• About this site

Whew.

I go away for a few days on busi­ness, and when I get back, I find out that the site has been down the entire time! Turns out that the Domain name had expi­red, and noti­ces of its impen­ding expi­ra­tion were being sent to an old, non-existent email address. Thus, I got no war­nings and had no idea the domain name was about to expire. But we are back up…and they have my correct email address.

And by the posts of alarm by thy­roid patients on seve­ral yahoo groups, one thing sure stood out: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT WEBSITE for thy­roid patients. The infor­ma­tion com­pi­led here was sorely missed!

Why was it mis­sed? Because the infor­ma­tion on STTM is ground-breaking, by patients and for patients. It reflects the hard-earned, tough-learned know­ledge of YOU against deca­des of a thy­roid treat­ment THAT HAS BEEN AND IS WRONG and HAS KEPT THYROID PATIENTS SICK!!

Equally as impor­tant, STTM gives ground-breaking infor­ma­tion on the com­mon con­di­tion of adre­nal fati­gue and how to treat it. There is now a gro­wing body of thy­roid patients who have suc­cess­fully wea­ned off their HC thanks to the infor­ma­tion pre­sen­ted here!

Second, I dis­co­ve­red via a few emails that there are some VERY gene­rous and kind thy­roid patients out there. One gal thought that something had gone finan­cially wrong, and she offe­red to com­ple­tely host the site and work on it accor­ding to my direc­tion. HOW NICE!!

But do know that everything WILL be paid for (and espe­cially now that they have the correct email. lol) You can also be a part of the cost by con­tri­bu­ting to the web hos­ting. See the HOSTING DONATIONS ACCEPTED but­ton at the bot­tom of each page, or go here. That dona­tions allows YOU to be a part of this impor­tant infor­ma­tion revo­lu­tion for thy­roid patients, besi­des hel­ping me as the indi­vi­dual who owns this site and doesn’t have a rich uncle.

And I think I will beat the dead horse in a new post above this one…in a few days.

I have wai­ted to post again on my blog until the forums became offi­cially clo­sed, and today is that day. To read the full story, go here. And after you read that, you can rest assu­red! I have repla­ced the forums link, which was on the left side of any page, with this one, called TALK TO OTHERS. You will see other alter­na­ti­ves, from another forums simi­lar to what we had here (with some of the same mods), to groups that are exce­llent for patient-to-patient infor­ma­tion (and with some of the same mods – lol). Enjoy! And I will add more as I find them – groups that have an exce­llent unders­tan­ding of what thy­roid patients have learned.

Am I sad at the clo­sing? Very. But with me being freed from the res­pon­si­bi­lity of the forums, I now have time for my pri­vate life, AND I have time to do other things for this site, and for thy­roid patient advocacy.

But do NOT think that STTM’s heart has cea­sed to beat simply because our forums are gone!! What pro­pe­lled me to create STTM is still the ENERGY of this web­site: namely, a place to edu­cate patients as to WHY they feel lousy on T4-only meds, why cer­tain lab­work has NOT wor­ked, and other issues that a large body of thy­roid patients have had to face: adre­nal pro­blems. It was also crea­ted to STOP the thy­roid mad­ness of hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients!

You will con­ti­nue to see new artic­les, upda­tes to old ones, and other acti­vity in the future. And by the way, check out the SITE MAP for our new cate­gory: FAQ pages. We have an exce­llent one for adre­nals, another one for hypo­pi­tui­tary, and one coming as I write this…for B-12.

Below is a com­ment made by Ted on the forums on this site, and it expres­ses his appre­cia­tion to the mode­ra­tors who give back their time and infor­ma­tion to other patients.

But what I also see is that it’s pat­ting the back of thou­sands of you whom I observed…and whose expe­rien­ces I used, besi­des my own, to create the energy and mes­sage of this patient site – that T4-only treat­ment has been a disas­ter, that dosing by the TSH and it’s dubious range is mostly a fai­lure, that there are bet­ter labs your doc­tor can use, that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is a bet­ter treat­ment choice, and that many patients have adre­nal fati­gue that needs to be addres­sed by their doctors!

