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!).

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.