• +Audience
• Janie's experience
• Related conditions due to hypo
• Thyroid treatment
• desiccated thyroid
• t4

Tonight was a beau­ti­ful night to do my aero­bic wal­king. It had pou­red this after­noon for 30 minu­tes, so the early eve­ning air was slightly cool and very clean.

And on the last leg of my jour­ney, I stop­ped and said to Car­lin as she was wal­king out of her front door “Where you have been lately? I haven’t seen you out wal­king with your husband.”

Car­lin and her hus­band Clint are pro­bably in their late 70’s – both vibrant indi­vi­duals and fre­quent wal­kers in the same area.

“Well”, she said wist­fully as she glan­ced down the street I had just wal­ked, “I have to go in Mon­day for a Pacemaker.”

Turns out she has fibri­lla­tions and other heart issues, and even wal­king from her bedroom to her living room can exhaust her.  I told her how well my mother-in-law has done with her pace­ma­ker. She told me she’d be in the hos­pi­tal for at least 3 – 4 days for the sur­gery and observation.

And as we were chat­ting over the low white fence, I couldn’t help but notice the scar on her neck – the same scar my own mother had from the remo­val of her thy­roid years ago.  And the rest of Carlin’s story, and the rea­lity of her story, made me want to punch the nea­rest elec­tri­cal pole in disgust.

Carlin’s thy­roid was remo­ved over 40 years ago.  She remem­bers being on “2 grains of something” – clearly it was desic­ca­ted thy­roid. And she says she felt really good. But she wasn’t on it long, as her doc­tor remo­ved it and put her levothy­ro­xine over 30 years ago. You know, that “new and modern” T4-only CRAP which doc­tors fell for like the blind follo­wing the blind begin­ning in the 1960’s until today. (The story behind the intro­duc­tion of T4 onto patients in the early 1960’s is in Chap­ter One of the STTM book)

So I knew. Her heart trou­bles could be one of the many side effects of the infe­rior treat­ment of T4-only medi­ca­tions (which also inc­lude Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oroxine…all of them). My own mother suf­fe­red the same fate while on Synth­roid her entire life. And patients chat about this all the time on thy­roid groups – heart issues while on T4.

I star­ted pro­bing. She has had issues with high blood pres­sure. Another typi­cal side effect of the crap T4-only medi­ca­tion, and which is remo­ved with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. She has had issues with depres­sion – another typi­cal side effect of the crap T4-only medi­ca­tion, and which is remo­ved with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. She tal­ked bit­terly about the slew of medi­ca­tions she’s had to be on for years to coun­ter all her pro­blems, and which had given her bad side effects.

And the next worse thing she told me? She had acid reflux so bad a few years ago that they did sur­gery on her sto­mach. She had sur­gery for a con­di­tion which is VERY com­mon with thy­roid patients who are on T4 meds – low sto­mach acid from a lower meta­bo­lism, which cau­ses acid reflux. i.e. a symp­tom of con­ti­nued hypothy­roi­dism which is CORRECTED when on desic­ca­ted thyroid.

It was hard to con­tain myself. Here was this vibrant, life-loving, inte­lli­gent woman who has been on T4-only for over 30 years and has endu­red health pro­blems, sur­ge­ries, side effects from all sorts of money-grubbing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pills, and now, has to go in Mon­day for a pace­ma­ker. And in all pro­ba­bi­lity, most of what she has gone though could have been pre­ven­ted if some doc­tor had been WISE enough to keep this woman on desic­ca­ted thyroid.

I am livid and sick to my stomach.

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• Are you che­wing up your Armour or Natu­reth­roid? It will make the treat­ment far bet­ter, as it will release the desic­ca­ted thy­roid from the excess cellu­lose.  If you are on com­poun­ded, you need to tell the phar­ma­cist to stop using cellu­lose as a filler. On Erfa? You can do it sublingually.
• If you are rea­ding this right on STTM’s blog, and would like to be noti­fied of each blog post, just sign up to the left and under the links.
• Have you done labs and found your­self with high RT3? Get off Sele­nium for the time being, as it can help con­vert T4 to the RT3 along with the other rea­sons you make too much.
• Want to spread the word about far bet­ter treat­ment? T-shirts and bum­per stic­kers are here.

Last week, after hours, I called the office of the Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner I have used as my doc­tor for 5 years. I left my mes­sage – that I have had rising blood pres­sure and was curious what she would recom­mend. (And yes, I like her.)

