January 31, 2006

Wel­come to StopTheThyroidMadness.com. You might say I became a fled­ging thy­roid patient advo­cate in 2002, when I star­ted a site on Yahoo Groups. That site grew and grew, and so did my know­ledge along with with ever­yone else’s. We have all been living gui­nea pigs and self-educated in the face of doc­tors who had little to NO insight about Armour, correct treat­ment, and side issues like Ferri­tin and Adrenals.

And having a web­site on the side was something always on my mind. But with the gro­wing Yahoo group, and with my busy pri­vate life, it kept being swept under the carpet.

But last year, I star­ted paying atten­tion to a few doctor-to-patient web­si­tes. And I was APPALLED at the LOUSY advice a par­ti­cu­lar doc­tor was giving des­pe­rate patients who came to their site, see­king help. The more I read, the more frus­tra­ted and angry I got. Thus, I finally put “the pedal to the metal” in the Fall of 2005, and with the help of a web­site desig­ner, put all my artic­les and infor­ma­tion together, as well as brought on board a few other know­led­gea­ble thy­roid patients whom I knew could offer a lot.

The result: Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness. This site is inten­ded to edu­cate and to give HOPE to the millions of thy­roid patients who remain sick due to untrea­ted hypothy­roid, or under-treated hypothyroid.

Addi­tio­nally, this site is dedi­ca­ted to a young and des­pe­rate gal named Mise­ra­ble Mom, who came to one of these doctor-to-patient sites, got advice which only left her sick, and she never came back again.

  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 and is filed under Starting the Site. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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32 Responses to “Why this site was created”

  1. Winnie Bond-Madsen said:

    Jan 31, 06 at 6:33 pm

    Help. I live in Glen­wood Springs, CO. and the only Dr. to give me Armour is in Che­yenne, WY. I must deal with Dr.s here and lately 2 of them are saying my TSH is 0.01 and I’m taking 120 mg. of Armour which is too much. This 0.01 level has come up twice in 6 months. I’m star­ting to doubt. Should I just start taking my temp every mor­ning. You are right about the mad­ness. I have a benign nodule on my right thy­roid. 15 years ago a Dr. said I can’t feel anything in your neck so stop taking the meds. WRONG!!!

  2. Janie said:

    Jan 31, 06 at 7:03 pm

    There is a Colo­rado Thy­roid Group on Yahoo Groups, http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/coloradothyroidgroup/ and they have found a few doc­tors in Colo­rado that presc­ribe Armour, so you wouldn’t have to tra­vel so far! And as a thy­roid patient, I don’t agree that 2 grains is too much simply because it lowers your TSH to .01!! The true test is the com­plete remo­val of symp­toms — just as was done before the TSH was ever inven­ted!! My TSH is lower than yours! And taking your temp does give you a clue. Good luck! Janie p.s. In the near future, there will be a Bulle­tin Board up to invite ques­tions just like this, with thy­roid patients mode­ra­ting the groups!

  3. Kim Fisher said:

    Jan 31, 06 at 7:28 pm

    Hi there. First of all let me say that fin­ding your web­site was a breath of fresh air! I’ll be brief but want your opi­nion on my situa­tion if you would be kind enough to eva­luate… I am really, really confused.

    I found a great doc­tor in January of 2004 who star­ted me on armour thy­roid for “subc­li­ni­cal” or bor­der­line hypothy­roid. My tsh at that time was 2.8 I imme­dia­tely star­ted fee­ling bet­ter – hair coming back thic­ker, good energy, great posi­tive out­look, etc. I was on 90 mg. of armour during this time and tole­ra­ting it well until about June of 2005 when I star­ted noti­cing some wierd side effects, inc­re­di­ble fati­gue, a lot of low blood sugar pro­blems, etc. I ran some blood work and full saliva tes­ting to find out that my adre­nals were pretty low. I have had to cut back and taper off the thy­roid since June of last year in order to be able to tole­rate it. I am now down to a dose of 15mg (1/4 grain) that I split and take twice daily. My adre­nal fati­gue is slightly bet­ter at this dose but as you can guess, my hypothy­roid symp­toms are back. I have the option of taking some com­pun­ded bio-identical, slow release cor­ti­sol in 2.5 mg. or 5.0 mg. daily and then I am hoping to be able to get my armour dosage back up to where it needs to be. Loo­king back, it seems like the medi­cine that hel­ped me so much in the begi­ning (armour) actually fati­gued my adre­nals and now I am barely able to tole­rate it. My ques­tions: is it com­mon for armour to fati­gue the adre­nals and how long should I be on the cor­ti­sol sup­ple­men­ta­tion before I try to inc­rease my armour dosage again? There are a lot of doc­tors out there who think that the t4 / t3 ratio in armour is too high and that the high t3 will even­tually do more harm than good.. Any words of wisdom?

