T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night
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I'm trying to troubleshoot why I'm reacting to T3 the way I am. It doesn't raise my temperature and actually seems to lower it sometimes. And on days that I've taken it later that night I get an uncomfortable feeling in my chest. I don't get the feeling immediately after taking it, only at night around the same time.
I recall reading something Peat said about if someone's been running on cortisol then thyroid supplementation will reveal their true metabolic state and could therefore lower their temperature. I'm wondering if this could explain my experience.
Cortisol levels decrease at night, if I've also lowered my cortisol levels by taking T3 could this lead to lower blood pressure than normal and hence the feeling in my chest?
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@scamp Only time my temps have dropped on T3 so far has been from low blood sugar. So I respond by eating lots of fruit and orange juice.
Although I concur, I do also get a weird chest feeling while on it. Not painful or anything, and I'm almost positive it's not palpitations. Not sure what to make of it.
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@Master How long have you been taking it? And do you get it at night as well or soon after taking it?
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@scamp About a week now. And I didn't have any issues till early in the morning yesterday. I was having very good experience with T3/T4 mix all week, high temps, heart rate, slightly elevated mood. But yesterday morning I took some not long after I woke up, and at first, my temp stayed the same and I didn't feel anything, which I thought was odd. Then like 10 minutes later my temps when shooting down, almost dangerously low, and I damn there had a panic attack and uncontrollable shaking. I figured my blood sugar had crashed, so, I went to the grocery store, bought a big thing of dates and dried apricots and just gorged on those till I felt better and sure enough my temps went back up to 37 C within the hour.
I've always been taking it late morning to early afternoon. And obviously I've learned I have to be much more careful about eating a large meal plus lots of carbs prior.
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@Master I think that feeling in the chest is palpitations, no? Palpitations don't have to be a explicit throbbing of the heart.
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You might need some magnesium. Magnesium needs thyroid and thyroid needs magnesium. They both need each other to work efficiently. And it just so happens hypothyroidism depletes magnesium.
Something like soaking in a bathtub with epson salt, or Ancient Minerals' magnesium oil would be really good sources of magnesium. Haidut's magoil is also good if you don't mind the DMSO. All the oral options are bunk in my opinion.
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Also the cortisol thing Peat was talking about was after meals, not after thyroid supplementation. If your temps drop after a meal, then it's a sign the glucocorticoids were keeping your temperature elevated. Both high AND low cortisol can prevent thyroid hormone from working correctly.
But...a lot of people severely overestimate low cortisol, it's not common despite seeing several threads about it on RPF. I don't mean to be crass, but whenever someone starts with "adrenal fatigue" you can pretty much discount everything they say for the rest of the post. Platt's hypothesis of adrenaline dominance seems far more likely. The most common cause of REAL low cortisol is Addison's disease.
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@Mulloch94 said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
But...a lot of people severely overestimate low cortisol, it's not common despite seeing several threads about it on RPF.
That doesn't surprise me because the common mantra on RPF is to do everything in the world to lower cortisol, so that's what people do.
People develop this weirdly cartoonish "bad guy / good guy" view of hormones, so...
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@Crypt-Keeper said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
@Mulloch94 said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
But...a lot of people severely overestimate low cortisol, it's not common despite seeing several threads about it on RPF.
That doesn't surprise me because the common mantra on RPF is to do everything in the world to lower cortisol, so that's what people do.
People develop this weirdly cartoonish "bad guy / good guy" view of hormones, so...
I think it would be exceedingly hard to lower cortisol to dangerous levels with just natural stuff like emodin, DHEA, progesterone, etc. You would almost have to use something like mifepristone. But yeah, if someone did this, then that would also be bad.
My main point of contention is people who a) emphasize the fake disease "adrenal fatigue," and b) people who think saliva cortisol tests are reliable. An overwhelmingly large portion of people I've personally seen fit into this latter category.
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@Mulloch94 said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
I think it would be exceedingly hard to lower cortisol to dangerous levels with just natural stuff like emodin, DHEA, progesterone, etc.
Well, there's "dangerous levels" and then there's "sub-optimal levels". It's not a light switch, as if you're either on death's door or everything is sunshine and rainbows.
