• hypothyroidism

I con­fess that I hated my Che­mistry class in high school, even if Mr. Bowen tried to make it inte­res­ting and favo­red the girls over the boys in class.  But lo and behold, one of those ele­ments on the Perio­dic Table ended up having a sig­ni­fi­cant role in all or our lives as thy­roid patients: iodine.

Iodine can be found in every inch your body, but is espe­cially pre­va­lent in your thy­roid, which makes it an inte­res­ting ele­ment for those of us with thy­roid disease.  The active thy­roid hor­mone T3 (triio­dothy­ro­nine) is made up of three iodine mole­cu­les, and the sto­rage hor­mone T4 (thy­ro­xine) has four iodine mole­cu­les. In fact, without pro­per amounts of iodine, your thy­roid wouldn’t even func­tion well.

An opti­mal amount of iodine has also been shown to improve breast health, pro­vide can­cer pro­tec­tion, remove toxins like Bro­mide, fluo­ride, mer­cury etc…and in some cases, has hel­ped thy­roid patients either lower their dose, or even get off thy­roid treat­ment. Thy­roid patient Diana tells of get­ting off thy­roid treat­ment due to iodine on the Sto­ries of Others page.

***This Thurs­day eve­ning on the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on TalkShoe, we’ll have guest Stepha­nie Buist, owner of the Yahoo group Iodine and a 9-year thy­roid can­cer sur­vi­vor who strongly feels iodine has been a huge fac­tor.   We’ll explore how much iodine a per­son needs, the loa­ding loa­ding test, the best sour­ces of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion, whether you need iodine, as well as con­tro­ver­sies with iodine use, inc­lu­ding Hashi­mo­tos disease or bad reac­tions.  Times for the call are 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eas­tern. You can lis­ten right on your com­pu­ter, or call to talk directly to Stepha­nie and Janie. Join us!

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Sheila Tur­ner of TPA-UK  (Thy­roid Patient Advocacy-UK www.tpa-uk.org.uk) is star­ting the ball rolling on something very inte­res­ting:  they have con­tac­ted a lab in the UK who will do a qua­li­ta­tive analy­sis of the old Armour vs. the new refor­mu­la­ted Armour to get a break­down of the ingre­dients, and poten­tially give us an idea WHAT is cau­sing thy­roid patients to have a return of their hypothy­roid symp­toms since Forest refor­mu­la­ted Armour in 2009.

Howe­ver, says Sheila, this will cost in the region of £600 to £700 (appro­xi­ma­tely $1100).  Says Sheila, “If there are enough patients who are willing and able to help raise the fun­ding requi­red by giving wha­te­ver we can afford, we could finally get the ans­wer as to which chan­ges have been made in the new for­mula and whether this inc­lu­des chan­ges in the active (as some have sug­ges­ted) and the inac­tive ingre­dients and put this baby to rest once and for all.” 

You can con­tact Sheila at the above web­site and make a pledge.  As I write this, they have already have £100 pledged.

UPDATE: Stepha­nie above has agree to be the ‘Pledge and Money Collec­tor’ for the lab work nee­ded to analyze the old vs new Armour . She can be con­tac­ted at ladybugsandbees@sbcglobal.net

*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. Go here.

We had a great Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call Fri­day night on TalkShoe with John Voliva, RPh, the Pre­si­dent of Hooks Apothe­cary in Evans­vi­lle, Indiana. Hooks Apothe­cary is a compounding-only phar­macy that has been in exis­tence for ten years and is a small and high qua­lity family-owned business.

And with our current shor­tage of desic­ca­ted thy­roid via the tablets we were used to, com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies are a good alter­na­tive in the mean­time. Here’s what we lear­ned from Mr. Voliva:

1) Dif­fe­rent com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies will use dif­fe­rent fillers. Hooks Apothe­cary, for exam­ple, uses pow­de­red aci­dophi­les, the “active cul­ture” which helps replace the good flora in your gut and impro­ves digestion.

2) Com­poun­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid can be more expen­sive for two rea­sons: they acquire sma­ller amounts of the pow­der as com­pa­red to the huge amounts obtai­ned by a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal like Forest, and it takes time to com­pound it.