    Thank you so much!

  4. Janie said:

    Jan 31, 06 at 8:07 pm

    No, you have it wrong. Armour does NOT fati­gue your adre­nals, any more than the hor­mo­nes of a healthy thy­roid fati­gue the adre­nals!! Untrea­ted or UNDER­trea­ted hypothy­roid fati­gues the adre­nals, because the adre­nals are having to “make up” for the ina­de­quacy of the thy­roid. And chro­nic stress does the same to the adre­nals. (And by the way, simply because your TSH was 2.8 doesn’t mean you were “bor­der­line” hypo! The TSH is often VERY slow to reveal what is going on – another rea­son we as patients have found it to be a LOUSY test to rely on solely!) In all pro­ba­bi­lity, the dose of Armour you were on even­tually “revea­led” the slug­gish adre­nals, not cau­sed it, per se. I have noti­ced that it’s VERY rare that someone is ade­qua­tely trea­ted on 1 1/2 mgs. by the way. Either you were one of those rare ones, or you were under­trea­ted, even with the great impro­ve­ments you had on it, and didn’t know it!

    There is some evi­dence that your adre­nals can reco­ver enough to allow you to once again raise your Armour, and perhaps you are in that area. But there’s also the pos­si­bi­lity that you are going to need adre­nal sup­port. And be pre­pa­red that some folks are nee­ding 20 mg, and occa­sio­nally more, before they can suc­cess­fully tole­rate the thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the raise. Remem­ber, it’s cor­ti­sol that is nee­ded to dis­tri­bute the thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the blood to the cells. Some patients state that once they have been on adre­nal sup­port for at least 2 weeks, they can then begin rai­sing their Armour.

    And con­cer­ning the com­ment by doc­tors who think the T4 to T3 ratio is too high – there are enough folks out there who mana­ged to stay on Armour their entire lives who will strongly dis­pute that!! LOL. We found a lady who was 90 years old and had been on Armour most of her adult life suc­cess­fully and fee­ling great! And just because the 80/20 ratio is higher than the 93/7 ratio of the human thy­roid, it doesn’t mean that you take SO much Armour that you are get­ting TOO MUCH T3. Most of us take enough to rid our­sel­ves of symp­toms, which hap­pens to get our free towards the top of the range with NO symp­toms of hyper wha­tsoe­ver. Remem­ber: lab ran­ges are HUMAN made. They are NOT the end-all to end-alls.

    p.s. Soon there will be a Bulle­tin Board here with the­med groups where you can ask ques­tions like this of other thy­roid patients. :o )

  5. Kim Fisher said:

    Jan 31, 06 at 8:52 pm

    Thanks a ton! It does all make a lot of sense. The proof is in the pud­ding I sup­pose as I defi­na­tely felt a TON bet­ter while on armour. I did also notice that a lot of peo­ple report nee­ding bet­ween 2 and 3 grains for symp­tom relief. I do also have a phone con­sult with Dr. Rind in a week or so. Pos­sibly he will be able to get me on the correct adre­nal sup­port so I can get my armour dosage back up where it needs to be. Thanks again for your valua­ble insight!

  6. Cindi Straughn said:

    Feb 01, 06 at 9:40 am

    Thanks Janie for remem­be­ring Mise­ra­ble Mom. I remem­ber her too. That was at the Med­NoHelp thy­roid site that has thrown me off twice for men­tio­ning Armour when pos­ters was not get­ting relief of symp­toms on their T4 med and/or were being held hos­tage to a TSH lab value des­pite their obvious hypo symptoms.