I men­tio­ned that I was slightly lowe­ring my Armour, just in case the iodine I had been giving myself for a year was now cau­sing my Armour amount to be too much (and con­tri­bu­ting to my BP). I also men­tio­ned that I had found many artic­les on the net about the bene­fit of taking CoQ10 for rising blood pressure…plus the fact that low levels of potas­sium and mag­ne­sium may place a role in at least 50% of those with rising blood pres­sure. I also asked if I could be sent lab papers so I can test my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium levels. I was curious.

Last Mon­day, the office called. It was the nurse under the phy­si­cian that my NP works under, and whom I was FAR less impres­sed by. She explai­ned that I would now be under his care, since blood pres­sure doesn’t fall under her spe­cialty – female hor­mo­nes. (first inner alarm).

Next, she says that the doc feels there is “no strong research” that CoQ10 will help me. (second inner alarm) I replied that there’s “no strong research” that Armour turns the lives around of thy­roid patients, yet it does. Cough.

Finally, she sta­ted that she doubts he will feel “com­for­ta­ble” with let­ting me test my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium (final alarm). Excuse me…HE would not feel com­for­ta­ble for me to know what my levels were? HE would not feel com­for­ta­ble?? WHO’S BODY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?!?

And today…I recei­ved the lab papers I was to use…and all he chec­ked were electrolytes.…and TSH. Thud. Gran­ted, there is a rela­tionship bet­ween elec­troly­tes and blood pressure…but I was appa­lled that he gave no res­pect to my request to know my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium levels.…and wan­ted to test the WORST and most unre­lia­ble “thy­roid” test there is.

I have tos­sed those lab papers…and I am making an appoint­ment with a new doctor…one I have heard about from another patient.…and who has a repu­ta­tion of lis­te­ning, not simply dictating.

p.s. I’m back on my regu­lar amount of Armour. And..my blood pres­sure has fallen to a res­pec­ta­ble level: 125/74 tonite…and 105/69 the other night. What did it? Pro­bably the release of stress from let­ting go of some res­pon­si­bi­li­ties. I’m also making sure I take a full spec­trum of mine­rals, CoQ10, and I’m back to wal­king aero­bi­cally at least 4 times a week. And finally, I’ve been using a tables­poon of apple cider vine­gar (acv) daily with 1/4 tsp baking soda for over two weeks. The acv has done won­ders for my husband’s FORMERLY poor diges­tive issues.…and there’s evi­dence it helps con­trol blood pres­sure in two weeks!! (Remem­ber: these blog posts are ONLY for com­ments. Want to talk to others? See the TALK TO OTHERS link on any STTM page.)

I nor­mally don’t write about me here, but more on thy­roid advo­cacy issues. But this time…it’s going to be ME, because YOU need to be aware of what hap­pe­ned to me…because it can hap­pen to you.

I appear to have adre­nal fatigue.

Now unders­tand this: I didn’t have it when I got on Armour over 4 years ago. I rai­sed my Armour without a hitch, except for low Ferri­tin twice that I had to correct. And for approx. 3 1/2 years, I’ve been opti­mal with Armour with a per­fect mid-afternoon temp of 98.6

So why adre­nal fati­gue now?? It helps to explain it this way: Two years ago, in Dec. of 2004, I ente­red serious peri-menopause. My pro­ges­te­rone fell rock bot­tom while I still had a youth­fully high estro­gen. And I’ve had to deal with the misery of severe estro­gen domi­nance for two years. I’ve used com­poun­ded pro­ges­te­rone cream for those two years, but it was often never enough to stop the symp­toms of estro­gen dominance.

Also, Dr. Lam sta­tes the follo­wing and it explains me to a T: In early sta­ges of adre­nal fati­gue, cor­ti­sol out­put is high as the body attempts to neu­tra­lize the stress by pro­du­cing more of it. Howe­ver, when too much cor­ti­sol is pro­du­ced, it will have mul­ti­ple unde­si­ra­ble effects. For exam­ple, cor­ti­sol blocks pro­ges­te­rone recep­tors, making them less res­pon­sive to pro­ges­te­rone. Pro­ges­te­rone nor­mally pro­du­ced by the adre­nals comes to a halt in favor of cor­ti­sol. Insuf­fi­cient pro­ges­te­rone pro­duc­tion leads to an imba­lance of estro­gen to progesterone…(aka estro­gen domi­nance). And voila – I did have high cor­ti­sol in the mor­ning and noon. I had done the saliva adre­nal test just a month after my pro­ges­te­rone had dropped.

Finally, this past Octo­ber, I noti­ced the estro­gen domi­nance FINALLY stop­ped, as did my periods. A huge vic­tory. But in early Decem­ber, after a par­ti­cu­larly busy day on a Satur­day, I majorly crashed.….….and haven’t reco­ve­red since.

