I also had more energy, and after not being able to lose weight and knowing I was eating properly, the first month I lost 16 pounds, doing the same things and eating the same things that I had done before. The very first day with the natural, I felt so much better; I felt I could actually open my eyes. Kim describes her experiences with natural thyroid: I convinced my doctor to put me on the natural thyroid medication rather than the synthetic that I had been on for years. Keep in mind that many conventional physicians feel that these drugs are out of date and won't prescribe them, so you may need to find a holistic or alternative physician. Alternative experts believe that these drugs, which provide T4, T3, T2, Tl, and other thyroid hormones and nutritional elements, more closely resemble human thyroid hormone than the synthetics and report that their patients feel better on them. These products, including Armour and Nature-throid, are prescription thyroid drugs that have been in use for a century. Some practitioners believe that certain patients simply do best on natural desiccated thyroid derived from the thyroid gland of pigs. Natural desiccated thyroid, such as the prescription drug Armour Thyroid, which also includes a full array of natural thyroid hormones including T3; Check with your physician about whether supplemental T3 might be helpful for you. Combination synthetic drug Thyrolar, which includes both T4 and T3. They add T3 in one of several ways: Added to levothyroxine treatment, via the addition of the prescription T3 drug Cytomel.

While it's a controversial topic that is under increasing study by various experts, some physicians believe that supplemental T3 may be a solution to help optimize thyroid treatment for some patients. So it's clear that low T3 or inability to convert T4 to T3 may contribute to weight gain or difficulty losing weight. In one research study, experts found that among a group of 100 obese patients, more than 90% of those studied had T3 levels that were below the mean. Usually, the body converts T4 to T3, but nutritional deficiencies, toxins, and a variety of others process properly, leaving you deficient in this most important thyroid hormone.