    Thank God you have the com­pas­sion to start a site where some peo­ple can learn that when their doc says “it can’t pos­sibly be your thy­roid, your TSH is nor­mal” or “Synth­roid is the best thy­roid medi­cine”  — that the sta­te­ments are totally false.…and that there is hope for reso­lu­tion of their misery.

  7. Laura Johnson said:

    Feb 01, 06 at 5:44 pm

    I am SO con­fu­sed too. I star­ted with my Drs. “dream” #‘s but felt like I had CFS. My TSH was 1.18, frees were in low nor­mal. I orde­red Nature Throid online, and star­ted with 1/2 gn.…moved up to fast, to 2/1/2 gns.…got hot sweaty, 99.4 temp. So bac­ked down. I see­med to get hyper fast…like I’m stuck bet­ween 1/2 and 1gn.……so I was put on Levoxyl, just to see what I con­ver­ted to T3. On 100mcgs. I got to 0.023on my TSH. My Ft4 was over the top, my FT3 was 400. I felt hyperthy­roid again, 99.4 temp. joint pains hea­daches ect.…I seem to con­vert my T4 to T3 VERY well, BUT without the T4, I am dead in the water. BUT must be the extra T3 that gets me. Has anyone dealt with this con­ver­sion issue? Or maybe I just need 1/4 gn.BID and all would work??? I am get­ting weird pains in my hands, like I haven’t had for 20 years, I know my ferri­tin is 46, but my hemgl­bin is high nor­mal. I am new to all this thy­roid stuff, THANK YOU for your help, Laura

  8. Janie said:

    Feb 01, 06 at 6:11 pm

    As a thy­roid patient, I was once told I had CFS. I later lear­ned that CFS is simply UNDERTREATED or UNTREATED HYPO. It see­med to show itself as a “new disease” right after the ridi­cu­lous TSH came into existence!

    Natu­reth­roid appears to be an exce­llent des­si­ca­ted thy­roid product.…..but I am con­cer­ned about the fact that you “moved up fast”. I lear­ned myself – and have seen this with other patients — that you have to allow your body to adjust to the T3 slowly – a little at a time. Rai­sing fast only puts strain on your body which hasn’t been used to the potent T3!!

    And.…your high free T3 may have nothing to do with being a good con­ver­ter. It may have to do with having low cor­ti­sol from slug­gish adre­nals, which results in T3 and T4 buil­ding high in the blood because there’s not enough cor­ti­sol to dis­tri­bute them to the cells! You sound like a strong can­di­date to have your adre­nals tes­ted, and as men­tio­ned on the site, we have found the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test to be the best! Go to the ADRENALS article and you’ll find links to sites where you can have yours tes­ted, and without a presc­rip­tion. It’s VERY com­mon for thy­roid patients to have slug­gish adre­nals, which cau­ses pro­blems when you try des­si­ca­ted thyroid.

    And by the way, a Ferri­tin of 46 is not horri­ble, but it’s surely NOT opti­mal. We’ve lear­ned that it’s wise to get our Ferri­tin to at least 70 – 90. With a Ferri­tin of 46, you could easily have your sto­rage iron seve­rely deple­ted due to a long period or such. I know, because it hap­pe­ned to me, and it’s NOT fun when your Ferri­tin drops lower.…

  9. Edna Kyrie said:

    Feb 03, 06 at 3:49 am

    I was diag­no­sed with mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis at the age of twenty. I didn’t want to believe it and was only too happy to follow the consultant’s words, ‘I’m sorry to tell you, that in my opi­nion, you have mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis. So.’go away, try to for­get about it’..
    I was only too happy to follow those ins­truc­tions. I didn’t want to hear his final words, And come back when it’s worse.

