• hypothyroidism

Yup, we’re all hea­ding in the same direc­tion — being just a tad older every sin­gle year and get­ting that first mai­ling from AARP.  Yup.

And get­ting older inc­rea­ses the inci­dence of thy­roid disease.

Even worse, those who acquire it at an older age are pro­bably going to go through the same bunk and bull those youn­ger have gone through – having depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, osteo­po­ro­sis or oste­pe­nia, weight gain, easy fati­gue, couch potato syn­drome, dry skin and hair, plus more––all clas­sic symp­toms of undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypothyroidism.

But older folks are told it’s all just part of aging so here’s your latest tablet for your handy-dandy Wal Mart pill box.

I recently found a great blog by Pam whose Feb. 23^rd, 2010 post is tit­led Older Women and Low Thy­roid. She tur­ned 65 in 2009 (and she looks a lot youn­ger) and wri­tes how she found her­self with hypothy­roid at a later age as well.  And Pam is WAY ahead of the game in her know­ledge. She unders­tands that most older folks are put on Synth­roid (which can be a lousy way to treat hypothy­roi­dism for many), that get­ting older means con­ver­sion from T4 to T3 can be more dif­fi­cult,  that being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid or T3-only just might be the bet­ter treat­ment, and you can get adre­nal fati­gue at an older age as well (thanks to poor treat­ment with T4, the TSH lab test, or being under­do­sed even on desic­ca­ted thyroid).

You can read Pam’s post here, as well as about the phone call from her friend who is 50 lbs over­weight, has brain fog, is out of work, has no energy…and voila – is on Synth­roid so it can’t POSSIBLY be her thy­roid. Sad. In fact, what has hap­pe­ned to Pam’s friend is what I keep sta­ting to those who feel they are just doing peachy on T4: watch out, because as you age, the truth about T4 will reveal itself!

Pam, I love your blog posts, and I’m going to hope to see more of those in the “vene­ra­ble age range” be just as wise as you are!!

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FDA HAS MADE A STATEMENT ABOUT NATURAL DESICCATED THYROID: Just before I was going to plop into my bed for the eve­ning, I chec­ked my noti­fi­ca­tions to dis­co­ver that right on the FDA web­site and their 2010 Drug Shor­ta­ges page (3^rd column up from bot­tom), it sta­tes: Forest reports manu­fac­tu­ring issues invol­ving the raw mate­rial and RLC reports inc­rea­sed demand. FDA has not orde­red Forest or RLC to remove these thy­roid (desic­ca­ted) tablets from the mar­ket. BINGO. I’ve been wai­ting for this for months, because though web­si­tes and groups were for­med last year as if we nee­ded to “res­cue” desic­ca­ted thy­roid from being ban­ned, I couldn’t join the fear­ful rally of a few because my gut was telling me something quite dif­fe­rent.  And a few others, I dis­co­ve­red, had the same fee­ling.  And hoo­ray! Our guts were right on!

Does this mean the FDA “gets it” about desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Maybe, or maybe not. Yes, their timing WAS awful last year with Time Caps Labs, right when we were star­ting a shor­tage. And there does appear to be some kind of future requi­re­ment “pro­ving” the safety and effi­cacy of dess. thy­roid – two things we ALREADY KNOW from 110 years of safe and effec­tive use. Duhhh on the FDA. But it’s FAR more hope­ful now, and rea­lis­tic, and will hope­fully pro­mote more rea­so­na­ble thin­king from now on.

Onward and upward, folks.

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Natu­reth­roid is coming back in phar­ma­cies all over the US! See the blog post below or here for infor­ma­tion about  the “new” Naturethroid.

(If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to come directly to the site where you can Comment).

As the one grain tabs of Natu­reth­roid desic­ca­ted thy­roid by RLC Labs are hit­ting phar­macy shel­ves again all across the nation here and there after the recent shor­ta­ges and the sad refor­mu­la­tion of Armour,  and patients are star­ting to use the new Natu­reth­roid, we are gathe­ring some good infor­ma­tion, both anec­do­tal and factual:

• The typi­cal smell of desic­ca­ted por­cine is less intense with the new tablets. We have no idea why.
• The tablets are now stam­ped with RLC on one side, and N over 1 on the other, whe­reas before you’d see just NT1 or a refe­rence to the fact that Time Caps Labs (TCL) used to make Natu­reth­roid for RLC Labs
• The pac­kage insert is no lon­ger inside the bottle but stuck on top of the cap
• Lot num­ber info used to be on the edge of the label run­ning ver­ti­cally, whe­reas now, it runs along the bot­tom of the label  under the ingredients.

One grain is still 65 mg, with the T3 con­tent being at 9 mcg and the T4 con­tent being at 38 mcg.  The T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin still unmeasured.