This is sort of my big grief with RPF. Unless you actually have a high cortisol condition (proven medically + symptoms), a person probably shouldn't be doing anything like taking progesterone to lower cortisol. Cortisol actually serves a (useful) purpose.
Now they've just moved on to Vitamin A. "Very high Vitamin A is bad, therefore you should completely eliminate Vitamin A from your body."
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@Mulloch94 I've been taking ~300mg magnesium every night before bed for years, and occasionally ~100-300mg during the day as well, so I would be surprised if not enough magnesium is the problem.
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@Mulloch94 said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
Also the cortisol thing Peat was talking about was after meals, not after thyroid supplementation.
Would thyroid supplementation not have a similar effect? If not then can you speculate on what else might cause either/both of my symptoms?
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I should've said in the OP, I'm prescribed dexamphetamine for ADHD. I've been tapering down for a while but every time I stop completely I'm too dopey and tired to focus at work. But I'm down to <5mg a day now. The chest feeling I've been getting from thyroid is similar to a feeling I get when I stop ADHD meds completely, which also happens at night. I would also assume my cortisol levels must be relatively high if I'm taking speed everyday.
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@scamp its an annoying problem im still figuring out,
so far i got:1 idea is trying low doses so it doesnt get inactivated. another idea is escalating to high doses so it overwhelms and depletes t4 (personally i slowly escalated all the way up to 56mcg and still didnt get a temp response so that concept is out the window for me. and tried 2mcg - 4mcg on the lower end which didnt change it either).
and theres a general idea u might need to take it for 2 weeks for the switch to occurI think if you tried all the basic approaches it might indicate you have a high level of deiodinase 3 enzyme (aka. non thyroidal illness)
this fucker inactivates t3 inside cells preventing it from exerting its effecthigh h2o2 in cells drives dio3 enzyme and inactivates t3 + prevents t4->t3 conversion too as less dio2 activation
[high h2o2 from lacking glutathione, and h2o2 tends to be higher in hypothyroidism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4058501/]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36408/ . .
The diminished supporting activity for T3-neogenesis provided by liver cytosol from fasted animals was restored to normal by enrichment with either NADPH or GSH
Taken together, these observations suggest that GSH acts directly on the enzyme in the crude microsomal fraction, whereas NADPH acts within the cytosol, possibly by increasing the concentration of GSH through the action of the enzyme glutathione reductase, for which NADPH is a cofactorrestoring reduced glutathione during low calories /low carb restores t3 production
In contrast, T(3) administration to the starved rat did not alter either hepatic T(3) generation from T(4) or NPSH. Reduced glutathione concentration was also markedly decreased in the starved rat https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC371981/pdf/jcinvest00675-0166.pdf
^ So thiols help restore T3 conversion during low calories
shows main factor in low calories induced hypo = low carb, as glucose feeding restores in starvation. and the main factor in low carb is the low NADPH because that comes with low reduced glutathione.
Glutathione reductase (GR) restores intracellular GSH by reducing GSSG in the presence of NADPH.
(also showed t3 itself is supposed to stimulate more t4 -> t3 conversion)Dithiothreitol (DTT), a thiol reducing agent {as in shifts thiols to reduced form}, increased hepatic T(3) generation from T(4) in the normal adult male rat by 45+/-5% in six experiments. When compared to DTT-stimulated control homogenates, the addition of DTT completely restored hepatic T(3) generation in starved rats
But you actually need enough t3 around for a significant stimulating effect still.(countering h2o2 with lipoic acid helped increase dio1)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006291X16303072lipoic acid helps raise reduced glutathione. and if u look for the mechanism how h2o2 induces dio3 activity its largely thorugh mapk/erk signalling. lipoic acid inhibits that in some studies. and theres a study where it reversed hypothyoidism in rats. so something im trying. so far hasnt enabled t3 response though.
another thing that induces dio3 is HIF-1 in hypoxic states. theres 1 study where rats after a heart attack exercised at moderate pace 40mins a day 4x a week for 4 weeks. it lowered HIF-1 in their hearts and with that deiodinase 3dropped too. and their heart measures improved well. assumedly t3 stopped being broken down / could signal again
another thing,
the 1,25 form of vit D blocks mitochondria respiration / thyroid hormone signalling which is elevated in ratio to 25 vit D in hypothyroidism / certain illnesses,
adding t3 is supposed to lower it (inverse relationship) , but i guess if its not signalling due to high dio3 it wont
and activated macrophage immune cells produce a lot of 1,25 vit d (not just the kidneys). ray talked about 1,25 vit d having a degenerating effect unlike 25 form.
