I once cracked open an egg to find it had TWO shells.  And that oddity is equivalent to finding an Endocrinologist who supports the use of natural desiccated thyroid. 

Voila!! ~~ you can listen and talk to an Endo who does just that on this Thursday evening’s popular THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL on TalkShoe.

His name is Dr. Gary Pepper, Board Certified by the American Boards of Internal Medicine, and Endocrinology and Metabolism and editor-in-chief of metabolism.com.  Besides serving many years in distinguished leadership positions, he was selected as one of the top 100 physicians in New York City by New York Magazine and is also a featured expert with CNBC and ivillage on topics of diabetes and endocrinology. He states:  Almost daily I reread the words of Sir William Osler: “It’s often more important to know what sort of person this disease has than to know what disease the person has.”

i.e. this is one of a rare but growing breed of doctors who supports what we as thyroid patients already know–that desiccated thyroid is a five-star hypothyroid treatment and T4-only is about as effective as a doughnut diet for most. And lo and behold,  Dr. Pepper is an Endocrinologist! Of course, I can give no guarantees how he is as a doctor in his own office, but I do appreciate his understanding that T4-only treatment may not be the best way to treat hypo.

Join us this Thursday evening, 6 pm Pacific, 7 pm Mountain, 8 pm Central and 9 pm Eastern by clicking on the first link above titled Thyroid Patient Community Call.  When on that page, you’ll also see the exact day and time left before the call. You’ll be able to listen to the call right on your computer, or you can dial in and listen on your phone. There is also an option to talk one-on-one live with Dr. Pepper and Janie.

And remember: neither I or Dr. Pepper can offer personal medical advice or provide individual specific counseling. Those are between you and your personal physician.

***P.S.  PharmaTimes this month reported that this quarter’s sales of  Synthroid (levothyroxine) were up 3.7% to $134 million by Abbott Labs. Sad for most of those patients. If you know of someone who has been put on a T4 med, send them here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/t4-only-meds-dont-work or to the audio page here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/audio-shorts (third one down).

*Want to be infor­med of these ‘fringe web­site’ blog posts?  Curious what’s on radi­cal Janie’s mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left below the links.

* The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! I love sales!

* Pre­fer STTM in book form with more detail? You can read about it here.

*Need options for thy­roid treat­ment during the current shor­ta­ges due to demand being grea­ter than supply? Go here.

I recently discovered a very humorous and appropo medical blog on the net, written by a United Kingdom General Practitioner who wisely stays incognito. His blog is called The Jobbing Doctor.

And his most recent and humorously brilliant post is titled Hairy legs are better than blood tests! He describes his occasional confusion when blood tests don’t agree with the patients symptoms.

Says the UK doc: “The textbooks teach that the level of circulating thyroid hormones (which are called T3 and T4) are inversely related to the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). If your T3 and T4 are low, your TSH will be high: this suggests an underactive thyroid gland. If the T3 and T4 are high and the TSH is low, then you have an overactive thyroid gland. That’s easy, huh!”

But his confusion sprang forth when a patient’s labs showed “a highish TSH, T4, and a normal T3.” Yet apparently her symptoms didn’t imply there was any problem, so he chose to do nothing as far as changing her treatment.

A month later at her next appointment, this patient expressed her approval that he didn’t change anything…because her leg hair and eyebrows were coming back.

And his conclusion?  “Pah! Who needs blood tests!”

Jobbing Doctor, you are discovering what thyroid patients have been learning over and over for years: it’s SYMPTOMS (or lack up) which need to pull the cart, NOT labwork. Sure, we love our labwork. They can give clues to areas where our bodies are screaming for help.  But they definitely do NOT tell the whole story.

Look at the ignoramus TSH lab test. Countless patients have walked into their doctors offices with clear and obvious hypothyroid symptoms–and desperate for a diagnosis–yet the ink spot on the office piece of paper called the TSH lab result proclaims they are “normal”. And that dubious “normal” diagnosis can go on for years before it rises high enough to reveal what was already there by SYMPTOMS.

Or, while on thyroid medication, patients will have a lamebrain “normal” TSH lab result, yet will continue to have their own brand and degree of continuing hypothyroid symptoms which the clueless doctor dismisses as an hysteric female interpretation, motherhood, stress, a need for psychological help….or just “something else”. Uh huh.