    To cut a long story short, things did get a lot worse. I’m now asses­sed as nee­ding 24-hr care. I collap­sed out of the blue with a high tem­pe­ra­ture, went yellow, lost a lot of weight, and dete­rio­ra­ted rapidly. I was in a wheelchair within two years.
    At the age of twenty in 1985, I was diag­no­sed with MS, although I have always ques­tio­ned this diag­no­sis. A few years ago, by chance, I met a doc­tor who stu­died thy­roid medi­cine beyond the nor­mal medi­cal trai­ning. Due to recei­ving thy­roid sup­ple­men­ta­tion treat­ment, my health impro­ved dra­ma­ti­cally. I now have five times as much energy, am men­tally much shar­per, far less prone to infec­tions, as well as many other impro­ve­ments. I con­si­der taking Armour thy­roid to have saved my life.
    In 2000, I star­ted sha­ring the research I had found so far on http://www.thyroidhistory.net (soon to be http://www.thyroidresearch.com)

    best wishes,

    Edna Kyrie

  10. Joe Brundage said:

    Feb 05, 06 at 10:21 am

    For the lady in Glen­wood Springs, CO:
    Dr. Rees-Jones– endoc­ri­no­lo­gist 1550 S. Poto­mac St. Aurora, CO 80012 303 – 396-9445
    They are just star­ting me on Armour. I have actually been seeing one of his Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ners, Amy Stan­wood. She impes­ses me as having more know­ledge that the pre­vious five MD endoc­ri­no­lo­gists I let go. r/Joe

  11. Janie said:

    Feb 05, 06 at 11:07 am

    Oops. Let me say, in all res­pect, that a Colo­rado thy­roid group has as many disap­poin­ted patients of Rees-Jones as happy. If it was ME, I’d be sure to insist to R-J that I do NOT want to dose by the TSH, that I want to raise my Armour accor­ding to the eli­mi­na­tion of symp­toms, and get my free T3 towards the top of the range, if not slightly over. Good luck!!

  12. Steve Moreau said:

    Feb 06, 06 at 5:50 pm

    Janie,
    Thanks for the monu­men­tal work of your web­site. I’ve been loo­king into this whole natu­ral thy­roid issue for some­time. Within a short time of sur­fing your site I noti­ced some of the same web­si­tes I had researched. Bravo!
    Steve

  13. Janie said:

    Feb 06, 06 at 6:04 pm

    Thank you Steve! We’ve come a long way, and want to do EVERYTHING pos­si­ble to pre­vent the suf­fe­ring that MILLIONS of us have had on T4-only meds, and dosing by the TSH. My suf­fe­ring was pro­found – worse than many, and that suf­fe­ring pro­pe­lled me to do ANYTHING I could to pre­vent others from going through the same hell. Glad you stop­ped by! Armour REALLY works!

  14. Trish said:

    Feb 07, 06 at 7:31 pm

    I finally got a Dr. (women) who will presc­ribe Armour in NH. My endo laughed at me when I sho­wed him my adre­nal tests from my CCN. (Cer­ti­fied Cli­ni­cal Nutri­tio­nist) He said it is witchc­raft! Ha! I wan­ted to laugh back at him. I asked him to presc­ribe Armour and he said he would only presc­ribe Levoxyl. My mom has been on Armour for 15+ years with no pro­blems and she is 75. So now it’s my turn to try it. I have had years of fati­gue (CFS thank you!) due to incom­pe­tent Dr’s that have presc­ri­bed anti­de­pres­sents for “a fati­gued, run down mom with 2 kids” when I was telling them something was wrong! Now that I lost 70% of my hair this sum­mer, I have to take my heath into my own hands. Quick ques­tion: From 37.5 mg of Levoxyl — would you say 1 gram (60 mg) of Armour would be APPROX equi­va­lent? I know it is “apples and oran­ges” as my Dr. says, but I don’t want to end up with more hypothy­roid symp­toms! It’s not a road I ever want to go down again! Thanks for your great web­site and support!

  15. Janie said:

    Feb 07, 06 at 7:55 pm

    Hi Trish. Those equi­va­lency charts are really poor. If I had gone by them, I’d only be on 1 1/4 grains!! Do you mean you were on .137 mcg?? Because it doesn’t come in mg. So not kno­wing exactly what you were on, I used to be on .125 mcg. of Levoxyl and my current opti­mal dose of Armour is 3 1/2 grains (3 3/4 in the win­ter). Check the THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED article to unders­tand how to start on Armour, and the rai­ses. MISTAKES PATIENTS MAKE is also good as a follo­wup. Good Luck. Like with your dear mom, ARMOUR WORKS.

