Thyroid problems have become rampant.
And it’s not just in the US with individuals like Oprah, fitness guru Jillian Michaels, Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall, George and Barbara Bush, Kelly Osbourne and others. A recent article in the Daily Mail-UK highlights the saga of Clare Balding, the BBC TV sports presenter in the UK whose thyroid was gladly removed due to a malignant tumor.
Even the gal who wrote the well-written article about Clare, Pippa Jolly, reports having gone through the same removal 13 years previous due to an extreme case of Hashimotos and a nodule pressing against her trachea.
But within the informative and hopeful tone of the article are a few Rodney Dangerfield thuds of the continuing SCANDAL and idiocy of a particular thyroid treatment which even the most innocent of article writers can be fooled.
Thud #1: The very first sentence of the article says: Some good news for Clare Balding, the BBC TV sports presenter, is that her recent operation to remove her cancerous thyroid gland — a thyroidectomy — should be the end of the matter.
End of the matter? Only if she had been put on desiccated thyroid like Naturethroid, et al. Because it appears she’s on the delightfully enchanting synthetic “thyroxine”, the darling of most UK doctors and which serves to leave almost everyone with their own brand and intensity of continuing hypothyroid symptoms. You can listen to my audio here about T4.
Thud #2: Diagnostic rates are on the increase, says Professor Monson, as thyroid tests are now done routinely at GP surgeries. ‘As a result there is a higher detection rate and the disease can be tackled earlier and if necessary followed up by surgery.
Right. Those increasing diagnostic rates, some which are based on the lousy TSH lab test, are overridingly catching someone’s hypothyroid state years after it started, which leaves a certain percentage with the misery of adrenal insufficiency and host of other problems from being undiagnosed so long. And if one is treated after surgery based on the same holy TSH, you will only continue to have your brand of continuing symptoms. You can listen to my audio on the TSH here.
Thud #3: If the thyroid is removed or not functioning properly, thyroxine will need to be taken in drug form for life.
You and millions of others have been hoodwinked into thinking it’s thyroxine you will need the rest of your life, aka Eltroxine, Synthroid, or levothyroxine, et al. But those T4 meds force you to depend on conversion alone, a process not well done in many, and you miss out on what natural desiccated thyroid would be giving you as a much wiser treatment–exactly what your own thyroid gives: direct T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin. Or even at the VERY least, giving yourself synthetic T4 with synthetic T3.
Thud #4: Now I have to have my hormone levels checked every three months and make sure I take my medication, but otherwise I feel fine.
I completely believe Pippa when she says she feels fine. But I want to warn her: some CAN feel fine on a T4-only medication, but eventually and especially as she ages, she’s going to have to watch out for those pesky little demons of being on an inferior, inadequate medication, which can include rising cholesterol, chronic low-grade depression, rising high blood pressure, or a host of other symptoms which are individual to each person on thyroxine.
Here’s hoping Clare and Pippa join the growing body of patients all over the world whose lives are being changed thanks to natural desiccated thyroid.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 and is filed under Celebrities with hypothyroidism, t4, thyroid cancer, thyroxine, uk. 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.
Marianne said:
Jun 02, 09 at 5:06 amAnother celebrity with thyroid disease in the UK is Melissa Porter. She is a patron of the British Thyroid Foundation (Yikes) See here: http://www.melissa-porter.com/charities.html
ibeji said:
Jun 16, 09 at 6:03 amDear Janie, you wrote: “and you miss out on what natural desiccated thyroid would be giving you as a much wiser treatment – exactly what your own thyroid gives: direct T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin”.
Just for the sake of completeness:
Calcitonin is produced by the parathyroid gland(s) — usually four small knobs sitting somewhere on top of your thyroid gland, in principle a gland totally of its own, and separate in function from the thyroid. At a thyroidectomy (e.g. for Graves’ disease), it is CRUCIAL to leave those tiny little knobs in place (or to attach them somewhere else), otherwise you’ll get serious troubles with your bones (and calcium metabolism).
What your thyroid produces and natural desiccated thyroid preparations also contain is Thyroglobulin, or TG for short. This is a long protein which contains molecules of T3 and T4. When broken down, this protein releases T3 and T4. It is believed that the TG in natural desiccated thyroid preparations is responsible for their excellent effects lasting over 24 hours, similar in effect to a time-release capsule. As a matter of fact, T3 has only a half-life of about 7 hours (or less) in the blood. You can feel the difference when you take synthetic T3+T4 or T3 only preparations.
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From Janie: Actually, from what I’ve read, calcitonin is made in the parafollicular cells “of the thyroid”, i.e. in the middle of the lateral lobes. Whereas the parathyroid is making “parathyroid hormones” aka PTH, not calcitonin. And with both having the same kind of receptors, the calcitonin of the thyroid and the parathyroid hormones work together to create an equilibrium between calcium and phosphorus, as well the health of our bones. i.e working together, they help the release of calcium from the bones, they reabsorb calcium from the kidney, and absorb calcium from the intestines via Vit. D.
But that’s interesting about Thyroglobulin and I’ll have to do more study on that.
ibeji said:
Jun 16, 09 at 9:16 amOops, you are right on calcitonin. I confounded things. Sorry!
I am still a bit hazy in my mind these days. I just came back from holidays were I lost my Growth Hormone (GH) due to the airco (according to my thermometer the GH in my little mobile fridge reached –0.8 °C, i.e., it got frozen, because my fridge has no regulation, it just refrigerates its contents to about 20 °C below ambient temperature). I had no replacement and injected the dull substance in the hopes that the freezing point was lower than that, due to the alcohol in the solvent.
But it turned out to be without any effect, and I had a bad time: I was exhausted all the time, longing to only sleep, and got headaches which grew worse slowly every day. After 6 days I finally got home and used a fresh package: The headaches disappeared immediately and also all the other symptoms.
Even though I do not seem to have a full replacement dose: I am injecting just 0,2 mg (= 200 µg) per day.
What do we learn from this? Never believe it when a doctor tells you you can just stop a hormone medication without tapering it off (a doctor actually told me this back in 2007 when he wanted me to stop all medication in order to conduct a stimulation test with pituitary hormones — which I didn’t do, at the time, and which I am now in the privileged position to see as a wise decision, in hindsight!).