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I recently dis­co­ve­red a very humo­rous and appropo medi­cal blog on the net, writ­ten by a Uni­ted King­dom Gene­ral Prac­ti­tio­ner who wisely stays incog­nito. His blog is called The Job­bing Doctor.

And his most recent and humo­rously bri­lliant post is tit­led Hairy legs are bet­ter than blood tests! He desc­ri­bes his occa­sio­nal con­fu­sion when blood tests don’t agree with the patients symptoms.

Says the UK doc: “The text­books teach that the level of cir­cu­la­ting thy­roid hor­mo­nes (which are called T3 and T4) are inver­sely rela­ted to the Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hor­mone (TSH). If your T3 and T4 are low, your TSH will be high: this sug­gests an unde­rac­tive thy­roid gland. If the T3 and T4 are high and the TSH is low, then you have an ove­rac­tive thy­roid gland. That’s easy, huh!”

But his con­fu­sion sprang forth when a patient’s labs sho­wed “a highish TSH, T4, and a nor­mal T3.” Yet appa­rently her symp­toms didn’t imply there was any pro­blem, so he chose to do nothing as far as chan­ging her treatment.

A month later at her next appoint­ment, this patient expres­sed her appro­val that he didn’t change anything…because her leg hair and eye­brows were coming back.

And his conc­lu­sion?  “Pah! Who needs blood tests!” 

Job­bing Doc­tor, you are dis­co­ve­ring what thy­roid patients have been lear­ning over and over for years: it’s SYMPTOMS (or lack up) which need to pull the cart, NOT lab­work. Sure, we love our lab­work. They can give clues to areas where our bodies are screa­ming for help.  But they defi­ni­tely do NOT tell the whole story.

Look at the igno­ra­mus TSH lab test. Count­less patients have wal­ked into their doc­tors offi­ces with clear and obvious hypothy­roid symp­toms – and des­pe­rate for a diag­no­sis – yet the ink spot on the office piece of paper called the TSH lab result proc­laims they are “nor­mal”. And that dubious “nor­mal” diag­no­sis can go on for years before it rises high enough to reveal what was already there by SYMPTOMS.

Or, while on thy­roid medi­ca­tion, patients will have a lame­brain “nor­mal” TSH lab result, yet will con­ti­nue to have their own brand and degree of con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms which the clue­less doc­tor dis­mis­ses as an hys­te­ric female inter­pre­ta­tion, motherhood, stress, a need for psycho­lo­gi­cal help.…or just “something else”. Uh huh.

In fact, Job­ber Doc­tor, patients have lear­ned that when they are opti­mal (on desic­ca­ted thy­roid), along with opti­mal ferri­tin and cor­ti­sol), they will gene­rally have a free T3 in the upper part of the range, and a SUPPRESSED TSH, with no symp­toms of hyperthy­roi­dism.  That is gene­ral, and there can be some excep­tions, but ove­rall, it has spo­ken volu­mes to patients on how ina­de­quate thy­roid lab tests can be.  i.e. being in the “nor­mal” range — anywhere in the nor­mal range – can be mean squat.

Thanks for a great post,  UK Job­ber Doc. And P.S.  Desic­ca­ted thy­roid is an even bet­ter treat­ment than thy­ro­xine.

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

With the recent March out­break of swine flu in a few humans, I want to speak of facts.  This would involve all of you who use  desic­ca­ted por­cine pro­ducts, inc­lu­ding Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, Thyroid-S, etc.

Recent cases: As of April 26^th in the US, there are only 21 human cases of “swine flu” this year repor­ted by the CDC (Cen­ters for Disease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion):  Cali­for­nia 7 cases;  Kan­sas 2 cases;   New York City 9 cases;  Ohio 1 case;  and Texas 2 cases. There have also been out­breaks in Mexico which may be rela­ted.  No one has died and none of the cases have been severe.  The current out­break is a com­bi­na­tion of swine, bird, and human influenza viruses.