  16. Janie said:

    Feb 07, 06 at 7:58 pm

    TO EVERYONE: before I start get­ting way too many res­pon­ses, LOL – if you need help and patient-to-patient know­ledge inte­rac­tion, please visit our new FORUMS! There are patients there READY and WAITING to help you figure things out! :o )

  17. Judy said:

    Feb 07, 06 at 8:49 pm

    Hi Janie,
    Thanks for set­ting up this web­site — I have bene­fi­ted from it greatly. I am in Northern, NSW (Aus­tra­lia), we have 2 Dr’s in this town, both of whom think that there is nothing wrong with me — “That it is all in my head” — I was diag­no­sed with CFS over 17 years ago and it wasn’t until I star­ted resaerching sites simi­lar to yours that I learnt the truth, that my pro­blem lies with my thy­roid. Also it is great to see that Vale­rie is going to be in charge of the adre­nal sec­tion she has been a great help to me with won­der­ful advise.
    Best wishes
    Judy

  18. Mel said:

    Feb 15, 06 at 3:05 pm

    I have never writ­ten any com­ments before about sub­jects on the web, often just view them and leave. Howe­ver, I am beside myself with the Thy­roid Mad­ness!!! I was diag­no­sed with a Goi­ter (spe­lling?) and had my thy­roid shrunk down to nothing and was given synth­roid. Three years later — I feel like crap. Have com­plai­ned to any and every doc­tor that would lis­ten and all they could come up with was Prozac.

    I was han­ded the book Hor­mo­nes, Health and Hap­pi­ness, and was shoc­ked to find “my story.” I am not crazy — the medi­cal pro­fes­sion is. I have all the symp­toms of Hypothy­roi­dism. Major fati­gue, dif­fi­culty losing weight, cold hands and feet, sen­si­tive to cold, dif­fi­culty thin­king, hard to con­cen­trate, depres­sed, hair loss, dry skin, trou­ble slee­ping, low sex drive, and the list goes on and on. Yet every medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nal I have seen — does not know what to do for me after the “pro­to­cal” blood tests and sends me on my way — offe­ring Pro­zac and insis­ting I lose more weight to feel bet­ter. At 5 “4, I weigh 157 lbs., over­weight yes –but hardly obese.

    I have an appoint­ment with a nurse prac­tio­ner who spe­cia­li­zes in hor­mone repla­ce­ment and treat­ment. My first step is to replace my synthe­tic Synth­roid with Armour thy­roid. This has been a very frus­tra­ting jour­ney, and I encou­rage others out there — to lis­ten to that “inner voice” telling you that something is not right. I will let you know my results in a few months.…..

  19. Janie said:

    Feb 15, 06 at 5:58 pm

    Mel, you are get­ting ready to begin a WONDERFUL jour­ney. Armour works! Just be VERY infor­med, because the doc­tors ARE NOT. Read Mis­ta­kes Patients Make, and Things We Have Lear­ned, plus Natu­ral Thy­roid 101, and Synth­roid doesn’t work. And insist on what is right!! Good luck!! :o )

  20. Liliane Wise said:

    Feb 16, 06 at 4:19 am

    Hi Janey, I’ve just dis­co­ve­red your site, and I love it ! I’ve learnt so much in just one morning.

    Howe­ver, if I had one little cri­ti­cism to make, it would be that you don’t insist hard enough, or talk long enough about goi­tro­gens. Lear­ning about goi­tro­gens has made such a dif­fe­rence to my life.…and if there is one thing that should be insis­ted on, it is that soy is poison…it is gra­dually sli­ding into everything…I also have to avoid straw­be­rries and wal­nuts. But I can eat almonds, peaches and cab­bage – which are also goi­tro­gens. It should the­re­fore be poin­ted out that ever­yone is dif­fe­rent, and what is very bad for one per­son, is harm­less for another.