In fact, Jobber Doctor, patients have learned that when they are optimal (on desiccated thyroid), along with optimal ferritin and cortisol), they will generally have a free T3 in the upper part of the range, and a SUPPRESSED TSH, with no symptoms of hyperthyroidism.  That is general, and there can be some exceptions, but overall, it has spoken volumes to patients on how inadequate thyroid lab tests can be.  i.e. being in the “normal” range—anywhere in the normal range–can be mean squat.

Thanks for a great post,  UK Jobber Doc. And P.S.  Desiccated thyroid is an even better treatment than thyroxine.

*Want to be informed of these blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Just use the Notifications at the bottom left of the links.

I had been wondering what the heck was going on with thyroid patients in the UK after the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) came out with their dim-witted, cuckoo’s- nest February 6th guideline stating that 1) thyroxine was the only medication needed for hypothyroidism, 2) “natural” medications were dangerous and 3) the only labs needed are the TSH and T4.

Equally a part of this B-grade horror movie is the three-stooges stand taken by the British Thyroid Association (BTA).

And UK-TPA thyroid patient advocate Sheila Turner began to go through her own hell when her Armour was taken away, which you can read about in the February 20th blog post here.

And suddenly, I get an email from Sheila, informing me that the RCP is as stupid as they were three months ago.

Sheila states: This is absolutely unbelievable that out of the hundreds of references we sent to the Royal College of Physicians to show their guideline to be flawed, they have taken no account of one single one of them. They are publishing their previous guidance without one since change. The world has gone mad.

Dear Sheila,

Further to my email of 6 April, the comments and materials received by the College have been reviewed. This position statement or guidance (not a guideline) was produced on behalf of the Royal College of Physicians, in particular its Patient and Carer Network and the Joint Specialty Committee for Endocrinology and Diabetes; the Association for Clinical Biochemistry; the Society for Endocrinology; the British Thyroid Association; the British Thyroid Foundation Patient Support Group and the British Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes and is endorsed by The Royal College of General Practitioners.

The President has asked me to let you know that this review has not resulted in any changes to that statement.  It should be noted that it is about the treatment of primary hypothyroidism and does not preclude other treatments for exceptional cases by specialist endocrinologists who can make clear to patients any associated risks.

References supporting the statement are listed below.

Yours sincerely,

Catharine Perry
Administrator

•   Diagnosis and treatment of primary hypothyroidism. BMJ 2009;338:b725
•   Vaidya B, Pearce S. A Clinical Review of the management of hypothyroidism in adults. BMJ 2008;337:a801. This contains references for 35 articles and states that Armour thyroid is of no proved additional benefit to levothyroxine.
• The Lancet Volume 363, Issue 9411, Pages 793 – 803, 6 March 2004.  This covers the history, epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical diagnosis and management of hypothyroidism and is written by Caroline GP Roberts and Paul Ladenson of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA.  This review, which references 164 clinical articles, states that the treatment of choice for hypothyroidism is levothyroxine sodium (thyroxine) and does not refer to Armour thyroid.
•  Baloch Z, Carayon P, Conte-Devolx B, et al. Laboratory medicine practice guidelines. Laboratory support for the diagnosis and monitoring of thyroid disease.Thyroid 2003;13:3-126.
•  Association of Clinical Biochemists BTA, British Thyroid Foundation. UK Guidelines for the use of thyroid function tests. http://acb.org.uk/docs/tftguidelinefinal.pdf
•  Surks MI. Ortiz E, Daniels GH, et al. Subclinical thyroid disease: scientific review and guidelines for diagnosis and management. 2004;291:228-238.

And as your peruse the six references above which they use to defend their tunnel-visioned, moronic position, you realize that YOU, YOUR WORDS, AND YOUR POSITIVE-OUTCOME EXPERIENCE ON DESICCATED THYROID IS ABOUT AS IMPORTANT TO MOST PHYSICIANS & ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UK AS IS DIRT ON THE BOTTOM OF A RUSTED BUCKET IN THE MIDDLE OF A EMPTY FIELD IN NOWHERE. Yup.

Or as Harold Shipman stated about the RCP’s guidelines: What a brilliant wheeze.

