How to Start Taking NDT
In her chapter on What Thyroid Patients Have Learned, Janie Bowthorpe explains the patient-based protocol for starting Natural Dessicated Thyroid (NDT):- 1 grain (60 mg) for one-to-two weeks
- increasing by 1/2 grain every two weeks
- and holding around 2-3 grains for four-to-six weeks to allow time for the T4 to build and convert to T3
How NOT to Start Taking NDT
Today I was reviewing my calendar and notes from when I first went on NDT. I try not to think about the painful experiences surrounding that, but I thought I would share it here since others can learn from my mistakes. At the time that I started on NDT, I thought that the protocol for starting on NDT is different for people who were switching from synthetic T4, as opposed to those who are going on it from nothing. I mistakenly trusted my doctor who claims that it is perfectly suitable for people who are on synthetic T4-only medication to switch to a similar milligram dosage of NDT.
In my brain fog, I didn't realize that whether you're starting from nothing or on synthetic T4-only, you have to start low and gradually build the T4 in your NDT, to allow for the conversion to T3. Otherwise, you'll get a huge dump of T3 into your system at once.
And that is precisely what happened to me.
Prior to NDT, I had been on 150 mcg Levothyroxine. Here is how my doctor started me on NDT:
- Started on 3 grain
- One week later, increased to 4 grains
- One week after that, increased to 4.5 grains.
- A week after that, I backed myself down to 4 grains.
- A couple of days later, (this was four and a half weeks after starting NDT) my doctor started me on 4 pellets of Isocort in the mornings.
- After a few days of being on Isocort, I increased my NDT dose to 4.5
- I was thinking that I must not have been on enough. After all, my doctor said to increase every few days until I had relief of my symptoms. Heck, I was being cautious by increasing weekly! Or so I thought.
- I even tried a day of taking the extra 1/2 grain in the afternoons.
- I was thinking that I must not have been on enough. After all, my doctor said to increase every few days until I had relief of my symptoms. Heck, I was being cautious by increasing weekly! Or so I thought.
- After one week of taking Isocort, a nurse at my doctor's office suggested decreasing to 2 pellets a day. Maybe a was sensitive to it.
- A week later, I decreased my NDT to 4 grains.
- A few days after that, I stopped Isocort entirely.
- A week later, I started to multi-dosing my NDT, then chewing it.
- I knew that was making it more effective, so I cut it back to 3 grains then 2.
- This was my saving grace: the decision to start multi-dosing plus knowing that doing so could make my NDT more effective.
- Shortly after, I started the Circadian T3 Method.
