I have hit rock bottom please help.
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@lulueatsmeat the most likely thing is that liver glycogen synthase has been inactivated because of the carb deprivation from your carnivore dieting. Carbs and T3 likely the solution. About 10 years ago I did keto and intermittent fasting for long enough that I got myself into an insomnia loop waking up at 3:00 every night with a cortisol/adrenaline rush and this went on for over a year. The only thing that broke the fight-or-flight cycle was 1/4 of a cynomel pill (~6.25mcg of T3) and Mexican Coke taken around 7 or 8 pm. That made me sleep through the night for the first time in over a year and then things started becoming normal again. Once you break out of the high adrenaline/hypothyroid cycle you can start to fix the rest.
If you do this make sure you have enough magnesium in your system so you don’t get heart pain. This amount of t3 is a small dose but it can still be very powerful. Peat and T3uncoupled talk about some people experiencing this if they are magnesium deficient. Peat talks about it on the weight loss for women podcast and T3 uncoupled mentions it in one of their earlier substack articles. You can drink milk and eat cocoa and other high magnesium foods but I am thinking an Epsom salt bath might be the most surefire way.
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@herayclitus do you have a product which has all 3 components or do you apply everything separately??
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@Shar_to_the_dae thank you this really makes me feel less alone..🩷 I have been thinking of trying T3 or NDT but theres alot of people saying that you should fix your gut first before trying anything thyroid, which kinda put me off.. as well as the fact that i am running on cortisol (as my dropping temps indicate) so im really scared how my body would react. But I actually believe hypothyroidism could be the root cause of my constipation so I really wanna try.. Did you only take T3? So Cytomel? How much? And did you take anything with it like magnesium, b- vitamins? Would love to hear about your story🩷
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@vocedilegno Thank you so so much! I‘m glad theres other past keto dieters..My sleep has honestly been a mess as well. I‘m just kinda scared how my body would react as I feel like its still under alot of stress..Would you also recommend me to start with 1/4 of Cytomel? Did you increase it or take T4 with it now? Would epsom salt baths and magnesium spray be enough? If not what magnesium is best? biglycinate?
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@VehmicJuryman wow really? any sugar makes me breakout even honey and fruit.
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You can try taking t3 by itself and if it helps transition to a t3+t4 combo like cynoplus. Also the standard Peaty things like increasing Calcium, Vitamin d, Vitamin k, Aspirin dissolved in water with baking soda. cyproheptadine is very good for nuking cotisol and helping sleep which goes a long way when your unwell. Danny Roddys Demestrying Thyroid Supplementation is a good article to learn about supplementing Thyroid and should help you out.
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@Jakeandpace honestly dont think so.. i get lots of sun.. even on vacation where i was outside the whole day things didnt get better. tried supplementing as well didnt do anything
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@PrinceTrebata thank you so much i will look into the article.. I’m still trying to figure out a source for cynoplus in germany but cytomel should be easy..
What do you think of NDT? Ive been told that its better to get started with? Also I can only get a Vit K2 in MCT oil, would that still be worth it (since alot of people recommended to only use one with olive oil, because MCT could be irritating or something..?) -
@lulueatsmeat Ray Peat only recommends Cynoplus and Cynomel because the doses were accurate to the label in comparison to NDT where the actual t3 and t4 can be more or less than what is stated. Some people find MCT oil to be irritating but I think it's better for transdermal use. Parsley is also a very good source of food source vitamin k which can be cheaper than the supplement.
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@PrinceTrebata Alright thank you! If you dont mind could you please explain why I should start with T3 only? And for how long?
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@lulueatsmeat T4 is a longer term, slower acting molecule which addresses dysfunction of the thyroid gland itself, mostly, and can make things worse without T3; I suspect because of your history which was similar to mine, this is a simple liver glycogen issue. So, as a (hopefully) one-time thing to knock the system back into balance, T3 makes a lot more sense. I don’t take t3 any more and I’ve never taken t4. I’ve only taken t3 at that ~6.25mcg dose 2-3 times in total (around 2016) to help with sleep. It made me feel amazing immediately, completely shut down stress and made me warm and peaceful. And then my sleep was back on track forever after that. But you must must must take it with a good amount of some kind of carbohydrate otherwise you definitely will have a stress reaction. Mexican Coke worked well when I took it. I imagine fructose-heavy carbs work best so the liver can have first crack at absorbing the carbohydrate and storing it for the overnight sleep.
Peat said magnesium glycinate is the only oral form he knew about which didn’t give people bad reactions or digestive upset. Epsom salt bathing definitely makes a positive difference for me and I do it often. Never tried transdermal magnesium spray but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Best of luck!
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@vocedilegno thank you!! Didnt you notice bad affects from the caffeine of the coke though? I havent tried coke but when I tried coffee with lots of honey I get tired from it but then have trouble falling asleep at night..