What is the Swine flu? Swine flu is a type A influenza and has been in exis­tence with pigs for a long time.  Many pigs will get sick when it does go around; very few will die.

Why are humans get­ting it? The real irony is that humans can be ones who give it to pigs in the first place!  But in turn, new human infec­tion from infec­ted pigs is actually quite rare. In most all cases, a healthy human will get it from con­tact with a live pig, such as at a lives­tock show. Then, the infec­ted human will spread it to other humans.  So, when you see that “21” peo­ple have got­ten it,  some may have got­ten it from “one” per­son – i.e. a human-to-human contact.

The CDC also sta­tes that in a par­ti­cu­lar study, 76% of swine exhi­bi­tors tes­ted had anti­body evi­dence of swine flu infec­tion but no serious ill­nes­ses were detec­ted among this group. In other words, the majo­rity of those expo­sed don’t even get the ill­ness. If they do, it’s mild for most and only serious for a very small minority.

How com­mon is swine flu among pigs? Swine flu is com­mon in groups of pigs all across the world, espe­cially during the win­ter months.  Anywhere from 25 – 50% show evi­dence of having been infec­ted.  But many pigs are vac­ci­na­ted against it.

Can I get it from the use of Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts? The stan­dards in the making of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pow­der as set by the U.S. Phar­ma­co­poeia is extre­mely rigo­rous.  So, it is impor­tant to unders­tand that your chan­ces of get­ting swine flu from taking a US Pharmacopoeia-approved pro­duct is remar­kably low, low, low. You have a much grea­ter chance of injury from riding in your car.

So, for me, with all the above facts, I’m going to take my Armour with ease and peace, because using desic­ca­ted thy­roid to treat my hypothy­roid is FAR FAR bet­ter than any other treat­ment. Perhaps you will decide to do the same.  If you stay worried about it, you might also want to avoid using your car, stop using stairs, and avoid most peo­ple at all costs.   P.S. Check out the com­ments to this post. Will also help put you at ease.

* Here’s John Lowe’s rebut­tal to the scare of swine flu: http://www.thyroidscience.com/index.htm It con­firms everything I’ve said plus a whole lot more. i.e. take your desic­ca­ted thyroid!

* Want to know what’s on my mind? Inte­res­ted in the latest infor­ma­tion on desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links. 

*If you find the web­site to be too enor­mous for your brain fog, or want bet­ter ease of get­ting the facts, the patient-to-patient STTM book is pro­ving to be a good choice, say many who write me.  Just make sure you have a yellow high­ligh­ter. haha

I can remem­ber a few peo­ple the past year who proc­lai­med fer­vently that Armour was being dis­con­ti­nued because of the shor­tage.  And I chuc­kle about it.  Hope­fully, my pre­vious posts hel­ped calm that fear. 

But in case you haven’t heard, those lar­ger sizes are back!  And you can keep track of what’s going via the Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals cus­to­mer pro­duct avai­la­bi­lity hot­line: 1 – 866-927‑3260  As of today, April 19, they state that the one grain tabs (60 mg) and 1 1/2 grains tabs (90 mg) are on bac­kor­der, and will catch up with pro­duc­tion on April 20^th, tomo­rrow as I am wri­ting this.  We’ll see.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, the new for­mu­la­tion has made Armour lac­king in sweet­ness, and it’s almost impos­si­ble to do it sublin­gually.  Sad. Maybe another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal will get the hint. In the mean­time, if you swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid, make sure to avoid cal­cium, iron and estro­gen at the same time. And if you’ve been doing it sublin­gually, and have to switch to swa­llo­wing, you may need a tad more.

Remem­ber: if you have any issues with natu­ral Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the treat­ment of your hypothy­roi­dism, you can always ask your doc­tor for a presc­rip­tion switch to Natu­reth­roid or Westth­roid, both fine FDA-approved, US Phar­ma­co­peia stan­dard presc­rip­tion desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Janie

Want to be infor­med of my posts? Curious what I am raving about as a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist? You can sign up for a Noti­fi­ca­tion at the bot­tom of the links to your left. 

