• oprah

I’ve been sit­ting back silently, rea­ding all the bac­klash that star­ted with Newsweek’s Best Life or Risky Advice May 30^th article, a cri­ti­cal analy­sis of Oprah’s mul­ti­ple pro­gram topics of Wish Away Can­cer! Get A Lunch­time Face-Lift! Era­di­cate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Meno­pause! Har­ness Posi­tive Energy! Erase Wrin­kles! Banish Obe­sity! Live Your Best Life Ever!

And gran­ted, some of the cri­ti­cism seems jus­ti­fied.

Even thy­roid patients win­ced and squir­med when Oprah sta­ted that a month long Hawaiian vaca­tion and eating fresh foods with soy milk were a great way to treat her thy­roid con­di­tion.  Uh huh.   Patients equally gag­ged at her sup­port of Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup who made the the nutty insen­si­tive com­ment that our thy­roid pro­blems were due to an “energy bloc­kage in the throat region, the result of a life­time of ‘swa­llo­wing’ words one is aching to say.”

But the ensuing array of blog posts and artic­les follo­wing in the foots­teps of the News­week cri­ti­cism of Oprah has pre­sen­ted quite an irony for thy­roid patients whose lives have been chan­ged thanks to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Adjec­ti­ves and/or desc­rip­tions of Oprah in these blogs and artic­les have included:

* dan­ge­rous

* pedd­ling alter­na­tive treat­ments that are ineffective

* fai­ling to pre­sent scien­ti­fic evidence

* fai­ling to lis­ten to bona fide, medi­cal school trai­ned,  medi­cal professionals

* being too gulli­ble about the so-called wis­dom and know­ledge of cer­tain patients (ala Suzanne Somers)

* fai­ling to give more atten­tion to science-based, sta­tus quo, mains­tream medicine

Any of the above sound fami­liar? Yup, it sure does.

How many times have thy­roid patients been told that desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour or Natu­reth­roid was dan­ge­rous, or rai­sing it by symp­toms rather than the TSH was dan­ge­rous. Or it’s dan­ge­rous to use because you’ll get heart pro­blems and oste­ro­po­ro­sis. Yet thy­roid patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid have their lives CHANGED, with stron­ger hearts and inc­rea­sed bone density.

How many patients have had their doc­tors tell them that desic­ca­ted was inef­fec­tive as an alter­na­tive out-dated pro­duct, yet these same patients star­ted to LIVE again with relief from old symp­toms from this inef­fec­tive “alter­na­tive” medi­ca­tion that grandma once used.

How many artic­les by medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals are there who claim that there’s no scien­ti­fic evi­dence to prove that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is effec­tive, in spite of CLEAR obser­va­tion and reports of a huge and gro­wing body of thy­roid patients and cer­tain doc­tors around the world about relief from depres­sion, lowe­red cho­les­te­rol, bet­ter blood pres­sure, weight main­te­nance, hair regrowth, bet­ter sta­mina, less sick­ness and a myriad of other improvements!

How many bona fide, medi­cal school trai­ned,  medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals told us ad nau­seum that our symp­toms were not thy­roid rela­ted (when they were), that we are “nor­mal” because the TSH lab test says so (when we were far from it), that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is out­da­ted, unre­lia­ble, inef­fec­tive, and a ten ton load of other ridi­cu­lous com­ments from bona fide, medi­cal school trai­ned,  medi­cal professionals. 

How many doc­tors have told patients that they should NOT lis­ten to other patients on the inter­net or Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness because patients can’t pos­sibly have any wis­dom or know what they are tal­king about. Yet, lo and behold, it’s been patients and what they have lear­ned who have star­ted a wide-reaching revo­lu­tion for bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment that works, and a gro­wing body of doc­tors are listening!

And how many times has science-based, sta­tus quo, mains­tream medi­cine com­ple­tely rui­ned the lives of thy­roid patients because many doc­tors are too lazy to dare ques­tion or think outside the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, medi­cal school box.

Yup, Oprah has made some blun­ders, gaf­fes and mis­judg­ments as out­li­ned in the News­week article.  She has gushed too quickly when North­rup opens her mouth or Oz walks in with his sur­gi­cal garb.  But isn’t it a bit iro­nic that some of the cri­ti­cism by others towards Oprah are the same blun­ders, gaf­fes and mis­judg­ments which most any thy­roid patient has heard about their use of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and which has all been COMPLETELY wrong.

Bot­tom line, for every mis­take and mis­judg­ment Oprah has made – and CLEARLY she has done so in her unders­tan­ding of thy­roid treat­ment — she just might be ope­ning the doors to medi­cal truth, somewhere, somehow, bet­ween it all.

Janie