• +Audience
• dr. john c. lowe
• tsh

I always know that when I get an email from Dr. John C. Lowe, it’s going to con­tain exce­llent infor­ma­tion. And he didn’t let me down.

Dr. Lowe is Editor-in-Chief of Thy­roid Science, an “open-access jour­nal for truth in thy­roid science and and thy­roid cli­ni­cal prac­tice”.  And in the recent issue, there is a remar­ka­ble and pre­cise TSH (Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hor­mone) hypothe­sis by none other than a bri­lliant UK  elec­tri­cal and elec­tro­nics engi­neer, Mr. Peter War­mingham.  In fact, his hypothe­sis about the TSH lab result when trea­ting one’s hypothy­roi­dism exactly corres­ponds to the suc­cess­ful expe­rience of thy­roid patients all over the world.

To quote Dr. Lowe in his intro­duc­tion about Warmingham’s paper (FYI: “exo­ge­nous” refers to the thy­roid hor­mone you give your­self;  “endo­ge­nous” refers to what hap­pens natu­rally in your body):

Mr. Warmingham’s hypothe­sis is straight­for­ward: When a hypothy­roid patient (whose cir­cu­la­ting pool of thy­roid hor­mone is too low) begins taking exo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone, a nega­tive feed­back sys­tem redu­ces the pitui­tary gland’s out­put of TSH. This dec­rea­ses the thy­roid gland’s out­put of endo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone, and des­pite the patient’s exo­ge­nous thy­roid hormone’s con­tri­bu­tion to his or her total cir­cu­la­ting thy­roid pool, that pool does not inc­rease — not until the TSH is sup­pres­sed and the thy­roid gland is con­tri­bu­ting no more thy­roid hor­mone to the total cir­cu­la­ting pool. At that point, adding more exo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone will finally inc­rease the cir­cu­la­ting pool of thy­roid hor­mone. The inc­rease must occur for thy­roid hor­mone the­rapy to be effec­tive. The patient’s sup­pres­sed TSH, then, does not indi­cate that the patient is over-treated with thy­roid hor­mone; ins­tead, it indi­ca­tes that the patient’s low total thy­roid hor­mone pool will finally rise to poten­tially ade­quate levels.

In other words, when your doc­tor says no to an inc­rease in your desic­ca­ted thy­roid simply because your TSH lab result is, or would become, below the so-called nor­mal range (and in the pre­sence of con­ti­nuing symp­toms or a low tem­pe­ra­ture), he will usually end up kee­ping you hypothy­roid! i.e. making an ink spot on a piece of paper more impor­tant than cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion is just one rea­son why the current thy­roid patient revo­lu­tion repre­sen­ted by Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness exists!

You can read Warmington’s entire paper here on Dr. Lowe’s site. For further infor­ma­tion on the fallacy of the TSH lab test, go here or read Chap­ter 4, aka Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hooey, in your copy of the STTM book for more detail.

P.S. Dr. Lowe is pro­bably right on when he says he expects cri­ti­cism to flow for the fact that War­ming­ton is not an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist and “how in the world can any­body but an Endo make a logi­cal hypothe­sis about the TSH lab test”. Read more on Lowe’s thoughts about this here.   But enligh­te­ned thy­roid patients around the world are collec­ti­vely shou­ting “GOD BLESS AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER!”

Seve­ral years ago, a large per­cen­tage of thy­roid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figu­ring out that they had adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, from years of adre­nals wor­king over­time due to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Not only does low cor­ti­sol keep desic­ca­ted thy­roid from wor­king well, it also cau­ses all sorts of angst with para­noia, depres­sion, anxiety, easy anger, sen­si­ti­vity to light and/or sounds, rec­lu­si­ve­ness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients dis­co­ve­red the impor­tance of using the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test rather than blood or urine. When low cor­ti­sol was con­fir­med, the treat­ment was using cor­ti­sol, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, to give them­sel­ves back what their adre­nals were not, to allow thy­roid hor­mo­nes to reach the cells, and to give the poo­ped out adre­nals a rest.

And suc­cess was achie­ved! When all other issues were dis­co­ve­red and trea­ted, patients were finally able to heal their adre­nals with cor­ti­sol use, wean off, and be suc­cess­ful in their con­ti­nued treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid! That suc­cess con­ti­nues today!

Yet in spite of clear suc­cess in the treat­ment of low cor­ti­sol with sup­ple­men­tal cor­ti­sol in the correct amount for each indi­vi­dual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg gene­rally – men often need the higher end), as well as exce­llent books on the sub­ject by Wil­son, Peat­field, Jef­fries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encoun­ter doc­tors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I dis­co­ve­red your web­site which are both great. They are a superb source of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for thy­roid and adre­nal fati­gue suf­fe­rers. Thank you so much!