There are filler/inactive ingre­dients which have changed:

• Cal­cium filler has moved up from 16 mg to 17 mg (cal­cium binds thy­roid, but you just take more. Don’t swa­llow it with milk, please.)
• The old con­tai­ned Mag­ne­sium, Potas­sium, and Sodium (each at less than 1 mg), whe­reas in the new, potas­sium is now removed
• And here’s the best part: the old NT had Hydro­propyl Methylcellu­lose – that’s the lar­ger size cellu­lose struc­ture which we know binds some of the thy­roid hor­mo­nes. Now, the new NT has Microcrys­ta­line Cellu­lose, the sma­ller size. (Too bad we can’t see all cellu­lose removed!)

Below are the new NT fillers, which are iden­ti­cal to the old except for the cellu­lose change:

Car­naba Wax, Colloi­dal Sili­con Dio­xide, Dical­cium Phosphate, Hypro­me­llose, Lac­tose Monohy­drate, Mag­ne­sium Stea­rate, Mic­rocrys­ta­line Cellu­lose, Pol­yethy­lene Gly­col (PEG)-400, Sodium Starch Gly­co­late, Stea­ric Acid.

Most all the above comes cour­tesy of Stepha­nie Buist, owner of the Iodine group on Yahoo and thy­roid and adre­nal patient and advo­cate.  Thank you, Steph!  You can read about the fillers here by scro­lling down.

Oh and by the way, the new tablets are now sco­red. A help­ful addition!

In patient groups, we are seeing a variety of expe­rien­ces with the new Natu­reth­roid.  Most folks seem happy with it so far, and even some report it seems a tad stron­ger than the old (the cellu­lose change may have cau­sed that). Occa­sio­nally, someone will report pro­blems, but they appear to be from under­do­sing or a poten­tial RT3 pro­blem which has ari­sen and needs treat­ment with T3-only.  Chan­ging brands can also bring dif­fe­rent reac­tions, so you have to wig­gle the dosage around some­ti­mes to find your sweet spot once again.

All in all, it looks good.

P.S. If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter Noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the above link to put your­self right on the actual blog post if you want to com­ment. Let’s gather all our expe­rien­ces with the new Naturethroid.

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If you mis­sed the last inter­net radio Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call with Dr. Kent Hol­torf, you mis­sed a VERY good one. Thank you Dr. Hol­torf for exce­llent infor­ma­tion. But good news! All the shows are recor­ded.  Just go to the follo­wing link, scroll down, and you can click on any past inter­views, inc­lu­ding two with Dr.  John C. Lowe and a great one with Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist Dr Pep­per – one of a rare breed of open-minded Endos.  (I’ve also stop­ped doing my long intro’s about me in the last two, figu­ring if someone wants to know, they can go to the About Me page, or read the Intro­duc­tion in the book which has even more detail. lol.)

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

Just one more remin­der here: this Wed­nes­day night on Talkshoe, I’ll be inter­vie­wing a cou­ra­geous doc­tor, Kent Hol­torf, MD, who is making a stand for far bet­ter hypothy­roid treat­ment that goes beyond the TSH lab test and T4 alone like Synth­roid, et al.  He is also a medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nal who has pla­yed a huge role in edu­ca­ting us about RT3 , aka Reverse T3. This is a man you’ll want to get to know, because I have a strong fee­ling he’s going to gain even more media atten­tion because of his cou­ra­geous stands!

Join us as I chat with him about the recent Today Show piece where an Endo said he was simply “laying on of hands”, this WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17^th at 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral, and 9 pm Eas­tern, right on your computer’s audio on STTM’s Talkshoe Call web­page (below). Call in to ask ques­tions, too. MARK YOUR CALENDER! SET YOUR CELL PHONE ALARM! This is one intro­duc­tion that I’m going to have fun with, don’t ya think??

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

Want to learn more about him to bet­ter appre­ciate this Com­mu­nity Call?

• His clinic’s web­site: http://www.holtorfmed.com/
• About him: http://www.fibro360.com/dr-kent-holtorfs-story.htm
• His new web­site tar­ge­ted to doc­tors: http://nahypothyroidism.org/
• His info about RT3: http://www.holtorfmed.com/topics/thyroid/reverse-t3-is-the-best-measurement-of-tissue-thyroid-levels

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Have something to say? Use the Com­ment func­tion at the bot­tom of this blog post. If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to take you directly to the actual blog post.

If you read my recent blog post about it (click on link below or just scroll down on the STTM blog), or if you saw NBC’s Today Show, you’ll know that Dr. Kent Hol­torf correctly diag­no­sed a clearly-hypothyroid woman, Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner Eola Force, by not going just by the TSH, and chan­ged her life. He was cri­ti­ci­zed by an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist as having “no real scien­ti­fic basis”  for what he does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.  (chuckle)

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2010/01/28/endocrinologists-tsh-lab-test/

Well, it’s time to hear what Dr. Hol­torf has to say!