so if you have chronic inflammation , might need to get this down first
and aside from macrophages neutrophils also have high amounts of dio3 enzyme https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/157/8/3293/2422489 (i remember ray talked before about inflammation being able to eat up t3)interestingly higher dio3 activity in spinal fluid in Alzheimers patients https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15483087/
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@Crypt-Keeper said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
@Mulloch94 said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
I think it would be exceedingly hard to lower cortisol to dangerous levels with just natural stuff like emodin, DHEA, progesterone, etc.
Well, there's "dangerous levels" and then there's "sub-optimal levels". It's not a light switch, as if you're either on death's door or everything is sunshine and rainbows.
This is sort of my big grief with RPF. Unless you actually have a high cortisol condition (proven medically + symptoms), a person probably shouldn't be doing anything like taking progesterone to lower cortisol. Cortisol actually serves a (useful) purpose.
Now they've just moved on to Vitamin A. "Very high Vitamin A is bad, therefore you should completely eliminate Vitamin A from your body."
I didn't really express my view with the best choice of words. When I said dangerous I meant sub-optimal. I just said "dangerous" because cortisol is an important anti-inflammatory during acute stressors, without it we'd be in serious trouble.
I think lowering cortisol can be beneficial in certain situations. Sarcopenia for example, or immune deficiencies. Anyone wanting to increase glucose oxidation will be dependent on minimizing cortisol.
But I do find a lot of people complaining about "stress symptoms" who think it's a cortisol issue when it's actually an adrenaline issue.
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@scamp said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
I've been taking ~300mg magnesium every night before bed for years, and occasionally ~100-300mg during the day as well, so I would be surprised if not enough magnesium is the problem.
So 600mg total? Is it oral supplements, the oral magnesium can range drastically in terms of bioavailability. Just because you take 600mg doesn't mean you're getting anywhere near that amount.
@scamp said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
Would thyroid supplementation not have a similar effect? If not then can you speculate on what else might cause either/both of my symptoms?
No because thyroid works with cortisol, not against it. They're both important for maintaining the metabolic rate.
It's possible the T3 itself is causing the feeling. Ray said he would get arrhythmias from taking pure T3 without any T4.
@scamp said in T3 causing weird feeling in chest at night:
I should've said in the OP, I'm prescribed dexamphetamine for ADHD. I've been tapering down for a while but every time I stop completely I'm too dopey and tired to focus at work.
Taking amphetamines alongside thyroid will just cause additional adrenaline release, and will absolutely result in weird cardiac events. Sometimes minor shit, like "chest butterflies." Other times it can be more serious depending on your current state of health, preexisting conditions, etc.
If I were you I would slowly work on tapering that stuff down really low or coming off entirely. Have you tried pregnenolone? Pegnenolone will increase a lot of neurosteroids that can be beneficial for ADHD or other similar aliments.
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@Mulloch94 I haven't tried pregnenolone. I'm not sure I ever really had ADHD or whether I believe in it anymore. I'm hoping thyroid will solve what I thought was ADHD. I'm already on less than 5mg a day but I need to rip off the bandaid soon and stop completely. Thanks for your advice.
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@cs3000 I've only tried doses between 1mcg - 4mcg. I'd be too scared to try higher doses because of the heart symptoms. I think I need to stop taking ADHD meds before I experiment anymore.
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@scamp At this point we can't even be sure your chest sensations are heart related, but you could always get an EKG if you wish to rule it out.
I would just focus on getting plenty of heart supporting nutrients in your diet. Potassium, magnesium, selenium, vitamins C, D, & E. Make sure you're keeping PTH suppressed with plenty of calcium and/or low phosphate. Those are the main supporters of general cardio health.
Endocrine issues, like estrogen dominance, can also be a problem, the "staircase effect" that Albert Szent-Gyorgyi talked about. Androgens and Progesterone stabilize the heart's rhythm, whereas estrogen promotes heart failure pathology by creating weaker faster beats. The heart begins to work twice as hard for smaller results.
