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how much acetyl l-carnitine should i take now?

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p12445
p12445

hi everyone!

got switched to PTU two weeks ago, but i was feeling Hypo. got labs and turns out my FT3 is in normal range now!! FT4 and total T3 are below normal.

TSH is still really low but MD says it takes time for TSH to recover. 

As soon as I switched to PTU i started on 500 mg of acetyl l-carnitine.

MD reduced my dosage of PTU to 100 mg ...wondering how much actely l-carintine i should take now? 250 mg?

also need to take a vitamin D supplement...does anyone know how much i should take? my lab value is borderline normal low

0 likes, 8 replies

8 Replies

  • linda187
    linda187 p12445

    Posted

    I would either stop the Acetyl or take 225 or 500 mg every other day.  It would not hurt to stop it for a couple of weeks and then get tested and see where your labs are at.  Post those results here and we can better comment.  My thyroid tests FT3 and FT4 were just at the bottom of the range but never went out of range while I was taking Acetyl for my TSH and I would not like to see anybody suffer from hypo because of Acetyl.  I always say, it takes a lot of adjustments using Acetyl in order to avoid hypothyroidism because labs are very sensitive to this.  Regular L-Carnitine provides support for muscles and does not have the sensitivity that Acetyl does. 
    • p12445
      p12445 linda187

      Posted

      Here are my most current labs:

      TF3: 2.80 pg/ml

      T3: 82 ng/dl

      T4: .67 ng/dl

      TSH: <.001

      PTU reduced to 100 mg per day, titrating atenlol down to 12.5 mg per day for a week then discontinuing. 

      I def became hypo as in very very fatigued/couldnt wake up/foggy, and very very cold.  and i only took 500 mg for 2 weeks...

      when will my TSH start to come up?

    • p12445
      p12445 linda187

      Posted

      forgot to add MD wants me to get tested in 6 weeks...which puts us around end of sept. 
  • linda187
    linda187 p12445

    Posted

    I do not know how .Acetyl will work with PTU.  My experience was using it with Methimazole.  Were your last labs taken after you started using it?  For vitamin D, minimum 1,000 IU per day.  I took 5,000 IU for a while but mostly take the 1,000 dose and prefer gel caps to pills.
    • p12445
      p12445 linda187

      Posted

      yes, the most current labs are from when i started PTU w acteyl.

      ok thanks for the vitamin D dose!

  • Sweetlove
    Sweetlove p12445

    Posted

    Hi P12445,

    Can you plz tell me how do you take acetyl l carnitine. Do you take both the PTU and acetyl l carnitine together at the same time. Or there is any gap between them.

    I also started 2 weeks back, but my level went high.

    Thank you.

  • linda187
    linda187 p12445

    Posted

    I have to tell you I don't know what it will do when combined with PTU.  I used it with Methimazole and took both at the same time.  When I needed to lower my values, I took them combined one day and then the next day, I took only the Acetyl and it did correct my values.  I started on Regular L-Carnitine before I tried the Acetyl.  I also got my levels checked for Total Carnitine and Free Carnitine as well as my vitamin D and Magnesium levels before I took these supplements.  It might be helpful if you did this as well.  I took the Regular L-Carnitine as a prescription medication in liquid form because I would have had to swallow a lot of capsules otherwise to take a dose of 3,000 mg.  For the Acetyl, I took 500 mg capsules mostly, but once found 225 mg capsules.

  • Mike61308
    Mike61308 p12445

    Posted

    I started taking ALC500mg with MMI5mg 28 days ago and then about 7 days ago the blood result T4/T3 showed low and I felt in hypo, so I reduced MMI to 2.5 mg... Yet my TSH went from <0.01 (b4 mmi & alc)) to 0.01 to 0.12 (when T4, T3 down to lower limit). Meanwhile my TSI went from 203% (b4 med) to 340% !!!

    Questions: 1. why get hypo while TSH is still low?  2. why TSI get even higher as TSH rising? Isn't ALC to lower TSI too?  Thanks for all comments.  (no chance asking my docs until later appointments.) 

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