Join us as I chat with him about this inci­dent next WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17^th at 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral, and 9 pm Eas­tern, right on your computer’s audio on STTM’s Talkshoe Call web­page (below). Call in to ask ques­tions, too. MARK YOUR CALENDER! SET YOUR CELL PHONE ALARM! This is one intro­duc­tion that I’m going to have fun with, don’t ya think??

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

***Note that we moved it to Wed­nes­day nights. That should help with any drop­ped calls that were hap­pe­ning on busy Thursdays.

By the way,  Dr. Hol­torf recently launched his new web­site, called The Non-Profit Natio­nal Aca­demy of Hypothy­roi­dism in an attempt to reach doc­tors about appro­priate diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, which patients know does NOT inc­lude just the lousy TSH lab test.  Will doc­tors, and espe­cially Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, ever figure out this clear and easy truth?  Don’t we hope so.

Have something to say? Use the Com­ment func­tion at the bot­tom of this blog post. If you are rea­ding this via an email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to take you directly to the actual blog post.

I’ve been dis­trac­ted the past week, having to do exten­sive research and tra­ve­ling to find the per­fect “new used car”.

Then I caught a cold from hell – rare for me.  I was taking zinc and Vit. C. But a good friend remin­ded me about Vit. D and it’s immune enhan­cing effect. OMG, I for­got about it!  So later last night, I took what I thought was 12,000 IU on the first night of being sic­ker than a dog.  They say to take 1000 mg per 10 lbs of weight. Tur­ned out the gel caps were not 1000 IU each, as I thought, but 2000 IU each. So I ended up taking 22,000 IU.  lol. But the long and short of it is this: though I woke up this mor­ning quite tired and weak, I’ve slowly got­ten bet­ter all day!! My con­ges­tion has hugely impro­ved.  Read this: http://pandemicsurvivor.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/eliminate-the-common-cold/

Love your green pow­der drink? Just a word of cau­tion: much of what is in many of those pow­de­red greens are goi­tro­gens, which inhi­bit thy­roid pro­duc­tion, such as wheat grass, bar­ley grass, broc­coli, spi­nach,  cab­bage, maca and spi­nach, plus much more. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the green pow­der. You’ll just have to be sure to use it in mode­ra­tion, and not con­sume too many other goi­tro­gen foods each and every day. Or, raise your thy­roid meds.

Dr. Peter Gott can give even bet­ter infor­ma­tion to rea­ders. I noti­ced that a column on the Tulsa web­site by Peter Gott, MD of the News­pa­per Enter­prise Asso­cia­tion  could have given dif­fe­rent infor­ma­tion to a dis­tres­sed rea­der who couldn’t find Armour anywhere.  He recom­men­ded to this rea­der, who already sta­ted that Synth­roid is not a well-handled treat­ment, to see if her phy­si­cian could “alter the Synth­roid dosage to find a level”  that could be tole­ra­ted.  Actually, there are far bet­ter options during this bac­kor­de­red time, which I have com­pi­led here, and inc­lu­des Erfa’s Thy­roid and more.

Natu­reth­roid is appea­ring in phar­ma­cies! Yup, patients are repor­ting it! No, it’s not all phar­ma­cies. But you might want to call and see if YOUR local phar­macy has it. Other­wise, it’s coming.  For options during the current natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges, go here. To see why we are where we are today, read this.

Is there research to prove having a free T3 in the upper quar­ter of the range when on desic­ca­ted thy­roid?? A gal emai­led me, wan­ting stu­dies to show her doc. But unfor­tu­na­tely, the ans­wer appears to be no. Ins­tead, this is what patients all over thy­roid groups dis­co­ve­red from their lab results when they were fee­ling fabu­lous again with no lin­ge­ring symp­toms.  So we simply spread the word. Patient expe­rien­ces DO count for something.  P.S. Here’s an ongoing list of research that DOES prove some things patients KNOW first hand.  And by the way, when you have a high free T3 and con­ti­nuing symp­toms, time to do labs for ferri­tin and adre­nal fati­gue.

By using a code, you can save on labs from Healthchec­kUSA. I was infor­med from Healthchec­kUSA that many patients were for­get­ting to men­tion the dis­count code. So look again, and be sure and use it from the Recom­men­ded Lab­work page.

Janie on radio shows, and a great guest for the upco­ming Talkshoe Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call. Can’t say much more, because it’s in the works. Watch for announ­ce­ments soon.

A new way to be infor­med of these thy­roid posts. The for­mer Noti­fi­xious noti­fi­ca­tions went out of busi­ness. But we have a new and GOOD one, refe­rring to the noti­fi­ca­tion as a new­let­ter, and you can sign up free and with no strings attached.  See on left below on the links.   Also, there are many more impor­tant posts right below this.