• Armour
• Health Care
• Patients
• Related conditions due to hypo
• Thyroid treatment

Before my thy­roid disease of hypothy­roi­dism was dis­co­ve­red, I had horri­fic and debi­li­ta­ting con­se­quen­ces from exer­cise or any acti­vity.  You can read about it all here or even more detail in the Intro­duc­tion of the patients-to-patients Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

When my so-called “bor­der­line hypothy­roid” was dis­co­ve­red by age 30, I thought whoo-hooo, I’ll finally get rid of this strange night­mare whe­ne­ver I tried to do ANYTHING.  I was put on Synth­roid and my anti­ci­pa­tion for a bet­ter life was profound.

But my hope was dashed. Not only did my body con­ti­nue to ove­rreact to acti­vity, it got worse over time.  Horribly worse.  Nearly twenty years after I had star­ted on a T4-only medi­ca­tion, and was told by one doc­tor after another that my pro­blem was not my thy­roid, I was going to apply for social secu­rity disability.

But they were all dead wrong. Sure, turns out I have a form of Dysau­to­no­mia, a mal­func­tion and ove­rreac­tion of my auto­no­mic ner­vous sys­tem, cau­sing my body to far ove­rreact to stress. But remai­ning hypothy­roid, as we all do on the sucky t4-only medi­ca­tions, had made it far worse. And I pro­ved it. When I switched to Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2002 and rai­sed it accor­ding to what patients have lear­ned, a miracle occu­rred.  My severe auto­no­mic reac­tions made an almost com­plete tur­na­round.

And my expe­rience of change or impro­ve­ment when it comes to other disea­ses or con­di­tions has been sha­red by others.

Last week, I recei­ved an email from a man whose brother has MS – Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis.  And though Armour has not taken his MS away, it allo­wed him to move from this wheelchair to a wal­ker! That is impressive.

So I am left won­de­ring:  what other con­di­tions or disea­ses, which are uni­que in them­sel­ves, are wor­se­ned being undiag­no­sed thanks to the lousy TSH lab test or the ina­de­quate treat­ment of Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin and all other T4-only medi­ca­tions? It’s awful to think about it.

Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my nind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the bot­tom of the links to the left. 

Update to the below: it was brought to my atten­tion that taking a second BP rea­ding is usually always lower any­way. Ah, I thought, that’s correct! So to test this infor­ma­tion based on research, I went back last night before bed­time. First took my BP with my arm in the upper correct posi­tion. Then the second time, took it with my arm down.

138/89 (up per­pen­di­cu­lar to body; level with heart) pulse 80
146/100 (arm down) pulse 82

The second did NOT go down. It went UP! Interesting.

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Last week, I had found my blood pres­sure quite high for me! Upper 140’s and some 150’s for my Sys­to­lic, and upper 90’s and lower 100’s for my Dias­to­lic.   Stage One hyper­ten­sion!  I was pretty sure my 4 grains may sud­denly be a tad too high since ente­ring meno.  My temps and hear­trate implied that, too.

I got off Armour for two days to use up some excess, got back on one, then on 2 grains multi-dosed.  My plan is to make my way back up to 3 1/2 grains by a week or slightly more…and see.

In the mean­time, I have been using some blood pres­sure lowe­ring sup­ple­ments (high dose potas­sium, grape seed extract, Braggs Apple Cider Vine­gar in juice, more CoQ10 than nor­mal, plus my regu­lar sup­ple­ments).  I was more faith­ful to my tread­mill wal­king (thanks to an April that still thinks it’s win­ter), and medi­ta­ting. The lat­ter two defi­ni­tely hel­ped lower both the Sys­to­lic and Dias­to­lic, even if not low enough for my ideal.

For the last five days, my BP rea­dings have still been too high. All those days, I had been sea­ted on our couch. I put a pillow in my lap, laying my arm on that pillow, which meant my arm was slightly down­ward.  Some­ti­mes my wrist would hang off the pillow.

Today, I deci­ded I wan­ted to test something I have read. Namely, it’s actually quite impor­tant how you place your arm. The recom­men­ded way is pla­cing your arm per­pen­di­cu­lar to your body and at the height of your heart or a tad higher, all while com­for­ta­ble res­ting on something.  Elbow can be fle­xed, but your arm must still be per­pen­di­cu­lar to your body and about heart height or slightly higher.

