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Dear Nicola have now got my Armour and Prednisolone. Want to give them a go but havnt taken either before. Wondered if you could give me advice on what to start on eg do I start them both at same time or one before the other and what dosage would you reccommend. I cant get help from doctors with this. Thanks Tracy

Blimey!!! This is a big step, and my view is you should ideally start taking Pred or HC if you have done proper saliva testing to see what your cortisol is doing. I know from your posts you have had some obvious hypoadrenal symptoms, like internal shaking, jitteriness, anxiety and depression etc.

This is an article by Dr Peatfield where he describes how to start on Pred. It is REALLY important to remember that pred is 4 times stronger than HC, so when people talk about a replacement dose of 20mg or 30mg they are talking about 5mg or 7.5mg of Pred. Don't go taking 20mg of Pred - it is way too much, and you could develop Cushings.

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/IGFXRW...on%20treatment%20of%20the%20adrenals.doc

basically, you start on a low dose like 2.5mg, taken first thing in the morning. Unlike HC, pred lasts a good 8 hours in the body, so you don't need to worry about taking any more during the day. You may find a 2.5mg dose is enough, but most people need 5mg to function and increase their Armour dose. Basically, you are looking to find a dose where most of your adrenal symptoms are gone - ie, shakiness, jelly legs, but it takes some time for the effect to build up. I would say it took a good 4 weeks for my adrenals to stabilise on the Pred, and I still get hypoglycemic every 4 hours, regardless. I am still on a relatively low Armour dose, and still have bad candida, both of which cause hypoglycemia.

Loads more information on taking cortisol and adrenals on these forums:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/adrenalfatigue/

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/community/viewforum.php?f=5

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalThyroidHormonesADRENALS/

You probably already know about NTH for Armour

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalThyroidHormones/

Peatfield says a week after starting Pred you can start taking Armour, one-quarter grain at a time (15mg). You should stay at this for at least two weeks, then increase by another quarter. The idea is to get up to somewhere between 2-5 grains, which is the normal replacement dose of thyroid hormone. If you start feeling shaky or adrenal, you need to reduce your dose for a few days, and then try to edge up again.

Patience is the word here - it is not a quick process. I started on pred and Armour in April, and just this past week have got up to 2 grains. Things got complicated during the very hot weather in the summer, and I finished having my amalgams out. But there is no doubt that I am functioning much better than before. I am now operating at 70% of what I used to, can't exercise, but can do school run, kid things, even wander around town for an hour. Still need a sleep every afternoon though.

This is the bare bones of starting to self-treat. It is a huge topic, and the best thing to do is research it thoroughly before you start. Are you sure you can't get to see a good thyroid doctor like Dr Skinner or Dr Peatfield? This group might be able to help.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/TPA-UK/

Tracy - I hope this is helpful and the links get you started. Let me know how you go.

Nicola

Nicola,

Thanks for the yahoo groups sites and other info. I also started taking Armour Thyroid recently, so this should be helpful to me. Luckily, I am being guided by my doctor with this, as he prescribed it to me. We have had to double my dose twice now, and it still doesn't seem to be helping. He says the next step is to get aggressive and take hydrocortisone......any thoughts on that? He told me to research about it, because he knows it freaks me and most people out because it is technically a steroid.

The problem is that I haven't tested for having thyroid problems....we're just going on symptoms. But I also have adrenal problems, which seem to be primary, and we are treating that at the same time....but the symptoms overlap so much, that I'm not fully convinced that I even have a thryoid problem. The tyhroid meds don't seem to be helping, but the adrenal cortex support I am on does help a little....I had to go about 10 days without the adrenal, but while still on the thyroid, and there was a difference. The adrenal hasn't helped a ton so far, but it makes it waaaay easier to get out of bed in the morning - it's almost a glimpse of energy, although not quite there yet.

If you guys have any thoughts on this for me, I'd love to hear them. I might push to get a better thyroid test done to see if I truly need the support. I don't exactly doubt that I do, given the fact that mercury tends to mess up the thyroid, but I just don't feel fully comfortable with the fact that I haven't had a test showing any problems with it, and the symptoms could possibly be explained by adrenal problems, which I would say I definitely have (although no test for that either). My doctor knows I am low in funds, and feels pretty confident that due to the textbook symptoms I have, that it's a no brainer to go with this route of treatment. So I am just trying to trust him in that decision and go with it, but I guess my neurotic side (and also the practical side that wasted waaay too much time treating just candida, when I had all these other problems to treat that I didn't no about) wants to make sure we're on the right track and are treating what is truly an issue for me. Yikes, long ramble. Well, let me know if you have any thoughts on this for me.