By the way, I can’t believe the veri­ta­ble trea­sure trove of infor­ma­tion on this forum. I’ve lear­ned more about my health sta­tus, and how to deal with it in one month here, than I’ve lear­ned in the last 15 years of searching books and tal­king with doc­tors. It’s hard to argue with all the prac­ti­cal expe­rience and hard-learned les­sons found here, even for a hard-headed reti­red bioche­mist. All you mode­ra­tors are to be con­gra­tu­la­ted for your tire­less energy and willing­ness to lis­ten (and res­pond) to what seems to be an ever-growing num­ber of very sick peo­ple. THANK YOU ALL!!!!!

And oh how I thank Ted back for those won­der­ful words. The very pur­pose of this site, and of those that con­tri­bute, is to edu­cate patients. And it appears to be wor­king! And hope­fully, that edu­ca­tion is being carried to the doctor’s office, and in turn, crea­ting the begin­ning of a MAJOR change in the way hypothy­roid patients are diag­no­sed and trea­ted. It’s long overdue.

Off and on, I hear about a par­ti­cu­lar indi­vi­dual who has cri­ti­ci­zed this site for being a “self-treatment” site. I can only chuc­kle in dis­may at that kind of hollow cri­ti­cism and misin­for­ma­tion. So I want to explain what this site is, and what it is not.

This site is here to tell the world that patients have figu­red out that T4-only treat­ment does NOT work (any­more than an ele­va­tor in a 50 story buil­ding, which only rises to the 5^th floor, “works’), and neither does dosing by the TSH. It is here to tell hypothy­roid patients that they are not crazy for fee­ling awful on thy­ro­xine treat­ment – that their depres­sion, lack of sta­mina com­pa­red to others, cons­ti­pa­tion, dry skin and hair, high cholesterol.…and SO many other symp­toms, is due to a lousy medi­ca­tion and a poor adhe­rance to a bad lab called the TSH and total T4.

Addi­tio­nally, this site is here to tell patients, and hope­fully doc­tors who are willing to lis­ten, what we have lear­ned! We are pas­sing along INFORMATION, which I would say is the MAIN empha­sis of this site.

This site also makes it clear that patients here are only expres­sing opi­nions, and the infor­ma­tion pre­sen­ted is NOT inten­ded to replace the rela­tionship and per­so­nal medi­cal advice bet­ween the patient and his/her doc­tor. It is meant to coun­ter BAD infor­ma­tion out there, and to pro­vide YOU the patient with infor­ma­tion to bring to your doc­tor so you can receive BETTER care.

Addi­tio­nally, this site con­ti­nually refers to the page called HOW TO FIND A GOOD DOC. We want you to find a good doc!

And here’s what we are NOT: we are not a “self-treatment site”. Does that mean that folks who choose to self-treat can’t get good infor­ma­tion here? Nope. They can. Because this is a site of infor­ma­tion to empo­wer thy­roid patients. But this is not a site that pushes patients to self-treat. If anyone uses this infor­ma­tion to self-treat, that is THEIR choice, and is at their OWN risk.

And I will state that I totally unders­tand why some patients turn to self-treatment. They do it because they can’t find a doc­tor who will put them on Armour; or, they can’t find a doc­tor who will pay atten­tion to their screa­ming symp­toms when labs are “nor­mal”; they can’t find a doc­tor who will stop dosing them by the TSH alone: they can’t find a doc­tor who will pay atten­tion to the free T3; they can’t find a doc­tor who unders­tands about slug­gish adrenals.….….and so on. Thy­roid patients are sick and tired of being sick and tired at the hands of par­ti­cu­lar doc­tors who haven’t, and don’t unders­tand what is going on!! And I CANNOT, and WILL NOT, cri­ti­cize that. This site will sup­port those who want to find a doc­tor, and will sup­port those who make the per­so­nal choice to self treat!

So, we are doing our best here to spread the word about a MUCH bet­ter medi­ca­tion and a bet­ter treat­ment for doc­tors to use with their patients, to help patients be MUCH bet­ter infor­med when they enter the door of their doc­tors, and to help patients find a MUCH bet­ter doc­tor through the page men­tio­ned above. Here’s rai­sing my glass to PATIENTS, and to DOCTORS willing to lis­ten, because we have wal­ked a path to a much bet­ter life..and we are hoping you are LISTENING.