    I must say I had a good laugh at your ‘give me a break’ rubric – although it’s not really funny when you think that these idiots hold our lives in their hands. When I asked my doc­tor, men­tio­ned above, to add FT3 to my blood test, he assu­red me that it didn’t exist – there was no such test !

    More seriously, the GP I had before this one, didn’t want my TSH to go below 14.5 – although the norm was 0.5 to 5.00 – because, he said, he didn’t want me to ‘tip over’ into hyper…He also told me that Armour was dan­ge­rous, and ban­ned in France (it isn’t, but you can’t buy it), and I was lucky to have such won­der­ful synthe­tic hor­mo­nes to take. And I was far too hypo, and mise­ra­ble, and brain-fogged to argue with him. Such is life.

    Best wishes, Lili

  21. Janie said:

    Feb 16, 06 at 10:44 am

    Hi Lili. Please for­give me for making your post shor­ter – the replies to his post are get­ting so long! LOL. Maybe in the future we can add more about goi­tro­gens! Thanks for the sug­ges­tion. Keep an eye on the GIVE ME A BREAK list. I am con­ti­nually adding to it, because docs are con­ti­nually ear­ning the GIVE ME A BREAK award! Sad. :o (

  22. Betha said:

    Feb 23, 06 at 9:53 am

    Love this site!! What relief to hear from other patients dea­ling with the same issues. I had my entire thy­roid remo­ved along with my parathy­roid, about 8 years ago. It has been a cha­llenge is say it nicely since then. I currently take 1 & 1/2 grains of Armour and my doc­tor will not allow me to go any higher. I hear, work out more.…( I work out more than most peo­ple!) or, You must get your diet under con­trol ( Ha! ) my big­gest weight gain came when I con­su­med under 800 calo­ries a day! and the famous, it’s all in your head, your not too fat and you have to learn to live with it and lets not for­get the , your not get­ting any youn­ger line! AHHHHH!!! Talk about being frus­tra­ted and exhaus­ted. This site hel­ped me rea­lize that I am NOT alone and it’s not ‘in my head’. Geez!!! To all the patients out there who no lon­ger have a thy­roid gland and are stug­gling, keep figh­ting it’s YOUR body and never lose hope! It’s sooooooo refreshing to see others that are out there just like me won­de­ring from time to time, hmmm…is it all in my head??? Keep smi­ling and have the best day possible.

  23. Joe Brundage said:

    Feb 26, 06 at 10:24 am

    Janie,
    Thanks so much for your site. I have always felt my thy­roid wasn’t square. I became panhy­po­pi­tui­tary as a result of botched sinus sur­gery in a mili­tary hos­pi­tal. I was sent to a shrink who told me I was low thy­roid, not neces­sa­rily nuts. I have been figh­ting with endos since. At the time I was only on 100 mcg. I was recently on 180 Synth­roid and doing so so, still una­ble to work, which I so loathe. Once it was rai­sed to 200 and my heart star­ted racing and I was told to wait 6 months! My DO pri­mary care imme­dia­tely lowe­red it to 180. My 5th endo wan­ted to do the TSH thing and lower me to 150 mcg. I told her I would get worse, in 2 weeks I did get worse, told her, and the office told us, ‘well you have a follo­wup in 3 months’. So, I have to suf­fer for 3 months? I chan­ged endos. The new one did add 5mg of T-3. It hel­ped but not much. They agreed to start me on Armour, at 2 grains. Well, I have felt some bet­ter, espe­cially men­tally, but have a long way to go and am con­fu­sed as to what time frame we should be rai­sing and by what amount? I now weigh 220, up from 190. They want to see me back about 6 weeks after star­ting the thy­roid. Should they raise me 1/4 or 1/2 then? Sorry, I don’t know what my free T-3 is. I have about 3/4 of the symp­toms you list. Going from 180 down to 150 synth­roid made my men­tal health take a nose dive as well as my energy. My aches and pains went up, too. I have never had a good nights sleep since the sinus sur­gery dama­ged my pitui­tary gland in 1997. Life has not held much joy. All your stuff makes good logic.
    r/Joe Brundage

  24. Janie said:

    Feb 26, 06 at 10:43 am

    Hey Joe, come on into the FORUMS where we can ans­wer ques­tions, such as the 2 grains you star­ted on, which was too high to “start” on actually, and how to raise. :) We have good infor­ma­tion to share with you.

