I have been using Tetroxine (T3) for 10 days now and I am having varying results. My dosage is 10mcg morning and afternoon, total of 20mcg daily. Some days I have so much energy, I feel fantastic, especially after morning dose. Yet other days, I have really bad headaches and not much energy, usually in the afternoons. I also take thyroxine (T4) 50mcg daily. Do side effects usually present themselves in the initial stages of using T3 and if so, will they settle as my body gets used to the treatment?

Donna-Maree
(Sydney, Australia)

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Hi Donna-Maree,

The fact that you feel fantastic some days is a very good sign. It suggests that your symptoms are thyroid-responsive and temperature-mediated. The fact that you don’t feel well all the time suggests that your thyroid treatment is not well managed all the time. The whole trick to proper thyroid treatment is for your treatment to provide the right amount of T3 to your cells in a very steady fashion. That’s the purpose of the thyroid system, and that is the aim of T3 therapy as well. Unfortunately, Tetroxine is not sustained release. Therefore, it’s not surprising that your results would vary. Unsteady T3 levels can lead to fluid retention, headaches, fatigue, irritability, jitteriness, and other complaints. While it’s true that the body can sometimes adapt to unsteady T3 levels over time, it can adapt to steady levels much more easily.

In addition, T4 can sometimes get in the way of progress with T3 therapy.

If you haven’t read the Doctor’s Manual for Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome I think you would discover many significant principles of treatment there. For example, it explains that if people don’t have access to sustained release T3 then I recommend that they take the T3 in equally divided doses every 3 hours to the minute, 6 times a day, at the same times every day in order to keep the T3 levels as steady as possible.

Hope that helps,
Denis Wilson, MD