About five days later she started feeling lightheaded, more anxious, sweaty at times and sleeping more.
I did not connect the symptoms to the Armour. I thought perhaps it was from stopping her herbs for Lyme around the beginning of January.
Anyway, she continued to feel worse and experience tight muscles and weakness and numbness in tongue.
She stopped the Armour after about 18 days.
I figured she would feel better after a couple of days. She was not able to keep her Dr.'s appt last week.
So we did not get to discuss this reaction with her Dr.
I am going to call her Dr. tomorrow.
I an guessing that the Armour may have made her thyroid overactive? It will be a week tomorrow and although some symptoms have stopped: she continues with the worsened anxiety, numb tongue, and just not herself.
Looking for thoughts, experiences with Armour etc.
Thanks from one worried Mom.
Posted by emla999/Lyme (Member # 12606) on :
Yes, Armour thyroid can definetly cause people to feel worse. And this worsening may indicate several things. But your daughter may have just started out taking too high of a dose.
Although, it seems as though some people are not able to tolerate taking Armour because it contains T4. So, your daughter may not be able to tolerate the T4 thyroid hormone contained in Armour.
And T4 has a fairly long half-life in the body and therefore it can take several weeks for the T4 level to drop back down to where it was previously. So, if the T4 was causing your daughter these problems then she may feel bad possibly for a few more weeks. But she should continue to improve if this was the case.
Armour contains both the T4 thyroid hormone and the T3 thyroid hormone. But Armour contains significantly more T4 than it does T3. And some people cannot convert T4 into T3. (T3 is the active thyroid hormone).
So, your daughter may need to take a T3 thyroid medication such as Cytomel because it contains only T3. And your daughter may also have a nutritional deficiency that isn't allowing her body to convert T4 into T3 properly. For example, selenium seems to be useful in helping the body convert T4 into T3.
Or your daughter could have a high Reverse T3 (RT3) level and therefore she may not be able to tolerate taking any T4 containg thyroid medication such as Armour. So again, your daughter may need to take a T3 thyroid medication such as Cytomel because it contains only T3.
Also, your daughter could possibly have adrenal insufficiency or low cortisol levels. So, she may need to correct her adrenal insufficiency. And the Circadian T3 dosing method may possibly be helpful for that.
"Symptoms like: extreme tiredness, weight gain, slow thinking, poor memory, feeling cold, poor hair condition and many other classic symptoms of low thyroid function are often still present on treatment with T4 and for some people these persist even with T4/T3 medications (Armour)."
HOW T3, DOSED A CERTAIN WAY , CAN REVERSE YOUR ADRENAL FATIGUE AND HYPOTHYROIDISM.
And unfortunately, in my opinion, alot of medical doctors (LLMD's included), do not know how to properly diagnose or treat hypothyroidism.
.
Posted by faithful777 (Member # 22872) on :
The dose may be too high or she can be reacting to fillers in the Armour. Armour changed their formula a few years back and many who were faithful users had issues with the new fillers in the drug.
The other natural thyroid medication out there is Nature-Throid. Maybe the doctor can try her on a low dose of that. That is the one I have used for years now.
Posted by Jane2904 (Member # 15917) on :