Thanks!!!
~Tia

PS - Tracy - I hope this treatment goes well for you! The dosage will be different for every person, so the only advice I can give is to read up on it the best you can, and go slow with it. Better to go slow and have the results take a little longer, than to overwhelm your body with too much. Take care!

Tia,
I have been down a similar path to you as well.
What works for me and also some suggestions:
Firstly you can take your basal temperature each morning before arising to establish if your thyroid is in trouble. If it is low then the thyroid generally needs help. Mine was around 34.5 c. before I started any medication.
I learnt with trial that I needed "whole thyroid" a t4 t3 mix (similar to Armour) along with a herbal thyroid support and that thyroxine t4 didn't work at all for me. I now know through this forum that is because when you are mercury poisoned your body can't convert the t4 to t3. Even with whole thyroid I struggled, it helped but not enough. I have finally seen someone who knows what they are doing and they have quadrupled my dose of whole thyroid and tripled my dose of thyroid support because with candida and leaky gut my body can't absorb the tablets very well. Once my candida etc is beginning to get sorted then they will reduce the dose. I have to take care because if you are supplementing your body gets lazy and stops making any so it is a fine line of balance.
With the steroids, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. Especially prednisone which can have some rather nasty side effects! Now I know better, you wouldn't get me to use a synthetic steroid for anything! I have been told that most (not all!) mercury women are estrogen dominant which is why I have found natural progesterone cream so helpful. (It is called natural because it is bio-identical to the progesterone in your body but it is not herbal!) Because it is bio identical and fits your receptors you don't get the same side effects that you do with the synthetic steroids.
Look at this link for more info
http://www.natural-progesterone-advisory-network.com/

See also Tgoss post on the "Getting Worse" thread.

Tia

All I can say is that you are very lucky to have a doctor who is treating by symptoms! Most doctors will only go by blood tests, the TSH test for thyroid, which frequently lets hypothyroidism go untreated. Also, they only use T4 only meds which is useless for mercury toxic people.

What dose of Armour are you taking? I wouldn't worry about doubling it if you are still on a low dose. Full replacement dose is somewhere between 2-5 grains - some people take more. You should take the dose that you feel good at - if you don';t feel good, you haven't found the right dose, or it's something else. It also helps to keep an eye on things by measuring your serum Free T3 and T4 levels. These should both be towards the top of the range. Mine are very much at the bottom of the range on two grains, so I have a way to go.

The thing to worry about when increasing thyroid is your adrenals, because your adrenals have to work very hard to use the thyroid hormone, and mercury toxic people normally have weak adrenals. This is where many people end up on additional cortisol - HC or Pred - to help the adrenals use the thyroid hormone, and make dose increases possible. Otherwise you just get 'stuck' at a low dose of thyroid and low cortisol, and you never get better, or at least, it will take much longer until all the mercury is out and the endocrine system can recover, IF it recovers properly.

Don't be freaked out by taking steroids. The key to taking HC or Pred is to take a physiological dose - ie a dose that the adrenals would produce themselves were they able. You are only replacing what the body can't. A physiological dose is between 20-30mg of HC, or 5-7.5mg of Pred. It is when you take much more than this that the adrenals become suppressed (sometimes permanently), and you develop Cushings. Doctors used to and still do prescribe high doses of HC or Pred to reduce inflammation, without being aware of the knock-on effect on the adrenals. Another reason to research the issue yourself and self-treat.

I don't enjoy being on steroids, but then I don't enjoy being mercury toxic either. Needs must. At Christmas time last year I was bedridden for weeks, and housebound for months because my adrenals crashed due to taking T4 only meds (THANKS doc). I have three young children and simply can't afford to be out of action. This way I can largely function, and I am much better than I was. Treating the thryoid / adrenals, getting aggressive with the candida, but still not chelating on any regular schedule. I'll see what happens at the six month 'hump'.

You might find this table useful for determining what are thyroid / adrenal symptoms. I am sure you are on the right track with Armour treatment.

http://www.drrind.com/scorecardmatrix.asp

let me know how you go.

Best

Nicola

Thanks so much for the responses. It is amazing how ridiculous the regular thyroid medicaiton propaganda is. My mom was just given the Synthrex (first time she tested for thyroid, and if a regular doctor catches it, you know it's BAD). But she read so much about how armour is bad and unreglulated and doesn't help.....and how you have to treat this for life, as there is no real cure. And then she was worried that I was on it. I'm worried about her! But there is no way she'll switch unless I can convince her to go to a natural practitioner. And I feel so bad, because I KNOW she has adrenal fatigue - she is the exact picture of a person with it. Yet the doctor has her on this Synthrex which could make her worse or just not help, and not on adrenal supports, which from what I have read, will definitely make you worse if you're on thyroid meds. Aaaggghhhhh!!!!!