*See below on the potential importance of potassium in your health and well-being. And on the May 7th post about the party being over with Forest Pharmaceuticals, comments continue to come in about experiences with the “new” Armour. Have you read the STTM book? Patients are stating they like it even better than this HUGE website. lol.

*Want to be informed of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Notification on the lower left of the links.

1) That the NHS is correct to ban Armour

2) That Armour is a “second drug” that causes harm.

3) That it’s only “fringe” patients who don’t do well on T4

4) That none of the above patients are hypothyroid

5) That they don’t feel well on T4 because of other reasons

6) Therapy is not needed if the TSH is below 10

You know what patients have a fantasy about, Dr. Gutler?? That folks like YOU become hypothyroid and are put on T4. You’ll then have to eat dirt as you see your blood pressure rising, or your cholesterol doing the same, or depression and fatigue setting in, or your adrenals overworking, or weight gain and a host of other continuing symptoms of hypothyroid while on T4. OH WAIT. Those are all due to something else. Gee, let’s put you on anti-depressants, statins, blood pressure meds, pain meds, anti-anxiety meds since those “other” reasons never seem to be fixed.  OH WAIT. They DO get fixed when these same patients are switched to Armour or any other desiccated thyroid, and have addressed their low cortisol or low ferritin thanks to years of undiagnosis or undertreatment with T4.

SHAME ON YOU.

p.s. It’s because of opinions like yours that the Stop the Thyroid Madness book has been sent to patients in over 16 countries, so far. People want to find out the TRUTH.

Update: you can read Sheila’s and UK-TPA’s response here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/uk-tpas-response-to-the-rcp/

See more from Sheila that gives UK patients hope: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/relationship-between-the-RCP-and-MHRA/

Want to be notified of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Notification method to be informed. Look on the bottom left of the links where you can sign up. )

Recently, after we watched a semi-scary movie about being suckered, a friend brought up my blog post of last July where I described a terrifyingly-real horror movie.

The plot: stunningly convince hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide that what is obvious, isn’t. i.e. it’s all in your head, you are adequately treated on Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, Norton, et al,  and not only that, we’ll bandaid your continuing problems with more medications.

A second plot: also completely hoodwink those with top notch higher medical educations and experience by churning out the the exact same poppycock, and reward their stupidity with gifts.

The central villian: Big Pharma, followed by the doctors who bought the lie

Exactly a year ago this month, Science Daily came out with an article, citing two York University researchers who estimated that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim. In other words, the researchers estimated that $57.5 billion in US dollars was spent on pharmaceutical promotion in 2004–the year they were studying. Yes, I said BILLION.

Breaking that down, Big Pharma spent approximately $61,000 per physician in promotion of their products.  And they concluded that both figures were UNDERestimates.  In other words, they concluded that the US pharmaceutical industry is marketing-driven rather than “life-saving”.

And adding fuel to the fire: most doctors believe every thrust of that marketing. I recently participated in comments with other wonderful patients in response to a DO/Endocrinologist, Dr. Thomas Repas, who has clearly bought the Big Pharma marketing when it comes to levothyroxine. You can read his posts and our comments here, here, and here.   Dr. Repas is exactly the kind of doctor who has  starred in our horror movie, and the kind of doctor that patients have lamented about for years.  Read the  Give Me a Break list of comments made by doctors, as well as further comments on the January 1st blog.

But Dr. Repas is in good company. Doctors have believed the Big Pharma lie about T4-only medications, and against desiccated thyroid like Armour, Naturethroid, etc. for 50 years.  In the patient-to-patient  Stop the Thyroid Madness book, you can read about the first tableting of Synthroid in 1955 and the strategic and successful promotion of T4-only, in spite of the fact that T4 was known to be unstable for decades.

And today, more than 50 years later, very few of us have been untouched by the Big Pharma push for levothyroxine T4-only treatment.  My own mother was suckered, and I was suckered.  And until patients started to make a huge push for desiccated thyroid treatment the last few years, nearly every single doctor around the world had been suckered.

We still have a way to go. But we’ll get there, bit by bit.

Here’s raising our New Year’s stemmed glasses to change!