3) A good com­poun­ding phar­macy will give you the Cer­ti­fi­cate of Analy­sis right when you ask for it, and you should ask for it. This Cer­ti­fi­cate will tell you how much T4 and T3 is in one grain..and it’s not always simply 38/9 mcg.  It could be 35/8.6 or 39/8.5 per grain…for exam­ple.   Find out because there are allo­wed devia­tions of 10 mcg +-.  A really good phar­macy will shoot for an even bet­ter devia­tion and will also pro­duce that Cer­ti­fi­cate right when you ask for it, not a day later. To not receive that docu­men­ta­tion right when you ask implies they really weren’t paying much atten­tion to the deviation.

4) A com­poun­ding phar­macy will get bet­ter devia­tions when they create a 65 mg grain of com­poun­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid than when they create a 60 mg grain.

5) Top notch Com­poun­ding Phar­ma­cies will be acc­re­di­ted by, or be close to com­ple­ting the steps towards, the Phar­macy Com­poun­ding Acc­re­di­ta­tion Board.

6) Com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies can’t make a desic­ca­ted thy­roid trouche because of the pro­blems with heat in the pro­ces­sing of the trouche.

7) Mr. Voliva feels it would be too easy to over­dose with trans­der­mal (on the skin) desic­ca­ted thyroid.

8 ) Com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies, via their 5 – 6 dis­tri­bu­tors, get the pow­der from Ame­ri­can Labo­ra­to­ries.  But not all com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies will be as dili­gent as others to make sure the devia­tion is clo­ser to 5%.

9) If the com­poun­ding phar­macy is get­ting their pow­der via the dis­tri­bu­tor PCCA (Pro­fes­sio­nal Com­poun­ding Cen­ters of Ame­rica), you can be assu­red you are get­ting a good pro­duct.  Ask the phar­ma­cist where they are get­ting it.

10) Com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies gene­rally have plenty of desic­ca­ted thy­roid powder.

My apo­lo­gies to a group of callers whose chat ques­tions I wasn’t able to see. I have sent a ques­tion about that to Talk Shoe’s Cus­to­mer Sup­port to find an ans­wer before the next Com­mu­nity Call. But on the good side,  the audio wor­ked on everyone’s computer.

Need alter­na­ti­ves during this shor­tage time? Here are options you can consider. 

*Want to be infor­med of these fringe web­site blog posts? Curious what’s on unpro­fes­sio­nal 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!

I have been dri­ving all day, brin­ging my hus­band back home after serious hand sur­gery yes­ter­day. And while I was away from the com­pu­ter, I recei­ved the below via the Con­tact Me form of STTM, writ­ten by Mary Budin­ger for the Ari­zona Net News jour­nal, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2009:

Dr. Mark Starr’s office team wan­ted to send over a por­tion of an article just writ­ten for an Ari­zona health maga­zine:

Desic­ca­ted thy­roid from pigs is a bio-identical, com­plete hor­mone pre­pa­ra­tion, con­tai­ning the entire spec­trum of thy­roid hor­mo­nes inc­lu­ding T4, T3, T2, and T1 that are in the human thy­roid gland.

Current FDA appro­ved thy­roid medi­ca­tions inc­lude Synth­roid, Unith­roid, Levoxyl, and Levothy­ro­xine (all only con­tain T4), and Cyto­mel (only T3). These hor­mo­nes are synthe­tic and con­tain only a por­tion of the thyroid’s hormones.

Dr. Mark Starr of Phoe­nix, Ari­zona, said patients have called him, fran­tic that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is una­vai­la­ble. “It is so key to my prac­tice, I have enough for my patients. So far, it appears that when supply catches up with demand in a few months, the shor­tage will be over.”

Dr. Starr is the author of “Hypothyroidism-Type 2.” He said synthe­tic thy­roid acts ener­ge­ti­cally dif­fe­rently in the body. “All living things have a right spin, and synthe­tic medi­ca­tions have a left spin. The desic­ca­ted thy­roid is bet­ter tolerated.” 