Anyway, had to rant a bit. For my Armour meds: I started out taking 1 15 mg tablet a day, then my doc doubled it to 30 mg a day, then doubled it to 60 mg a day. My adrenal support doubled with it accordingly, so now I take 4 caps of Adrenal Cortex Support (Vit C,B6,B5,Calcium from B5, Magnesium,Chloride, Adrenal from bovine source, and Licorice root). My doctor says that next step is the hydrocortisone. Nicola, it was very helpful the way you described the hydrocortisone ("The key to taking HC or Pred is to take a physiological dose - ie a dose that the adrenals would produce themselves were they able. You are only replacing what the body can't."). THat makes sense and makes it less scary. This is something that my body should be producing, but isn't. So supplementing to that point and not over shouldn't really be a whole lot different than a person with good health producing their own. And I feel very lucky to have found an alternative MD that is guiding me through treatment. I want to do chelation, and that is a goal, but neither of us feel comfortable doing that until my body is strengthened and I feel a little better and strong enough to handle it. I know I've read that it's not good to undergo chelation until the tyroid and adrenals are strengthened. I know they can't be healed altogether (impossible until the mercury is out), but they can at least be strengthened in the meantime. That catch 22 is something I was stuck on, but my doctor helped to explain it.

Thanks again to both of you for your info and help!!

~Tia

Jid - I am also on progesterone cream right now, as that seems to be yet another system that is off in my body. go figure. i've had endometriosis issues since I was 15. I haven't been on the cream long enough to know if it's helping, but I plan on sticking with the treatment.

~Tia

Tia

I am glad this has been of help. The one thing I would do before going on HC is to get your ND to do some saliva testing to see what your cortisol is doing at various times of the day - don't know where you live - US, UK? - there are various places where you can have it done. The other thing is to know your adrenal symptoms - which are in the two links I have posted in this thread (the one from dr Rind and Durrant Peatfield). I was a clear cut case - shaky, fluey (which is low cortisol), couldn't handle stress (still can't)coffee sent me to sleep, thin, internal shuddering, no stamina at all, housebound. I also take Florinef, which is replacement aldosterone, another adrenal steroid which regulates sodium and potassium. My adrenals are a MESS, but I do feel them get a little stronger with the support I am giving them. Without the steroids, I have no doubt I would be bedridden and housebound.

BTW - I see the top endo in Europe - Thierry Hertoghe - who is pioneering the use of Armour and other hormones. He himself takes HC every day, and has done for years. All his practitioners do. Makes him feel better and gives more energy. He is certainly not scared of it!

I tried the glandulars and licorice, and they got me out of bed at Christmas time, but I was still producing massive amounts of adrenalin and shaking like a leaf. I couldn't increase my Armour as the adrenals couldn't tolerate it with that low level of support. My view is, if you need it, you need it. You wouldn't not take insulin if you're a diabetic, and this is the same. Coming off the pred will be difficult, I'm sure, but this is now, and I need it now. I'm 40 and have a life to live. I can't NOT function. FYI, I am taking 2 grains of Armour and 5mg Pred (the equivalent of 20mg HC). I also take a small bedtime dose. I intend to get up to 3 grains of Armour as I still have hypo symptoms.

Best

Nicola

I was going to order some progesterone cream the other day, i need it badly as 2 weeks in the month i have horrendous PMS and my breasts swell up and hurt so bad that every little knock, i scream, its really getting me down.
I went into my local health food store and saw a book about it and it said that using progesterone cream can cause breast cancer and that its a ticking time bomb.
Another thing thats totally confusing, what do we do or believe?

dawn

FYI - I got rid of my PMS (sore boobs and all) this month by blasting the candida. My symptoms normally kick off on day 14, feeling depressed, then very sore boobs from day 16-18, then insulin resistance and irritability until around day 25. This month I took Oil of Oregano capsules 2 x 2 a day and NO PMS symptoms. Nothing. Zip.

The die-off was horrendous though, so I was trading one set of symptoms for another, and I'm not sure what was worse. But I have made a start on the candida, and intend to continue. I have carried on having die-off just through diet alone this week - it's been rough, but I know I have to go through it to get better.

Another woman on NTH who has the same PMS symptoms also busted some candida with Diflucan, and - the same. No PMS.

Nicola

Hi Nicola, thanks for that info, i would never have known.
I have been on a strict candida diet though for 16 mths and have got stricter recently, but i do eat alot of gluten free grains, ie rice flour and brown rice.
I have really got to up my protein intake instead of good carbs, i do take coconut oil sometimes but it really gives me bad die off.
i will try it first instead of going down the progesterone road, thanks.

Dawn

here's the link to her post

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalThyroidHormones/message/147154

she talks about having to walk with her arms across her chest because her boobs are so painful!!

Nicola