15) I’ll see you in eight weeks.
14) Here’s a script for [insert any non-thyroid medication to bandaid continuing hypo symptom]
13) The free T3 lab test is not necessary.
12) Your symptoms do not warrant a thyroid medication.
11) You’re tired because you are [insert any label like "a mother" "menopausal", etc]
10) That has nothing to do with your thyroid.
9) I can find nothing wrong with you.
8 ) You need to eat less and exercise more.
7) Your TSH is too low.
6) The TSH test is [insert any positive description, like "a reliable marker" or "sensitive measure"]
5) I do not believe in Armour.
4) Armour is [insert any negative adjective/description like "unstable" or "hard to regulate"]
3) You’re depressed.
2) You are hyper.

….and tah-dah, the #1 most annoying phrase that comes out of the mouth of a doctor:

1) You are normal.

And a slew of thyroid patients around the world, as well as a growing body of doctors,  would completely disagree with this post.

Namely, a DO explains the problem of patients arriving in doctors offices with “innumerable possible symptoms of hypothyroidism” including “fatigue, cold intolerance, decreased energy, weight gain, depression, hair loss, low libido, menstrual irregularity and others.”

Yet, he bemoans, these patients have a “normal TSH” which is “well within the normal laboratory reference range.” He also refers to their normal free T3 and free T4, and states there is no history to suggest pituitary dysfunction or that the TSH is unreliable.”

He then proceeds to pat himself on the back because he 1) will treat some patients with a high-normal TSH and other clinical features,  2) he will treat to a low-normal TSH of less than 2.0, but like the good-boy-doctor, “still within the normal laboratory reference range” and 3) he will not induce iatrogenic hyperthyroidism, even if symptoms persist. (yikes)

“Iatrogenic hyperthyroidism”??  Since “iatrogenesis” refers to harmful medical procedures, he’s probably referring to a TSH below the range, which in his mind, equates to hyperthyroidism.

***Then comes the observation that has made many thyroid patients shiver, since so many doctors have said it: because he feels that adding T3 to T4 has more negative results than positive, he explains to his patients “that there may be causes of their symptoms besides the thyroid.”

THUD.

So here is my 6-point response to any doctor who might share these beliefs:

1) There’s hardly a thyroid patient around who hasn’t had a so-called “normal” TSH in spite of clear and obvious hypothyroidism.  The TSH lab test frequently lags behind what is reality in the body, and has been doing so since it’s creation in the early 1970’s (see Chapter 4 in the Stop the Thyroid Madness book for history).

2) Having a “normal” free T3 and free T4 means nothing. It’s “where” the result falls in that range that means something. i.e. patients all around the world are noticing that having a free T3 mid-range or lower in the presence of hypothyroid symptoms is usually a BINGO lab result pointing to hypothyroidism.

3) Exactly because doctors tend to dismiss clear hypothyroid symptoms as “something else” thanks to a lousy TSH reference range, a burgeoning number of thyroid patients are falling into adrenal fatigue with its low cortisol, which serves to mess them up even more.

4) A huge body of thyroid patients who are on desiccated thyroid hormones (aka Armour, Naturethroid, etc), and who finally have a complete removal of symptoms with a normal temperature and heartrate, also have a suppressed TSH lab result, and not one iota of “iatrogenic hyperthyroidism.”

5) When it appears that adding T3 to T4 is having negative effects, the problem is most likely adrenal fatigue that needs correction, and/or low ferritin, NOT deciding that the symptoms must be from another cause or T3 doesn’t work.

6) “Fatigue, cold intolerance, decreased energy, weight gain, depression, hair loss, low libido, menstrual irregularity and others” may be shared in other conditions, but you are most likely missing CLEAR symptoms of hypothyroidism, both in the undiagnosed patient with a so-called normal TSH, or with a patient treated with the lousy thyroxine, which leaves most everyone with continuing hypothyroid symptoms.

“I’m sorry. It IS your thyroid” is exactly what patients need to hear.

]]> http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2008/12/30/doctors-have-a-long-way-to-go/feed/ 0 http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2008/11/19/dr-walsh/ http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2008/11/19/dr-walsh/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:13:47 +0000 Janie http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/?p=729 My mouth just fell open last night.

Apparently, in December of 2002, an Australian doctor named JP Walsh (Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes of Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands, Western Australia), and an Endocrinologist to boot, wrote an most interesting article in the journal Current Opinion in Pharmacology.