  25. Dave Frahm said:

    Mar 01, 06 at 4:49 pm

    There is a mis­sing nutrient in the Ame­ri­can diet. Iodine. It’s the only thing that feeds the thy­roid gland. 8 out of 10 Ame­ri­cans have low thy­roid func­tion. All forms of can­cer begin here. Feed your thy­roid glands. Armour doesn’t. Synth­roid doesn’t And all their “cou­sins” don’t. They are a mis­gui­ded attempt by MD’s to give hor­mone repla­ce­ment rather than feed the thy­roid in order for it to make its own hor­mo­nes. I’ve yet to have a client with a dys­func­tio­nal thyroid…but 8 out 10 have a thy­roid that’s starving!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  26. Janie said:

    Mar 01, 06 at 5:37 pm

    That is true about iodine mis­sing in his diet. But Armour does give patient iodine, since thy­roid hor­mo­nes are com­po­sed mainly of iodine. But, seve­ral of us are expe­ri­men­ting with iodine and will report the results even­tually. So far, there are no huge results as far as the thy­roid improving.

  27. Elaine said:

    May 08, 06 at 1:00 pm

    May 8, 2006!

    Dear Janie! You are our Earth Angel indeed! Thank you for everything that you do for all of us! This site abso­lu­tely rocks and so do you Janie! *Con­gra­tu­la­tions on beco­ming an advo­cate for all of us who suf­fer under the hands of the doc­tors that have become our foes!*

    I love the Blog com­men­ta­ries, let the Truth be Told, let our know­ledge com­bi­ned be to our Power and not to the big phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, that have one agenda in mind, is to keep us sick and to make tons of money off of us who suf­fer daily!

    I thank God for a caring and totally cool Doc­tor that I have that grants me all the sup­port I need, inc­lu­ding des­si­ca­ted thyroid!

    This site is right on the mark here, and I am abso­lu­tely sto­ked and ama­zed! I com­mend the crea­tor of this web­site, Janie, your mis­sion in life is to change, inhance, edu­cate and relieve all of us, who have been abso­lu­tey lied to by you know who!

    I will for­ward this site to ever­yone I know that is suf­fe­ring from thy­roid con­di­tions, and also the link bet­ween adre­nal fati­gue and low ferri­tin levels, in which I too suf­fer from and self medi­cate, have noti­ced an abso­lute diff in my phy­si­cal well being!

    In the End we all will benefit!

    Sin­ce­rely, Elaine

  28. Tommy Walters said:

    Apr 16, 07 at 3:22 pm

    Janie, I have a long story to tell too but basi­cally I was diag­no­sed with Hypothy­roid 9 years ago. My symp­toms never impro­ved and got worse. I sug­ges­ted that the TSH nor­mal range may not be accu­rate to my Thy­roid func­tion. I was told this was impos­si­ble by my endo and assu­red the tests were relia­ble. I dou­bled up on my Synth­roid and felt bet­ter. Howe­ver my TSH levels were way too low accor­ding to my Endo and he insis­ted I stop dou­bling up. Months later I was much worse. I again felt my TSH was not pro­perly being mea­su­red. My Endo tes­ted me one last time at TSH 8.8, inc­rea­sed my synth­roid slightly. The next day I went to a new Gen Pract. He did a blood test, sent to the same lab and got TSH 34.35. Gen Pract inc­rea­sed my synthoid sig­ni­fi­cantly. Now the Gen Pract says I am in nor­mal range but I still feel lousy and get­ting worse. I feel my TSH may be like a 450 lb man being weighed on a 300 lb bath­room scale. The rea­ding would be 150 lbs even though it is clear as day that can­not be. Is it pos­si­ble a doctor’s persc­rip­tion for a blood test could set limits on the TSH level range they are tes­ting and thus I am “Tip­ping the scale”? That is the only thing that can make sense to me.