Dr. Broda Bar­nes did a study that revea­led a rela­tive into­le­rance to a synthe­tic thy­roid pro­duct con­tai­ning T3 and T4 (Thy­ro­lar). One-fifth of the patients who had done well on desic­ca­ted thy­roid deve­lo­ped rapid heart beats and pal­pi­ta­tions when switched to Thy­ro­lar. Dr. Bar­nes also did a major research study on desic­ca­ted thy­roid that invol­ved thou­sands of patients over 30 years; it sho­wed a 94 per­cent reduc­tion in the num­ber of expec­ted heart attacks. This study is the sub­ject of the 1976 book “Sol­ved: The Riddle of Heart Attacks.” 

Lipi­tor is the best selling drug in the world. But for the first half of the 20^th cen­tury, desic­ca­ted thy­roid was the stan­dard treat­ment for high cho­les­te­rol. Ele­va­ted cho­les­te­rol and trigly­ce­ri­des are one of the myriad symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism. Dr. Bar­nes’ book inc­lu­ded a chap­ter entit­led “The Demise of the Cho­les­te­rol Theory.” Desic­ca­ted thy­roid nor­ma­li­zed cho­les­te­rol and trigly­ce­ri­des in 95% of the patients Dr. Bar­nes trea­ted. The 5% who had per­sis­tently ele­va­ted levels had no inc­rea­sed inci­dence of heart attacks. Desic­ca­ted thy­roid the­rapy also resol­ved a long list of other hypothy­roid symp­toms such as fati­gue, cold into­le­rance, joint and muscle pain, dry skin, ina­bi­lity to lose weight, hea­daches, and mens­trual pro­blems. One of the most impor­tant bene­fits that Dr. Bar­nes demons­tra­ted in stu­dies on both ani­mals and his patients was that desic­ca­ted thy­roid inc­rea­ses immu­nity and allows the body to fight off infec­tions. As we come into swine flu sea­son, this is par­ti­cu­larly important.”

Dr. Starr, I love the way you put it: “All living things have a right spin, and synthe­tic medi­ca­tions have a left spin. The desic­ca­ted thy­roid is bet­ter tole­ra­ted.” And that’s exactly why the web­site Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness exists – patients all over the world have found out what a far bet­ter “right spin” treat­ment desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been for them!  So we pre­sent this infor­ma­tion, hoping that more and more patients can learn from the paths wal­ked before them, and take this right into their doc­tors offices.

And about Thy­ro­lar, which is a com­bi­na­tion of synthe­tic T4 and synthe­tic T3:  we’re glad it exists. But…there have been nume­rous patients over the years who tried the com­bi­na­tion of synthe­tic t3/ synthe­tic T4, and who then switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid. And they iden­ti­cally report on the NTH thy­roid group that they got far bet­ter results from desic­ca­ted thy­roid. That is power­ful information.

And yes, Dr. Starr, we are loo­king for­ward for supply to catch up, because natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid is a godsend. 

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Join the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talk Shoe this Fri­day. UPDATE: the Pre­si­dent of Hook’s Apothe­cary, a com­poun­ding phar­macy that ser­ves Illi­nois and Indiana, will be in the chat to talk about com­poun­ding desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Also check out the post below con­cer­ning pos­si­ble hints that we are clo­ser to seeing more desic­ca­ted thy­roid on our shel­ves?

*Want to be infor­med of these fringe web­site blog posts? Curious what’s on unpro­fes­sio­nal 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!

Surely most anyone who has been outside has felt a little drop here…then a little drop there…and you won­de­red:  am I get­ting ready to be rai­ned on?

Now I’m making no gua­ran­tees nor saying this is abso­lute fact…but because of emails I’m get­ting and other infor­ma­tion, I’m seeing little drops of poten­tial evi­dence that we may be seeing the begin­ning of a return of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in our phar­ma­cies. Are we?

For one, a patient called the Forest Hot­line today (866) 927‑3260, and it said that the 4 and 5 grain is avai­la­ble. Is that an old recor­ding, or could that be a pos­si­bi­lity at some phar­macy here or there? Gran­ted, Forest sta­tes that the pro­blem of bac­kor­ders has been found in the “com­pli­ca­ted steps in the supply line”, and “one fac­tor is the sup­plier”.  But if the 4 or 5 grain tablet is avai­la­ble, is something get­ting through here or there?