Below are four of my most recent after­noon BP rea­dings with pulse: two with the Left arm, then two with the Right arm.

L:  139/106   98  (arm han­ging down and res­ting on sea­ted leg)
L:  122/88 89  (arm up, per­pen­di­cu­lar to my body, sup­por­ted by pillows)
R:  141/87     92  (arm han­ging down and res­ting on pillow)
R:  123/85 89 (arm up, per­pen­di­cu­lar to my body, sup­por­ted by pillows)

What you should note is that the first L rea­ding, and the first R rea­ding, were with the arm rela­xed on a pillow but lower than my heart.  The second of each is with the arm on two pillows, put­ting it per­pen­di­cu­lar to my heart,  with elbow fle­xed, and all of arm com­ple­tely supported.

I was shoc­ked! Put­ting my arms in what research is saying is the CORRECT posi­tion gave me much bet­ter rea­dings. I am VERY plea­sed with the 122 and 123.  Much bet­ter. And though the 88 and 83 Dias­to­lics are not to my liking yet, and tell me I need more work, the dif­fe­rence bet­ween the arm posi­tions was stunning.…as is the dif­fe­rence in what I’ve been get­ting for five days.

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

**Are you in the US and want to help make sure we don’t end up like the UK, having our Armour taken away?? In the post below, I have given you SEVEN STEPS that I hope you will follow through on!  YOU can make a dif­fe­rence.

Right on the heels of the insane recom­men­da­tion by the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians and the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion (that thy­ro­xine be the ONLY treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism – see Feb. 14^th below) came an EXCELLENT and THOROUGH rebut­tal by Dr. John C. Lowe tit­led Sta­bi­lity, Effec­ti­ve­ness, and Safety of Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid vs Levothy­ro­xine: A Rebut­tal to the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion. WAY TO GO, John!! 

p.s. Also see Sheila’s expe­rience on the Feb. 20^th post. Awful

Want to be infor­med of these blog posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Just go to the noti­fi­ca­tion on the left and bot­tom of the links. 

And again, on the heels of my post below about Sheila Tur­ner of the UK’s TPA (be sure and read it – good com­ments, too) comes a blog post by Dr. Richard B. Gut­ler of Cali­for­nia, an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist (why are we not sur­pri­sed).  And his message?

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. )

Even 1 1/2 years ago, over 2000 pro­fes­sio­nals from a variety of dis­ci­pli­nes called the US Con­gress to end Fluo­ri­da­tion of water, citing it’s toxi­city and the decep­tion of put­ting it in our water. You can read their call to action here.

The impor­tance of this call lies in each of us with thy­roid disease, since fluo­ride is a KNOWN inhi­bi­tor of our thy­roid function.

As of Feb. 9^th, 2009, the Cou­rier Post Online of South Jer­sey has an exce­llent article on the pro­blem of our extreme expo­sure to fluo­ride.  This article cites the follo­wing facts:

1) 53 US cities rejec­ted fluo­ri­da­tion during our last Novem­ber elec­tion
2) Inges­ted fluo­ride can damage kid­ney patients, bones, the thy­roid gland, high water drin­kers, and children’s teeth
3) Stu­dies lin­king fluo­ride to can­cer and lowe­red IQ are plau­si­ble.
4) In 2007, the Bri­tish Medi­cal Jour­nal indi­ca­ted that fluo­ri­da­tion never was pro­ven safe or effec­tive and may be unethi­cal.
5) Health Canada says the govern­ment should cut the recom­men­ded amount in drin­king water, encou­rage the use of low-fluoride tooth­paste by chil­dren and have makers of infant for­mula reduce levels.

I per­so­nally made a point to stop using any tooth­paste with Fluo­ride a few years ago.  I also sup­ple­ment with iodine, since fluo­ride dis­pla­ces iodine levels. Sadly, I still love iced tea, which con­tains fluo­ride.  But YOU can avoid more fluo­ride expo­sure by fin­ding a way to get off anti-depressants and osteo­po­ro­sis medi­ca­tions which con­tain fluo­ride, and that is espe­cially pos­si­ble when you are opti­mal with Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in pre­sence of strong adre­nals or opti­mal cor­ti­sol supplementation.