Per­so­nally I got adre­nal fati­gue by a sus­tai­ned lack of sleep for seve­ral years (crying babies).  I found a doc­tor who presc­ri­bed Hydro­cor­ti­sone (17.5 mg/day, 5 – 5-5 – 2.5), Flu­dro­cor­ti­sone, DHEA and Tes­tos­te­rone. Symp­toms disap­pea­red in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symp­toms reap­pear very quickly, so I retur­ned to the ori­gi­nal dose.

It is very stress­ful that many esta­blished doc­tors (our family doc­tor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are sca­ring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am des­tro­ying my body and I will never suc­ceed in wea­ning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symp­toms. She also has been sca­red about des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and HC. Rea­ding your book I was howe­ver con­vin­ced she could bene­fit a lot from a bet­ter treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfor­tu­na­tely, it’s true. Thy­roid and adre­nal patients are left in the dark by many doc­tors about a variety of issues rela­ted to bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, adre­nal issues, low ferri­tin, and more.  So here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this impor­tant infor­ma­tion into your doc­tors offices:

• All about the pro­blem of adre­nal fatigue
• How to treat
• Symp­toms of having an adre­nal problem
• The STTM book, which not only has more detail, but can be taken right into the doctor’s office
• Talk to other patients, inc­lu­ding a group tar­ge­ted for adre­nal fatigue

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If you mis­sed the exce­llent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thurs­day eve­nings, you can lis­ten to the recor­ding, as well as sign up to be a Follo­wer of the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call, here.

Anyone who lis­te­ned to the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call last night will know that we were lis­te­ning to a powerhouse of a man with an encyc­lo­pe­dia of valua­ble infor­ma­tion: Dr. John C. Lowe.

He is the author of an exhaus­tive book on Fibrom­yal­gia called The Meta­bo­lic Treat­ment of Fibrom­yal­gia, which explains how the pro­per diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism is a good choice in the treat­ment of fibro. He also owns drlowe.com and the research web­site Thy­roid Science.

I already knew he was great. He’s lis­ted in the Ack­now­led­ge­ments of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book as one of a hand­ful of medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals who pla­yed a huge role in edu­ca­ting and empo­we­ring patients all these years.  He, like the others, was a spring­board for patients to move for­ward in gai­ning far bet­ter infor­ma­tion about thy­roid treat­ment and everything else we have have lear­ned over the years!

And he has agreed to come back, since we had many more ques­tions to ask him! I’ll announce that when we secure a date.

Below are some high­lights from our talk with Dr. Lowe:

1. The use of high dose B-vitamins is very impor­tant for the thy­roid patient, and even more so when you are fee­ling bet­ter in your treat­ment. Thy­roid inc­rea­ses the pro­duc­tion of pro­tein, which dri­ves energy, and you’ll need the B’s to help this higher energy production.
2. Sadly, it’s eco­no­mics which domi­nant science and and researching, and it’s all for mar­ke­ting pur­po­ses ins­tead of the pur­suit of truth and the real health of patients.
3. What dri­ves your medi­cal inves­ti­ga­tions? To gain wealth, or to help patients?
4. 75% of the time, if a doc­tor uses the TSH to either diag­nose hypo or treat it, he will be wrong.
5. In the 1980’s, the top of the TSH range was 7.5.
6. Abbott Labs, the makers of Synth­roid, gives one million dollars in an unres­tric­ted edu­ca­tio­nal grant to the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist (AACE) i.e. no won­der Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists have a love affair with Synth­roid, a medi­ca­tion like other brands which has left the vast majo­rity of us under­trea­ted. You can read more details from Lowe on this sub­ject here.
7. Iso­cort, an OTC treat­ment for low cor­ti­sol, is pro­tec­ted by the 1994 Die­tary Sup­ple­ment Health and Edu­ca­tion Act.
8. HC, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, is water solu­ble. Iso­cort is fat solu­ble. Peo­ple need bile so the lipase enzy­mes are able to work on it.
9. There are no stu­dies to com­pare Iso­cort to HC, and should be.
10. If swa­llo­wing, take thy­roid one hour before eating for best absorp­tion. If meal will have a lot of fat, 3 – 4 hours before eating.
11. Elderly peo­ple have less Hydroch­lo­ric Acid and do a worse job absor­bing nutrients. (And so do under­trea­ted hypo patients, remin­ded Diane)  Betaine is a good sup­ple­ment to help.
12. Why it can be a bad idea to swa­llow thy­roid with meals: we never know how many com­pounds are in the food that will bind it, like cal­cium and iron.  T4 is the most badly absorbed.

To hear more, just click above and lis­ten to the recor­ded call. Thank you for being you, Dr. John C. Lowe.

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BRRRRR. In the US and many other coun­tries,  we are having one of the col­dest win­ters we’ve seen in a long time. And if you are out in it alot, you may need a tad more thy­roid meds to keep your­self optimal.