Follow Up Bloodwork TRT

[thejerk]

I’ve got my first 3 month follow up with my TRT clinic. They added T3, T4 and reverse T3 testing as options to the panel. It’s an extra $130. Would it be beneficial to get these checked or is it generally a money grab? Thanks

 

[Ominous]

Personally I would not spend the money but that’s me.

 

[BigSwole69]

No i would not but I’m not an expert.

 

[Hulkdad]

Yes, absolutely, if u r looking for a good body cmposition (which im assuming u are) your circulating Free T3 is every bit as important as your testosterone if not more important. T3 is a thyroid hormone. There r a few hormones that ur thyroid gland produces but T3 is in fact the only biologically active hormone that ur thyroid produces. Your thyroid is known as the master gland simply bcuz it has the ability to speed up or slow down every metabolic process in the body. So lets put this into prospective, or better yet i will use an analogy, u own a construction company and u r building an apartment complex, u have already gone in with the front end loaders and earth movers and prepped the ground to start building your big apartment complex. But 3 months into the project u find u r way behind schedule and nothing is getting done because u just dont have enough construction workers to get the job done in a timely manner. So what do u do? Well, logically u woul add enough construction workers to the job site to enable u to speed the process up so that u can get the job done so that u can start collecting the rent from your new apt complex right?? Ok, that construction site is the 2 muscle groups that u trained yesterday, those muscle groups r sore right? Thats right bcuz u damaged them yesterday while u were throwing the heavy iron around creating little microscopic tears on your muscle fibers. And now they need to be repaired. Now u need to shuttle ammino acids to these construction sites to stimulate protein synthesis and BAM!!! U are growing my friend! You are now on your way to becoming the biggest strongest bad ass this side of the mississippi. BUT, if your T3 levels are sub par it could piss on your parade real fast. Think of your T3 as the construction workers that were building the apartment complex, if u dont have enough of them it is going to take more time to get the job done, and in your case the job u r trying to get done is 1) build muscle tissue. And 2) empty out your fat cells, thus producing a nice body composition. T3 is one of the best tools to use to get to your goal hands down. As i stated earlier it has the ability to speed up or slow down every metabolic process in your body and that includes speeding up protein synthesis and fat mobilization out of the fat cells. It is the controller of our metabolism and by far the most neglected and under used tool in our arsenal to get us to our goals. Guys will spend years talking on discussion boards learning how to manipulate their testosterone levels but very rarely do we hear any mention about the thyroid gland. Believe me when i tell you it is a game changer. Ok lets say u wanna cut weight an get ur abs out, so u hit the weights and then jump on the treadmill for another 45 min and for what reason?? Because u wanna burn an extra 6 or 700 calories for the day in hopes of seeing your abs soon. Well, wouldnt it be nice that when u step off the treadmill u could just take a pill and u would automatically burn off another 700 calories instantly but without having to have to run for another 45 min?? U can, and t3 is that pill. It gets much more in depth than that and there is a methodical way in which it must be done to be safe and so that u dont lose muscle tissue on your journey to getting your abs out but it can most def be done. Ok so having said all of that, checking your t3 and your t4 labs will not tell u much as t4 is not biologically active and about 97 or 98% of your circulating t3 is bound to proteins rendering them useless. What u want to know is the levels of your FREE T3 which is the only biologically active hormone that has the ability to speed up your metabolism. The average range for this hormone was set many years ago and in my opinion is rediculas. But the average range for Free T3 is about 2.2 to 4.4. But this still will not tell the whole story. The labs u would want to run would be (FREE T3, FREE T4, TSH, REVERSE T3, and i would also run thyroglobulin and peroxidase antibodies. And if u start doing any googling keep in mind that their are more myths surrounding T3 and the thyroid than probably any other hormone on the bodybuilding scene. So in answer to your question, yes, i would run the thyroid labs , but not the ones that they suggested as it wont give u a true reading on where your metabolism.