesn’t profess to know it all is open to working with me and has been very supportive of trying new treatments
and is also now using some of them on other patients. He is a T3 convert. My next challenge is to try LDN. I am just so thankful that I am able to function and live again. While things are not perfect I have come so far.

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