ThyroPhoenix

This, like so many other things, is very much a personal choice. There is a philosophy behind it and that is what I'd like to share. If it's something that you choose to give a try great, if it helps you.. even better. If it's not something for you.. that's fine too...  Our choices for health care also have to take into consideration our personalities and life style.... 

This regime works wonderfully for me and I've been doing it for years.

The theory behind multi-dosing is that it gives a more even distribution of medications and supplements throughout the day.

For example if you split your vitamins and take some with every meal your body will get the benefit of the addition vitamins and the potential combinations with every meal through the day. If you take all your vitamins with one meal... the water solubles will be out of your blood stream in a matter of hours and you'll not have any available. Several vitamins, Vitamin C the most commonly used, well, the body can only use so much of it at a time. If you mega dose your body will just pass the excess out through your urine. You've wasted the extra and robbed your body of the very benefits that you've tried to give it.

What's even worse than taking your vitamins with only one meal a day is to take them without food. You AND your body will get MUCH better results by taking those vitamins and minerals with a meal. This gives your body a chance to utilize all these components and to combine them in a way to be used to their best advantage. Many vitamins, and minerals, when there is no food in the stomach, can not be used at all and are simply passed out of your body.

With Thyroid hormone, the T3 that you would be getting in natural thyroid, like Armour (or in Cytomel, a synthetic) is reaching it's peak just two hours after taking it. At the four hour mark it's 95% used up... so the other 20 hours a day you are totally dependant on your body's ability to convert T4 to T3. If you are a bad converter, that leaves you with a distinct disadvantage. If you were to adjust your dosing from once per day to several times per day, your system would get the added benefit of a more consistent level of T3 in the blood stream, available for your body to use.

[Multi-dosing doesn't work for those that are taking T4 only meds, like Synthroid and it's generics. It has to do with the manufacturing process and the need to swallow them on an empty stomach, to allow the stomach acid to break the Synthroid (or generic) to a usable form of T4 hormone.]

Now, don't misunderstand. This does not mean that if your doc puts you on 1 grain of Armour per day and the pills you got are 1 grain that you are now going to take 2 or 3 pills a day to multi-dose, you'd be OVERDOSING doing that... what you'd do is split the pill, or have your prescription changed the next time it's filled, so that you are taking part of the one grain each time you dose so that your total for the day would equal the 1 grain. (I use 1 grain ONLY as an example, many folks take more than that. I am currently on 3 1/2 grain per day. I take 1/2 grain seven times per day... The first as I wake in the morning, the last as I crawl into bed at night with the others space evenly through the day.)

I'm a lousy converter and my body was horribly abused after years of being undermedicated by docs with VERY little knowledge of proper thyroid care. So I'm still working with a body that can use as much TLC as I can offer. That's why I got to experimenting with this very basic principle that I'd learned during the years that I was a weight-lifter: Spreading out the supplements over the entire day and not taking them all at once.

I know that my regime is a LOT more complicated than just about anyone I know, but it's what I need to do now. I'm hoping that as my body heals and becomes more healthy that I won't have to be so picky about what I do. But, for now, for the improvements that I've experienced, it's more than worth the hassle.

So.. that said... scoot back up the top of this page.. I'll be adding subjects there that will include the multi-compartment pill boxes that I've made for myself and some examples of dosing routines, mine and anyone else that would care to share what is working for them.

It's VERY important to understand that we each have to find what works best for OUR body.. and the more examples that you are aware of the easier it will be for you to determine what you'd like to try for you.

ThyroGeek