Then comes an email from a gal sta­ting she was told by her large natio­nal phar­macy that Armour would be in stock by the middle of Octo­ber.  That is simi­lar to a com­ment on another blog post below.

Also, Ame­ri­can Labo­ra­to­ries, the pro­du­cer and sup­plier of desic­ca­ted pow­der, has always sta­ted that they con­ti­nue to make it – just not enough to meet the demands of lar­ger phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals all at once. i.e. perhaps some is get­ting through.

Little posi­tive rain drops of clues? Maybe. I’m not sure what the near future holds. And there are unans­we­red ques­tions, such as will Armour still be inef­fec­tive for so many in its refor­mu­la­ted state?  In what way, and when, will the FDA follow through on the 1960’s Drug Effi­cacy Study Imple­men­ta­tion (DESI) to prove that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is safe and effec­tive (which still makes most of us want to ask  “Aren’t 110 years enough evidence?”)

In the mean­time, there are options you can use for good thy­roid treat­ment here. Just work with a good doc­tor if you use any of these options. But a caveat – a few Cana­dian phar­ma­cies have dou­bled their pri­ces!! Ouch. I find that very nasty and unethi­cal. So check their pri­ces on the web­site as com­pa­red to what was lis­ted on this page. And GOOD NEWS: a Ger­man phar­macy will ship out its own brand of desic­ca­ted thy­roid.  See it on the Options page. 

There con­ti­nues to be good feed­back from patients that most com­poun­ding phar­ma­cies have plenty of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pow­der in stock.  The above link gives infor­ma­tion on how to find a com­poun­ding phar­macy. I have used one before that mai­led my order to me after my doc faxed the prescription.

Join the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talk Shoe this Friday. 

*Want to be infor­med of these fringe web­site blog posts? Curious what’s on peon 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!

On my August 26^th blog post below, I repor­ted good infor­ma­tion about US patients being able to use their doctor’s presc­rip­tion to order the Cana­dian ver­sion of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid called simply “Thy­roid” by Erfa.

And here’s more:

In each Erfa 30 mg tablet embos­sed “ECI 30”, there is 18 mcg. of T4 and 4 mcg. of T3;

In each Erfa 60 mg tablet embos­sed “ECI 60”, there is 35 mcg. of T4 and 8 mcg. of T3;

In each Erfa 125 mg tablet embos­sed “ECI 125”, there is 73 mcg. of T4 and 17 mcg. of T3.

Erfa’s very friendly and help­ful Medi­cal Direc­tor, Henri Knafo, MD, sta­tes that they follow the USP (Uni­ted Sta­tes Phar­ma­co­poeia) spe­ci­fi­ca­tions. But  I do see some slight dif­fe­ren­ces.  The USP spe­ci­fi­ca­tions ratio for one grain that we are used to in the US is 38 mcg. T4 and 9 mcg T3, i.e 38/9.  The above ratio is 35/8.

Like­wise, US patients are used to 2 grains of 120 mgs having 76 mcg of T4 and 18 mcg of T3, i.e. 76/18.  In Erfa’s medi­ca­tion of 125 mg, you will get a ratio of 73/17. I don’t know if this will make much of a dif­fe­rence but want you to be aware as you work to adjust Erfa’s desic­ca­ted thy­roid to the treat­ment you were used to.

Knapo hap­pily sta­tes that most all “Thy­roid” is making it across the bor­der to the sta­tes without issue.  You will need your doctor’s presc­rip­tion. And by the way, Erfa’s Thy­roid is manu­fac­tu­red in Bel­gium, plus they have a huge supply of desic­ca­ted powder.

Erfa is also wor­king with IDIS to get Thy­roid to others. You can read about them here.

Need a doc­tor to work with who will pro­vide a presc­rip­tion for your nee­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid? There are a gro­wing body of  good doc­tors out there.  We also have a good list of  Cana­dian phar­ma­cies you can con­si­der using during the current shortages.

I have also recei­ved word from a gal that the FDA docu­ment 1572, a fede­ral form that FDA requi­res for over-the-border move­ment, has not always been used, and Erfa’s medi­ca­tion is arri­ving fine. i.e. the FDA may be tole­ra­ting it.