• Around the world

In the maga­zine India Today, it’s esti­ma­ted that there are at least forty million indi­vi­duals with thy­roid disease, accor­ding to Dr. Gana­pathi Bant­wal, faculty mem­ber of the Indian Thy­roid Society (ITS) and Pro­fes­sor and Head of Depart­ment of Endoc­ri­no­logy, St John’s Medi­cal College, Bangalore.

He adds that most are women, and most hypothy­roi­dism is occu­rring after the birth of a baby, called post­par­tum hypothyroidism.

The Indian Thy­roid Society wants to observe January 2009 as Think Thy­roid Month with experts calling  thy­roid rela­ted disor­ders as the next dia­be­tes to affect the nearly forty million Indians.

A side note from Janie: Sadly, when you visit the web­site of the Indian Thy­roid Society (which by the way was crea­ted by the Depart­ment of Endoc­ri­no­logy at Amrita Ins­ti­tute of Medi­cal Scien­ces in India), there is a flashing ad on most pages for thy­ro­xine called Thy­ro­norm. And guess who makes “Thy­ro­norm”? Abbott Labs in India, the same phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in the US which pro­du­ces Synth­roid.  Anyone hear the theme song from Twi­light Zone pla­ying in the background??

A thy­roid patient from the UK, and a mem­ber of Thy­roid UK, remin­ded me of the ongoing tra­vesty in the UK con­cer­ning the TSH lab test. And I thought it was worth revi­si­ting due to its extreme absur­dity. Quo­ting from www.brf-thyroid under FAQ, then Hypothy­roi­dism, then Treatment:

The most sen­si­tive indi­ca­tor of deve­lo­ping hypothy­roi­dism is a rise in the TSH result. Gene­rally a TSH result of <5 is regar­ded as bioche­mi­cally ‘nor­mal’, a result of 5 – 10 is bor­der­line and a result of >10 (in a patient who is not acu­tely ill) is regar­ded as con­sis­tent with hypothy­roi­dism. The bioche­mi­cal results have to be con­si­de­red along side cli­ni­cal symp­toms, and together they deter­mine the point at which the phy­si­cian will intro­duce Thy­ro­xine therapy.

Yikes. 5 – 10 is only BORDERLINE hypo?? What pla­net to they live on?? I have come across MANY thy­roid patients on inter­net groups who have had a TSH below 3 with RAGING hypothy­roi­dism, and for YEARS being told they were nor­mal. Never, ever has the TSH been a “sen­si­tive” indi­ca­tor until it finally rises enough to reveal it.…but that can be YEARS in the making, and the patient is now living with adre­nal fati­gue to further com­pli­cate their ongoing hypothy­roid con­di­tion. The TSH lab test does NOT work.

Then from http://www.british-thyroid-association.org/Guidelines/, and down­loa­ding the 2006 final ver­sion of the UK gui­de­li­nes for the Use of Thy­roid Func­tion Tests , and rea­ding 3.2.2, comes this:

The deci­sion on treat­ment of patients with subc­li­ni­cal hypothy­roi­dism should be gui­ded by repea­ted TSH mea­su­re­ments. When TSH is ele­va­ted but <10 mU/L there is no con­sis­tent evi­dence of an asso­cia­tion with symp­toms, secon­dary bioche­mi­cal abnor­ma­li­ties (hyper­li­pi­dae­mia), car­diac dys­func­tion or car­diac events.

No con­sis­tent evi­dence of an asso­cia­tion with symp­toms?? Then what ARE those symp­toms that thy­roid patients have expe­rien­ced over and over and over, even with a TSH as low as the 2’s??? And repea­ted TSH mea­su­re­ments?? There is a huge body of thy­roid patients across the world who have had years of a NORMAL TSH yet raging hypothy­roid symptoms.

They also add:
There is evi­dence of impro­ve­ment in the lipid pro­file and symp­toms when patients with modestly rai­sed TSH (mean 11.7mU/L) were ren­de­red euthy­roid with thyroxine

Calling anyone “euthy­roid” (nor­mal thyroid-wise) on a T4 med, with an ave­rage TSH of 11, is so laugha­ble that it stands on its humo­rous own.

The Dark Ages per­sist in the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism. What a sha­me­ful, blind-sighted tra­vesty! Are you from the UK and dea­ling with the back­ward­ness? Talk to us by repl­ying to this blog (and be patient – com­ments don’t always show up quickly.).

It would make an inc­re­di­ble horror movie. The plot: stun­ningly con­vince at least hun­dreds of millions of indi­vi­duals world­wide that what has always been obvious, isn’t. That lea­ves only look green because of alien fil­ters in your eyes. That ripe apples fall because water pulls them down. That fire doesn’t really burn your skin; it’s just your imagination.

And about hun­dred more schi­zoph­re­nic ying yangs. Because if those in autho­rity say so, it must be so.

But the horror movie is a rea­lity, and I see it EVERY TIME I come into con­tact with peo­ple and the sub­ject of my thy­roid advo­cacy comes up.

