Assessing women's thyroid status by temperature
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I have a perhaps basic question, but one that I don't remember being addressed by Ray Peat or Broda Barnes (but my memory is very poor): if we use basal body temperature as a metabolic marker, how to take into account the fluctuations experienced by menstruating women over the course of their cycle?
For example, my wife's temperature during ovulation exceeds the standard guideline; on waking she's already at 98.1 and mid-morning, after her tea and breakfast, it rises to 98.8. If she was male that would surely indicate her thyroid is OK and any health problems need other solutions than thyroid supplementation.
However, during her period the situation is completely different: she starts way under 97 and barely (or even not at all) reaches 98 after eating. In a man this would indicate a need for exogenous thyroid. She also has many typical hypo symptoms that lessen, but do not go away completely during ovulation.
So how to square this circle? Would supplementing thyroid be safe for her? And how would one assess progress: by the lowest temperature of the month, or the average? Or maybe thyroid should be taken only in some parts of her cycle? Thanks for help; input from female members who have used thyroid would be especially appreciated.
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@DonkeyDude
I also wondered for a time (I am a woman, started peating in January 2024).
As you can see in the images (Broda Barne's book), the 'indicative' basal body temperature for a woman is ONLY taken on the second and third day of the period.
(!!!!!!! I thought, COME ON, is it not tricky enough to be a woman, you have to wait a full month to assess impact of a treatment?)First weeks of peating without supplements did not noticeably increase my BBT;
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Progest-E during the luteal phase helped raising my BBT, from 95.5F (1mo peating, before ProE) to 97F (after one cycle, taking ProE in the luteal phase) - both BBTs taken at my 3rd day of period. I fully recommend ProE to your wife, as Peat mentioned several times, it is nearly impossible to overdose on it.
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I very briefly experienced with Tyronene during my ovulation phase (1 drop = 8µg T3 for 3 days): it raised my BBT, but I preferred stopping it and get more familiar with bioenergetics as a whole before getting serious with thyroid supplementation.
I did not read or see anything on cycling thyroid for women, but I did not cover all the material yet. Progesterone should for sure be taken only during the luteal phase (after ovulation - before period) - see Peat's many quotes on it.
I wholeheartedly recommend your wife to read Peat's Nutrition for women (much more "palatable" as reading material than from PMS to menopause I find). Kate Deering's book is also nice (although I do not think she made the distinction for women's BBT measurements), and Kitty Blomfield's podcast, or any Emma Sgourakis material are also worth her time and attention.
If she is into it, then also from PMS to menopause, and Broda Barne's book (at least the first chapters on measurements and assessments) for completeness.
Very curious about how your wife's treatment fares!
@Veronica (posted her cynomel order recently), can you already share how thyroid supplementation goes for you?
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@golda said in Assessing women's thyroid status by temperature:
As you can see in the images (Broda Barne's book), the 'indicative' basal body temperature for a woman is ONLY taken on the second and third day of the period.
(!!!!!!! I thought, COME ON, is it not tricky enough to be a woman, you have to wait a full month to assess impact of a treatment?)Thank you so much for your reply and pointing this out in particular. I have read Barnes' book and yet missed it. So it seems women have to stay on the same dose for a month instead of Peat's two weeks. Tricky indeed.
Unfortunately, she has to mostly rely for me on bioenergetic info because her English language skills are quite poor. I have read "From PMS...", "Nutrition for Women", "Generative Energy" (I recommend this one in particular), Kate Deering's book and the Broda Barnes one on thyroid and translated some choice excerpts to her; I've also sent her machine-translated articles by Ray and threads from Peat Twitter. I will definitely check out Emma Sgourakis and Kitty Bloomfield.
She has tried Progest-E about a year ago and the experience was somewhat disappointing. For some reason she has abruptly ceased taking it a couple days before menstruation, and this has caused a very painful period (not as bad as she suffered while on regular diet, but definitely worse than her new normal).
Besides her cycle is so regular and free of discomfort at this point that I'm not sure it even needs to be tampered with. She's still open to using it during pregnancy and later in life, but sees no requirement right now.
I will definitely update when and if she starts supplementing thyroid. For reference, what we have is Tyromax, the NDT product from Idealabs.
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Update: wife's temperature was 97.5/98.4 on the second day on her period, and 98.1 in the afternoon of the third day. Her hands and feet were also quite cold, so I suspect her temperature might be supported by adrenaline rather than thyroid. She is going to have a blood test for total cholesterol and TSH (just to make sure) and then probably get on thyroid.
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Update: she finally did a blood test. She has low Vitamin D and low-ish (164) cholesterol. TSH is quite low, although I know it's not a definitive answer. Her ferritin is extremely low (4.8 ng/mL) and a single dose of iron glycinate has immediately warmed her up and made her less stressed.
For now she will focus on bringing her iron and Vit D up, and hopefully her cholesterol will increase too. It might turn out she does not actually need exogenous thyroid. Her metabolism seems to have improved by leaps and bounds naturally, and I suspect these disappointing tests are due to increased nutritional requirements, exactly as if she did supplement thyroid already.
