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Cycling

Cycling

It might be remembered that “the deeper the water, the deeper the waves,” and the higher the dose of T3 taken, then greater the tendency for T3 levels to be unsteady. But since steadiness is everything, then it is easy to understand why the people that always do the best are the ones that are lucky enough to get their body temperature patterns up to normal on the smallest amount of medicine. People who have been “out of bounds” further and longer may require larger doses to reset their systems. If a person has only had Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome for six months, it is generally easier to restore them back to a normal pattern more quickly with less medicine than those who have suffered for twenty years. Interestingly, age, sex, and weight do not seem to be very predictive in determining who will and will not require larger doses. The dose required does vary tremendously, but is usually large in patients whose condition is more severe and more long standing. Lower doses are easier to keep steady which increases the chances of benefit, and decreases the chances of side effects. If a person does happen to need more T3 than is contained in the lower doses to reset the system, then one may always be gradually weaned off the medicine and restarted on the T3 therapy again. This process is known as “cycling” and is extremely helpful. Usually with each cycle, smaller T3 doses are needed in order to maintain normal body temperature patterns, and to further reset the system; so that the patient can get closer and closer to normal on less and less T3 medicine until, ideally, the patient is weaned off the WT3 protocol completely.

With each cycle requiring less medicine, T3 levels and body temperature patterns become progressively more steady and the patient’s symptoms are frequently more improved and the treatment is better tolerated with each cycle until eventually, hopefully, the patient is able to stay normal even after the WT3 protocol has been discontinued. This cycling process can be repeated, as necessary, from time to time during a patient’s life if the conversion impairment returns after a major stress. However, once it has been reset, the sooner the Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome relapse is treated, the easier it is to correct. If caught early, it can be more easily “nipped in the bud” such that if an initial treatment lasted six months, a subsequent treatment after another significant stress, say two years later, may only take a week if the syndrome is recognized quickly and addressed early enough in the proper manner. We have talked already about how much more beneficial it is that the medicine be taken precisely on time. This is to keep the T3 levels as steady as possible. There is a principle known as steady state. When one begins to take a certain dosage of medicine, there is a period of time over which the level continues to build until it steadies out at a certain level. When the medicine reaches this certain level it is said that steady state has been reached. In most cases, it takes 5 1/2 half-lives for a medicine to reach steady state. For liothyronine, which has a half-life of 2 1/2 days, steady state is reached in approximately 14 days. So when the dosage is changed or interrupted in some manner, it may take two weeks in order for the medicine level to “steady down” again (a significant consideration primarily in this and other medicines that work best when levels are very steady). In practice, I have seen evidence that the level sometimes continues to become more and more steady on the same dose when taken consistently with greater and greater benefit derived not over just two weeks, but sometimes even up to six weeks. It seems to settle into a groove, so to speak, when taken precisely on time, consistently, day after day. It may be that associated changes in systems other than thyroid contribute to the settling effect. Any aberration in the dosage is usually tolerated without complaints, however, it may send “ripples” through the body’s T3 levels the way ripples are sent through a water bed when one taps the edge. Considering these things, and considering the fact that steadiness is so important in the WT3 protocol, it cannot be over-emphasized how much more effective the WT3 protocol is when administered and taken precisely. The more carefully it is done the better it works. Preciseness is important because the loss of potential will come on without warning since one can lose a whole lot of potential before one’s T3 levels are unsteady enough to cause any side effects.