Quote:
Originally Posted by Judynyc
First of all...way to go on figuring it out for your body!!
I have a question...that may seem leading but here goes:
Do you think that staying at 20 grams of carbs a day for 2 yrs made your thyroid condition worse? or not effect at all?
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Judy, not only did the staying at 20g carbs for 2 years make my thyroid 'worse' -- it created the problem to begin with. And tonight of all times, I found the proof.
Let me explain. Prior to 2 years ago, I had lost 65 pounds by eating a moderately LC diet. Took me three years, but I didn't mind and I never gained even an ounce back. Then, about 20 pounds from my goal, I stopped losing. Dead in the water. I thought it was just a stall but no matter what I did nothing worked. I read all the advice on these forums about how I probably had carb creep, and how I should lower my carbs even more. So I did. VL, and stayed that way. Of course to no avail. I slowly gained back ten pounds for absolutely, positively NO reason.
Tonight I went back and looked at all my medical lab tests from then to now. Back then I started with a great lipid panel, very high HDL, low TG's (normal for a low-carber) with good TC and LDL.
But. Six months later (about 18 months ago), that changed. The HDL and TGs stayed great -- but my TC kept going up. For no reason (I thought). And up. And up. And up. Every blood test brought higher TC. By the time I realized I had a thyroid problem, and that unexplained, out-of-the-ordinary high TC is actually one of the better-known symptoms, I was up to 381. Tonight I found out why.
Peripheral Metabolism of Thyroid Hormones
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FDN/is_4_5/ai_65068470/?tag=content;col1>
Turns out T3 and rT3 are made, not in the thyroid, but in the liver. T3, in fact, is one of the hormones that signals the liver that there is sufficient cholesterol in the body. But rT3 is an
inhibitor of T3! So of course as my rT3 reservoir grew, and my liver did not receive the proper signaling from my diminishing T3 -- it made more cholesterol, just as it's supposed to do under normal circumstances.
And of course, at every physical/lab test, my rT3 problem was growing, the T3 signaling was getting weaker, and the liver was churning out more and more of what it thought was needed. Which meant my TC numbers kept rising. This also explains a well-known side effect of T3 supplementation: drastically lower TC. I just figured all this out myself (after reading the article and putting 2 and 2 together, and I feel like I've just had a Eureka moment!
Was the VLC and the ever-growing TC a coincidence that just happened at exactly the same time? Not a chance. The VLC suppressed my T4 to T3 conversion, as it has been
proven to do, and once the rT3 problem grew, it explained every single one of my symptoms. Including the high TC.
And the slightly high T4 and lower TSH lab results -- exactly what a doctor would look at and say: "Perfectly normal."
Yeah, on the surface. Underneath the surface wasn't so pretty, but unless you insist on a rT3 test, and I do mean insist, you'll never know. You'll be told your thyroid is 'fine', you'll believe it, and you'll continue to think your 'stall' is your fault.
Now
I know and I hope everyone reading this knows -- that it's not. If you believe your thyroid tests are 'normal' and the only hypo symptom you have is the inability to lose weight when you
know you
should be losing it -- and you have NOT had an rT3 test -- you've had no thyroid tests at all worth a damn.
My 2cents; YMMV
Lisa