And ALL my symp­toms point to adre­nal fati­gue. First, my temps fell. And they were all over the place. My highest would only be 98.3, and one night, I was 97.1. That was VERY wrong for me.

Next, I star­ted waking up EVERY night bet­ween 3 – 5 am. A typi­cal adre­nal symp­tom. Also, if I felt emo­tio­nal about something, my body would get VERY hot. At first I thought it was a hot flash…but it was different.

And I was achy for 1 1/2 weeks. That stop­ped when I rai­sed my Armour and got my temps back up. But even without the achi­ness, I have felt fati­gued all over, and just bad.

Also, I fail the blood pres­sure test in the mor­nings. The other day, my supine blood pres­sure was 135/84. Stan­ding, it was 115/84. A good sign of adre­nal fati­gue. I also have a fas­ter and a poun­ding heartrate.

I have sent off my saliva samples…but have no doubt what the results are going to be. So.…I am going to start the very adre­nal sup­port that I have writ­ten about in so much detail here on STTM. Because there is simply too much stress in my life to think that prac­ti­cing all the other adre­nal sup­port methods are going to help my adre­nals reco­ver, or even help me feel better.

And by the way, for the past year and more, I have always given myself 5000 mgs of Vit. C and high dose B-vitamins, plus E. I have exer­ci­sed regu­larly by wal­king. But it wasn’t enough to stop what a huge female hor­mo­nal change has done to me. I now am using Lico­rice Root daily (which stops some of the break­down of cor­ti­sol in your liver) and 1/2 tsp sea salt, sti­rred in orange juice and my mor­ning yogurt. And I’ll have to start on cortisol.

What can you do to not find your­self in my shoes? For one, if you enter peri-meno, even without the pre­sence of adre­nal fati­gue, I would start on some mild OTC adre­nal sup­port now, which I was never on. Also, do wha­te­ver you can to coun­ter exces­sive emo­tio­nal stress in your life during this time by fin­ding times to laugh and doing what you enjoy. I have been stuck with a job that wore me down, and family issues that stres­sed me terribly, and I’m sure that pla­yed a part.

COMMENTS TO THIS POST ARE WELCOME (I could use pats on the back because this makes me SICK), but if you have ques­tions, this is not the place for them. Go to our forums here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/community And by the way, I will update this par­ti­cu­lar blog post when I get my adre­nal saliva test results back…and as I pro­gress in my treat­ment. My fin­gers are cros­sed.

Click here to see the con­ti­nua­tion of my com­ments on my own Adre­nal Fatigue.

UPDATE as of Feb. 2009: for those still rea­ding all the way down here, I became fully meno by 2008 and remar­kably, require no pro­ges­te­rone or estro­gen to feel good.  I did start having cons­tant night­time waking up and pro­bably could use a little pro­ges­te­rone at bed­time. I do use tes­tos­te­rone gel to keep my musc­les healthy and stron­ger.  And my adre­nals are still fine.  I’m on 4 grains Armour plus a slew of good supplements.

When I switched from Levoxyl to Armour on one day in July of 2002, the dif­fe­rence in my well-being was so stun­ning that I never loo­ked back. In fact, I was so stun­ned that I star­ted an inter­net talk group about natu­ral thy­roid hor­mo­nes in August of 2002. I went from someone who couldn’t even sand a small wood pro­ject without being debi­li­ta­ted (Yes. Really. With a “nor­mal” TSH and on Levoxyl).……to someone who could even­tually own her own store and stand ALL day. I am now on 4 grains, multi-dosed and sublin­gually, plus 1/8 grain at night. I have a free T3 at the top of the range, and a sup­pres­sed TSH.

I have also noti­ced that some STAY on their T4 when star­ting Armour. That may not be a bad idea since it would help you bridge over, but it can also end up con­fu­sing the issue of where your opti­mal dose is down the line!! As a thy­roid patient advo­cate, I have noted that those that use their T4 one day, and get on Armour the next WITHOUT the T4, gene­rally have an easier time fin­ding their opti­mal dose down the line without con­fu­sion. And do know that some on Armour alone obtain that high-in-the-range free T4. I am just not one of them.

UPDATE 1 – 22-07: I found out months later that my fai­lure to reco­ver well from acti­vity was pro­bably due to an adre­nal pro­blem, not neces­sa­rily a need for a higher T4. My adre­nals were in the alarm stage – namely, I was making high levels of cor­ti­sol in res­ponse to stress in my life, so there wasn’t an ade­quate res­ponse for reco­very after heavy acti­vity. It wasn’t a need for more T4. I should have been sup­por­ting my adre­nals with Iso­cort in situa­tions like this. (If you have ques­tions about your own treatment…i.e. more than a com­ment, do go to our Forums)