Posted by pfinstegg on October 7, 2002, at 15:17:25
In reply to Re: To Glenn and pfinstegg, posted by denise528 on October 5, 2002, at 10:42:43
Hi Denise... your TSH of 2.0 is certainly within the normal range; however some experts think it should be brought down to 0.5 or even slightly lower if you have a treatment-resistant unipolar depression. Ideally, they will give you a combination of synthroid and cytomel in slowly increasing doses until the TSH reaches the optimal level. If you are dealing with the NHS, or a doctor who doesn't want to give too many tests, you can just ask for a TSH every six weeks while you begin taking low doses of the synthroid and cytomel, which you increase gradually until you get to a TSH of 0.5. The doses you will be taking are extremely low; you can always discontinue if you get any side effects such as increased nervousness. I am taking both of these now and have not had any difficulty so far ; the gradual increase helps. It's not the whole answer to the problem, but just one of the parts. I happen to be abnormal thyroid-wise, cortisol-wise and estrogen wise- and all these hormones apparently play a big role in my particular depression, although they probably don't for many others. Somewhere in the psychobabble archives(about 2 weeks ago, I think), I cited an article from the New England Journal of Medicine describing the use of synthroid and cytomel in this way, which my endocrinologist gave me: you could print it out and give it to your doc- continue his education a little!
pfinstegg
poster:pfinstegg
thread:122256
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021006/msgs/122682.html