P.S. If you haven’t bought the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book yet, wan­ted to tell you that nume­rous patients are emai­ling me, sta­ting they find the book even easier to refer to than this vast web­site (plus it has more details and infor­ma­tion).  So if you want the ease of refe­rral, the book may be the way to go.

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.

With the recent blog post by health wri­ter Mary Sho­mon con­cer­ning Dr. Sid­ney Wolfe’s new 4-year term with the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Mana­ge­ment Advi­sory Com­mit­tee, there has been much brooha and fear-mongering on thy­roid patient groups.

Why? Well look at it this way. This is a man of sta­ture. He is an MD, an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Medi­cine, the direc­tor of Public Citizen’s health research group which pro­mo­tes drug safety and public health, and edi­tor of the news­let­ter Worst Pills, Best Pills, and since August of  ’08, a mem­ber of the Drug Safety Com­mit­tee.  He also has a resume a mile long.

Yet in spite of his see­mingly caring acti­vism for our health and well-being, and his immense expe­rience and edu­ca­tion, he is clearly and com­ple­tely off-base about Armour and other desic­ca­ted thy­roid presc­rip­tion drugs. 

For exam­ple, as as edi­tor of the Worst Pills, Best Pills news­let­ter,  Wolfe dec­la­red Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid as a “Do Not Use” pro­duct because it is not ade­qua­tely gua­ran­teed to pro­vide appro­priate blood levels of thy­roid hor­mone and relia­ble alter­na­ti­ves are avai­la­ble”. (Gee, funny how our expe­rien­ces are com­ple­tely other­wise.…)

Then in the May 2003 issue (of which you have to have a paid presc­rip­tion to read), he wrote an article tit­led  “Do Not Use! Natu­ral or Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid (ARMOUR THYROID) For Thy­roid Hor­mone Repla­ce­ment The­rapy.” In that article, the clue­less Wolfe sta­ted that he sup­por­ted The Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Association’s sta­te­ment “There is no evi­dence that desic­ca­ted thy­roid, a bio­lo­gi­cal pre­pa­ra­tion, has any advan­tage over synthe­tic thy­ro­xine.” (I guess millions of us and our impro­ved hear­trate, sta­mina, cho­les­te­rol, depres­sion and more…aren’t evi­dence?)

He then pro­po­ses that Armour is mostly presc­ri­bed for weight loss, is a niche mar­ket for the unsc­ru­pu­lous, and conc­lu­des with “if you are offe­red natu­ral thy­roid hor­mone repla­ce­ment treat­ment for any rea­son, this is a red flag and you should get a second opi­nion.” In a let­ter to con­su­mers, Wolfe and Public Citi­zen state that that T3 is only nee­ded from con­ver­sion and is pre­dic­tably found from con­ver­sion, that the T2 and T1 also found in desic­ca­ted thy­roid has essen­tially no acti­vity, that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is an unpre­dic­ta­ble mix­ture, that is has no pre­dic­ta­ble bio­lo­gi­cal acti­vity…plus so many more com­plete and total inac­cu­ra­cies based on “inte­llec­tual head chat­ter” not on obser­va­tion and experience.

Thud.

Mary Sho­mon, in 2003, did a bang-up job trying to com­mu­ni­cate with Wolfe, Worst Pills, Best Pills, and Public Citi­zen about the inac­cu­ra­cies of their beliefs and statements…basically to no avail. The TRUTH is here, and in more detail in Chap­ters 1 and 2 in the STTM book which are enligh­te­ning those rea­ding it all!

So we are left won­de­ring, six years later, what his four-year appoint­ment to this com­mit­tee will mean. But let’s make a few things quite clear to con­trast some of the fears going on and expres­sed on thy­roid groups:

1) Armour is not being ban­ned.
2) Wolfe is one of a current 9 mem­bers of this com­mit­tee. Wolfe is not “the com­mit­tee”.
3) Wolfe and seven others currently have voting rights. He is the only “Con­su­mer Repre­sen­ta­tive”.
4) There are still six more vacan­cies.
5) The com­mit­tee is NOT the power. They simply make recom­men­da­tions. And his­to­ri­cally, the FDA can be slow to act on their recom­men­da­tions, or doesn’t follow them at all (which is a GOOD thing when it comes to a SAFE and EFFECTIVE medi­ca­tion like desic­ca­ted thyroid).