This incredibly stunning article was titled Dissatisfaction with thyroxine therapy — could the patients be right?

The abstract states:

In some patients with hypothyroidism, symptoms of ill health persist despite thyroxine treatment. It is unclear whether this arises from comorbidity or because standard thyroxine replacement is in some way inadequate for some individuals. Some patients feel better if they take a slightly excessive dose of thyroxine, but this carries a potential risk of adverse cardiac and skeletal effects. There are conflicting data on whether combined thyroxine/triiodothyronine treatment is preferable to thyroxine alone in dissatisfied patients

I am unable to read the full article, as it is required that you pay a sum I don’t have. But you definitely get the impression that this doctor was on the cusp of figuring out what we have known solidly all along.  Because Dr. Walsh, the patients WERE right, and still are.  Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, levothyroxine and all other T4-only medications suck, and have sucked for a long, long time.  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/t4-only-meds-dont-work and  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/long-and-pathetic

I so hope to be able to contact Dr. Walsh.  Do you know him?  Because he and I need to have a long talk.

Janie

p.s. Thank you Gerry.

Diane, a thyroid and adrenal patient, informed me of a recent visit to a local Endocrinologist.  The doc stated that she was on a committee that is working with the FDA to do away with saliva testing, strongly proposing that it’s not accurate testing and is “harming” people.

Well, let’s see. For a couple of years now, thyroid patients who strongly suspect they have adrenal fatigue by the reactions they have to desiccated thyroid have been using saliva testing…and lo and behold,  the results they receive nearly completely conform with how they feel! i.e. saliva testing, which tests one’s cortisol levels at four key times during a 24 hour period,  has worked beautifully in helping thyroid patients with adrenal fatigue identify their problem, in helping these patients doctors have a better understanding of their problem, and knowing better what might be their best treatment, which can range from using licorice root, to over-the-counter adrenal support, to hydrocortisone (HC).

Harmful?? Give me a break. (And why are we not surprised this is coming out of the mouth of an Endocrinologist.)

Could it be that medical school trained doctors just hate and despise any method which a patient might benefit from WITHOUT going to the doctor and paying big bucks??  hmmmm.  And once again, could it be that a method NOT taught in medical school just MIGHT be a good one (just as desiccated thyroid like Armour, Naturethroid, etc. is far, far better than Synthroid or Levoxyl, which ARE taught in medical school)?

The FDA approved saliva testing for AIDS in 2005. They approved saliva testing for ovulation in 2003. They approved saliva testing to detect if a woman is going into premature labor in 1998. And there’s many more they have approved.  So…perhaps this is all a gasp of a committee who hates to see patients have some control over their health (terrible, awful thing, isn’t it?) or the cry of a committee that only reveals its ignorance.

p.s. Dr. Best of San Antonio recently posted the following excellent article on saliva testing: http://besthealthandwellnessinfo.com/hormone-testing-i-spit-on-your-blood-test/

HO! HO! HO! Laughing Grape Publishing will send the STTM book for you to a loved one or friend for the holidays!

Adipex and Adderol are both central nervous system stimulants, and I can’t comment one way or the other. But the mention of Armour thyroid as “not indicated” is potentially worrisome, especially with similar disciplinary actions brought upon well-liked and wise doctors like Peatfield and Skinner of the UK, Derry of Canada, and  Springer in the US–all who dared to make obvious symptoms more important than ink spots on a piece of paper.

Take Kymm, a 45 year old woman.  She has manifested hypothyroid symptoms for 15 years since the birth of her daughter.  Yet during those entire 15 years, her TSH lab result has been completely “normal”…i.e. hypothyroidism has never been “indicated” based on the typical and widespread gold standard of diagnosis: the TSH.  But she has never, ever been normal with 15 years of easy weight gain, chronic depression, thinning hair, rising cholesterol, and other clear hypothyroid symptoms. And she has in fact started on Armour…and is soaring.

Kymm is not an oddity.  Thyroid patients on internet groups report going years with a normal TSH, no diagnosis, yet clear symptoms which are ignored by their TSH-obsessed doctors.   So their doctors may have avoided disciplinary action, but did they truly practise the art and science of healing??