  29. Don said:

    May 03, 07 at 5:39 am

    I am not making this up. Check the web links for your­self. Our govern­ment war­ned Kodak to sheild their warehou­sed pho­to­graphic film canis­ters because the goven­ment did not want to be lia­ble for dama­ged and fog­ged film from the radioac­tive fallout from Nevada tes­ting. This took place at a time when I was being rai­sed on a farm and drin­king whole milk from our own cows that my mom pas­teu­ri­zed on the stove. We lived in one of the coun­ties in Iowa that got some of the worst fallout in the nation. I was 1 to 2 years old then. The cows were eating grass that had nuc­lear fall out on it. I’ve chec­ked the maps. I have taken the sur­vey. I have good rea­son to sus­pect my hypothy­roid pro­blems are due to these events occu­ring at a most susep­ti­ble age as a todd­ler. The web links are:

    http://harkin.senate.gov/specials/20020301-fallout.cfm

    http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/default.htm

    http://www.downwinders.org/indexend.htm

    http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600141354,00.html

  30. Jen said:

    Jun 13, 07 at 3:53 pm

    Thank you for being an advo­cate for thy­roid suf­fe­rers and vic­tims of the tra­di­tio­nal medi­cine. I went to my endo yes­ter­day and more or less beg­ged to be put on Armour. He told me he wouldn’t change my meds because my TSH was per­fect. I have been fee­ling like hell for 4 years on Eltro­xin and I just want to feel well again. He said that my fati­gue is not from my thr­yoid as my TSH is per­fect. Nor­mally, I would be lea­ving his office in tears, howe­ver, I am awai­ting an appoint­ment with a doc­tor who does presc­ribe Armour and I am hoping that is the ans­wer for me too. My endo did howe­ver, agree to give me a lab requi­si­tion for all the blood tests that you recom­mend on this web­site. I have reques­ted a copy be faxed to me (so I can bring it to my new doc­tor!) Keep up the great work on this web­site! Jen

  31. Deanna Tacderas said:

    Jul 09, 07 at 7:26 am

    Hello! I was diag­no­sed with hypothy­roi­di­sim about 5 weeks ago. Lab values have retur­ned to “nor­mal”, but still feel like you know what! Loo­king back, I star­ted having symp­toms fall 06, but lab values were “nor­mal” then, so I was not diag­no­sed til my lab results were out of wack! So…this web­site is really hel­ping me! My hus­band and I are both nur­ses and he is wor­king on a master’s as a nurse prac­ti­cio­ner! Thanks so much

  32. biff said:

    Aug 03, 08 at 11:01 pm

    Hi Janie:
    It’s our, the hypothy­roid population’s luck, that you’ve not only sur­vi­ved being hypo, but you’ve per­sis­ted in unders­tan­ding thy­roid disease, and indo­mi­tably fought thru: Doc/Dogma!

    Since the fall of 2007, I’ve been accu­mu­la­ting info re: CSN type (sleep patho­lo­gies desc­ri­bed as various forms of insom­nia) Disordered/Unrestorative sleep.

    (Even) The medi­cal “pro­fes­sion” (esp. since: 2007/08) is now ack­now­led­ging that Non-Restorative Sleep may be a sig­ni­fi­cant pre-morbidity for MANY health patho­lo­gies: Endoc­rine, Car­dio­vas­cu­lar, Men­tal, Beha­vio­ral, and so on.

    I won­der: is hypothy­roi­dism a pre/co/ or post-morbidity of Disordered/Unrestorative sleep (esp.: CNS type)?

    Iro­ni­cally 4x more medi­cal resour­ces are pou­red into OSA as oppo­sed to CNS, Disor­de­red Sleep. Hope­fully CNS Disor­de­red Sleep will get the same resource allo­ca­tion as OSA.

    I won­der if you or any other STTM con­tri­bu­tors might be fami­liar with the new high pro­file role Non-Restorative Sleep plays in human patho­logy, esp. hypothyroidism?

    Good luck to us all in our effort to survive.

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