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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.

Oh jolly.

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!

I was infor­med today that a very popu­lar and well-liked doc­tor in Texas, who treats many hypothy­roid patients, was dis­ci­pli­ned recently.  And for what?  Under the column tit­led NONTHERAPEUTIC PRESCRIBING, it sta­tes:  The action was based on Dr. Lau­nius’ presc­ri­bing Adi­pex, Adde­ral and Armour Thy­roid to patients when such medi­ca­tions were not indi­ca­ted. www.tmb.state.tx.us/news/press/2008/101608a.php

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??

I called Rhea on the phone today.

Ear­lier today, Rhea was in the one-operator beauty salon at the same time as my 90 year old mother-in-law: one get­ting her gray hair dried while the other got her gra­yer tres­ses rolled. And as con­ver­sa­tions go in beauty salons, it tur­ned to per­so­nal topics (which can range from one’s mari­tal hap­pi­ness to whether Mrytle’s boobs are real or expan­ded.) And one of those topics was about Rhea’s hypothy­roi­dism as well as her daughter’s.

And of course, my very doting mother-in-law men­tions the STTM book writ­ten by her daughter-in-law, Janie, and hands her a copy from the car. Long story short…Rhea wants me to call her.

The phone con­ver­sa­tion went into the fact that she used to be on Armour, but then lis­te­ned to a local doc­tor seve­ral years later who switched her to Synth­roid – “a far more sta­ble medi­ca­tion”. (not) Since she switched, she says she’s felt terri­ble for years, and has recently retur­ned to Armour, and with the vast infor­ma­tion in the book, unders­tood now how she nee­ded to raise.

And then came the shoc­ker: THE DOCTOR WHO PUT HER ON ARMOUR WAS BRODA BARNES.

My eyes got as big as fiesta din­ner pla­tes and I exc­lai­med “THE Broda Bar­nes??” “Yes,” she replied. “I saw him in Love­land, Colo­rado and he was a dar­ling man.” She pro­cee­ded to tell me that when doc­tors ente­red the room back then, you stood. And she remem­bers his wife being there, and being just as sweet as he. She reca­lled him saying that when he was in medi­cal school, he was disap­poin­ted when the pro­fes­sor assig­ned him to study the thy­roid gland. “Such a little puny gland”, he thought. “But today, 50 years later, I still have so much to learn about that little gland.”

For those who don’t know the name of Broda Bar­nes, he was the father of the desic­ca­ted thy­roid move­ment and an autho­rity on the thy­roid. Even back then, he knew of the supe­rio­rity of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment like Armour, and presc­ri­bed it. He also wrote the clas­sic Hypothy­roi­dism: The Unsus­pec­ted Ill­ness. His book and legacy kept the idea of Armour and desic­ca­ted thy­roid alive all these years later when we, as patients, were paying attention.

Rhea is now up to 4 grains Armour and fee­ling much bet­ter, and may have to go a little higher before she’s opti­mal. Thank you, Rhea, for giving me and anyone rea­ding this a little peek into the won­der­ful Broda Barnes.

Star­ted with a new doc. He presc­ri­bes Armour and is rea­ding the STTM book. That lat­ter in itself is an eye-popping miracle.

And…as we were going over my exten­sive lab­work, which he does for new patients, and as I was lamen­ting the way too many doc­tors put their patients on the lousy sta­tins (when all they need to do is treat hypo CORRECTLY), he sta­ted, with a sigh of dis­may and humi­lity, something to the effect of: We doc­tors are simply too busy to keep up with the latest good infor­ma­tion that patients are fin­ding out far ahead of us.

I nearly fell off my chair!! He was honestly and hum­bling admit­ting that patients are fin­ding out good infor­ma­tion far ahead of doc­tors! i.e. he was NOT dis­sing the inter­net; he was NOT dis­sing that a patient could actually be more infor­med than him; he was not dis­sing infor­ma­tion that goes against the Big Pharma Con Job .

This doc is a keeper.

p.s. Think your doc is open-minded enough to read the STTM book?? You can have the publishing com­pany send one directly to your doc­tor. Click on the SEND A BOOK TO YOUR DOCTOR.