Like today. A cou­ple saw my book and struck up a con­ver­sa­tion. She was on Synth­roid; he was on Levoxyl. They had each been on their T4-only treat­ment for 12 and 14 years res­pec­ti­vely, felt their hypo was per­fectly trea­ted, belie­ved their doctors…and were now dea­ling with other pro­blems: his rising cho­les­te­rol, her depres­sion, his fati­gue, and her weight gain. BUT OF COURSE, THOSE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR T4-ONLY TREATED HYPOTHYROID AND SOME OF IT IS THEIR OWN FAULT…leaves aren’t really green, water makes ripe apples fall, and fire doesn’t really burn.

It just struck me. And it’s struck me before. There’s just a LOT of SILENT SUCKERS wal­king around. I was one; my mother was one; and there are obviously millions out there, still wal­king around trying to live with the side effects of a treat­ment that their doc­tors say are NOT cau­sed by their thyroid.

Sad.

(Has your cho­les­te­rol and other lipids impro­ved since you switched to Armour and rai­sed without using the TSH? Your story of suc­cess is wel­come on the blog post below!)

Have you ever had someone say something in JUST a way that it hits you bet­ween the eyes?? That’s what Diane did to me. She’s a thy­roid and adre­nal patient, and we were dis­cus­sing the way a huge medi­cal web­site still gives out back­wards and harm­ful thy­roid treat­ment infor­ma­tion, telling patients to “raise their Synth­roid” to coun­ter their con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms (which doesn’t work), or pro­noun­cing that because their TSH is “nor­mal”, those symp­toms are not rela­ted to hypothy­roid (they are.) This huge web­site has kept patients sick for YEARS, and is one of the main rea­sons I crea­ted STTM!

And Diane said to me “Somehow the true mes­sage needs to get into the main stream.”

Boink! That just hit me squa­rely bet­ween the eyes! Sure, I’ve been saying the same in a dif­fe­rent way for years – that our mes­sage needs to get out. But when Diane men­tio­ned the “mains­tream”, it hit me.

Here we are, vic­tims of a medi­cal scan­dal which has been going on for 50 years, and which has effec­ted HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS all that time. Some of those vic­tims are dead; and many more are still alive, with new vic­tims hap­pe­ning DAILY. Yet, the “mains­tream media” has never taken the time or inte­rest to report on this. HUHHH??

Wiki­pe­dia defi­nes the mains­tream media as the sec­tion of the media spe­ci­fi­cally envi­sio­ned and desig­ned to reach a very large audience, and that might inc­lude tele­vi­sion, radio, news­pa­pers and maga­zi­nes. Yet, what do you see on any of those mediums? You see the regur­gi­ta­tion of the old-boy, Poll­yanna methods of hypothy­roid diag­no­sis and treat­ment – the use of the TSH and total T4, plus T4-only meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, et al. And if there is men­tion of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, it’s bare. YAWN.

Some pun­dants feel that there is a form of lite­rary cen­sorship going on in the main media…i.e. if it’s not sen­sa­tio­nal, for­get it. Others will cite bias and mani­pu­la­tion by those that report, espe­cially in the poli­ti­cal arena.

But what I lean to believe is that there’s a monkey-see, monkey-do men­ta­lity in the media. Namely, the mains­tream media lazily con­forms itself to the lou­dest, lon­gest or most financially-influential voice. And who’s had that voice in the thy­roid treat­ment arena?? The money-grubbing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, who thrust billions of dollars into medi­cal schools, besi­des their bright-eyed reps, to even­tually con­vince every doc­tor since the early 1960’s that the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions (Synth­roid, Levoxyl, et al), and the dubious TSH lab tests, are from God Almighty.

So, that lie keeps being repea­ted, ad nau­seum, and the TRUTH, which comes from every­day patients all around the world, gets igno­red by the mains­tream media. Thus, millions out there still sit, mise­ra­ble or com­pro­mi­sed in their day-to-day lives, and on a myriad of other pills to coun­ter the lin­ge­ring symptoms…because their main con­tact with the world – the mains­tream media – is deaf and dumb – and they have not yet found Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, and may not for years!

So.…what can YOU do?? Con­tact the mains­tream media. SCREAM at the mains­tream media. DOG the mains­tream media. I have wor­ked hard to put YOUR truth up here and in the book. You can help by sprea­ding that word, one by one, like the Lilli­pu­tians who moved the giant.

*To con­tact ABC, go here.
*To con­tact MSNBC, go here or email Health@MSNBC.com
*To con­tact CBS, go here. Use the drop down menu to click on a news pro­gram
*To con­tact Fox News, go here.
*To con­tact CNN, go here.
*The top 20 Women’s maga­zi­nes are here.

Want to add more emails or web­site URL’s for con­tact? Just add a com­ment to this post below.

**Patients are repor­ting that the STTM book is even bet­ter than the web­site! Yeehaw! To order your copy, go to the publishing web­site here. There are also options to order one for your doc­tor, and one for Oprah!