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@lulueatsmeat I didn’t have any effect from that caffeine, didn’t even feel it. I think the amount of caffeine in coca-cola is very small compared to the amount in coffee, also thyroid hormone improves metabolism of caffeine by increasing the metabolic rate, helps you get more of the good effects of caffeine and eliminating the bad ones. Your experience with coffee/honey further supports the hypothesis that it’s a liver glycogen issue. The T3 should fix the liver glycogen issue and that should be that. I’m extremely hopeful that it will work! FWIW I just remembered that for insomnia Peat talked about 10mcg
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@vocedilegno Yes and accutane also impairs liver function! It all makes sense honestly haha. I am going on trip next week for 6 days but I will try it out after and will post an update! Thank you lots!!!
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@lulueatsmeat best of luck, enjoy the trip!
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@lulueatsmeat you are absolutely not alone
I would first like to recommend Kate Deering to you, if you don’t know of her already. She wrote ‘how to heal your metabolism’ and has so much useful info on her instagram & blog.
I ordered Cytomel and started slowly, breaking it into 4s & taking 1 4th with breakfast for 2 weeks. Then increased by a 4th every 2weeks. I take magnesium with it, which I recommend. I’m on 1.5 tablets now.
I was also eating lots of bone broth soup at the time because I was healing my gut.
My skin started clearing after two weeks and I had normal bowl movements again around then too. My sleep improved dramatically after about a month. I sleep so easily and deeply.
I did get blood tests to check reverse T3 & free T3 which both said I was hypo. So I went straight ahead with getting the T3.
I hope some of this helps! -
Yes, you have a gut and thyroid problem — and, a thyroid problem is a liver problem.
All the gut cleansers: carrot salad; well boiled blended white mushrooms; antibiotics like penicillin VK and the tetracycline classes, all help.
how long did you take cascara sagrada? Was it well aged dark brown? That one is very underrated, and it may take time to notice a positive effect. I emphasize it because of its multitude of benefits listed here:
https://www.saturee.com.au/blogs/blog-posts/cascaraHypothyroidism absolutely slows transit time and contributes to bacterial overgrowth. poor liver metabolism absolutely contributes to digestion.
Aspirin, niacinamide, glycine, gelatin, cyproheptadine, will help heal the liver and improve mitochondrial respiration/general metabolism. Aspirin and glycine, and gelatin, as well as B vitamins thiamine and niacinamide, will help heal digestive tract. All these tools help move the dial toward thyroid supplementation being safer…
T3 also helps heal liver function and improve bowel movement. You can start really low on T3, like 1mcg every hour or 2. It’s more a risk to take hormonal supplements like progesterone or dhea.
It’s of course all case by case, but if you were making consistent effort with the above digestive improvements, you should be able to begin thyroid within weeks imo.
Utilizing an easy to digest sugar carb source, like juice, will be better in this state than more complex starches or whole fruits/vegetables. Lower protein may be helpful too. The glucose loading protocol is simply maintaining an easily digestible carb for a super compromised gut. Lower fructose foods should be fine, like maple syrup, pineapples, raspberries, cranberries. One starch exception would be sushi rice if you can tolerate it, it has almost no fermentable starch and converts into glucose quickly.
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@LetTheRedeemed The cascara I took was from iHerb.. probably not the best quality so definitely not aged dark brown I guess. I only ever take it when I am really backed up. It gives me stomach cramps but then relieves the constipation. If I take it multiple days in a row it seems to just give me cramps and not help the digestion anymore idk why.
To what point would I need to fix my digestion to be able to safely start T3? Consistently one bowel movement a day? Two bowel movements a day?
I dont have glycine atm, would collagen powder and broth me enough?
Thank you so much for your help I really deeply appreciate it<3 -
@lulueatsmeat try lowering the cascara until you can take it - even if that's like an 1/8th of a teaspoon. I started out there or lower. even if you can only do a pinch, that'll do something to move the dial.
I think it's fine to experiment with t3 now if you have it - start at a really low dose, like 1 mcg.
sure, anything you have for gelatin. you can over do collagen pretty quickly, so be mindful of dosage. it's a free-peptide, not the whole proteins found in gelatin.
you can get glycine at healthfood stores if you have one near you.
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@lulueatsmeat I would caution against the repeated use of thyroid if any type without knowing if your cholesterol level is too low, or not being maintained. Thyroid will use up LDL cholesterol and vitamin A for steroid production and low cholesterol levels pose a risk for cancer. Cholesterol levels can be boosted with sugar, dairy fat, coconut fat, vitamin A, and vitamin D by a variety of mechanisms. As I understand it Peat recommended having total cholesterol go no lower than 160, and that starting from TC 200, thyroid tends to bring it down to 160, with the caveat that thyroid supplementation can sometimes bring TC up if cholesterol is deficient.