So what can you do? I cha­llenge you to follow and act on the below, which puts our ener­gies into com­mu­ni­ca­tion, not fee­ding the ego and power of a mis­gui­ded man with our overtly expres­sed fears as if they have actually come to pass :

1) Remem­ber 1 – 5 above. Armour is fully avai­la­ble. Keep the facts straight, and fear-mongering down.

2) STTM has a power­ful and gro­wing page of tes­ti­mo­nies of those who switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid.  Are you in there? If not, you need to be. This web­site currently has a huge audience. It’s noti­ced by doc­tors all over the world, as is the STTM book, which is YOUR book of YOUR expe­rien­ces,  which is also being orde­red by doc­tors. Use the Con­tact Me form at the bot­tom of that page.

3) Tell your expe­rience with Synth­roid or other thy­ro­xine medi­ca­tions at the follo­wing web­si­tes:  www.rateadrug.com,  www.drugs.com,  www.askapatient.com They don’t inc­lude any of the desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds yet, but you can tell of the nega­tive expe­rien­ces with all the T4-only drugs, inc­lu­ding adre­nal fati­gue if you fell into that, and all your lin­ge­ring thy­roid symp­toms.  The above links will take you to their Synth­roid page – you can search for the other T4 meds.  Remem­ber to men­tion Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds and how they have hel­ped you!! Update: thy­roid patient Gina found the drugs.com Armour page: http://www.drugs.com/comments/thyroid-desiccated/armour-thyroid.html

4) Report your T4-only expe­rience to Med­Watch, the FDA’s  pro­gram for repor­ting pro­blems.  You will see an Online Repor­ting Form to down­load. Don’t fail to men­tion which pro­blems were remo­ved or greatly impro­ved when you switched to Armour, or the fact that you now have to deal with adre­nal fati­gue thanks to the ina­de­quacy of T4-only treat­ment. You can also call 1 – 800-FDA-1088, but remem­ber: your call is not to draw atten­tion to Wolfe’s opi­nions! It’s to draw atten­tion to how lousy a treat­ment T4 is as com­pa­red to how much bet­ter Armour has been.

5) Go to my article tit­led Synth­roid Sucks: the Rall­ying Cry of Thy­roid Patients vs. Clue­less Doc­tors and com­ment on this article, inc­lu­ding men­tio­ning what Armour, Natu­reth­roid or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid did for you. Rate it as well. Both keep this article in the media and in the eyes of others.

6) Go to www.medications.com where patients ask ques­tions and YOU can ans­wer, men­tio­ning YOUR expe­rience and how much bet­ter desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been. Clic­king on that will take you to the Synth­roid patient ques­tions. Ans­wer them. Be care­ful with links – they may not catch them at first, but will remove them if they do.  You can men­tion web­site names, tho, like Stop the Thy­roid Madness.

7) Send peo­ple here to follow all these steps. Power is in numbers!

8 ) Use the follo­wing web­site to email or write your sena­tors and repre­sen­ta­ti­ves: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ THEY DO READ THEM. And they will remem­ber this!  Here’s a tem­plate let­ter you can use:  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/template-letter-to-your-senator-or-representive/

If you have other ideas and pla­ces to write or call, add your com­ment to this post. Remem­ber,  put your power in com­mu­ni­ca­tion! LOTS of communication.

P.S. Did you know that the Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion, in coo­pe­ra­tion with the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, together sup­port January as “Thy­roid Awa­re­ness Month”…which is sup­por­ted through an unres­tric­ted grant from Abbott Labo­ra­to­ries, the makers of Synth­roid?? Major UGH.