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An intri­guing thought: what if there were lab pac­ka­ges spe­ci­fi­cally desig­ned by Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness and all its patient-to-patient wis­dom.  Well, there are!

STTM has crea­ted lab pro­fi­les in part­nership with MyMed­Lab, a direct-to-consumer lab faci­lity which has expan­ded to pro­vide ser­vi­ces to nearly the entire Uni­ted States

This lab faci­lity pro­mo­tes the empo­wer­ment of patients in their own care, simi­lar to STTM’s focus on edu­ca­ting the patient and expec­ting a part­nership when you walk into the doctor’s office. Empowerment!

You will find a com­bi­na­tion of both in-home collec­ted tests (saliva cor­ti­sol) and those per­for­med at Lab­Corp collec­tion sites across the US.   Take a Peak: STTM Lab pac­ka­ges (be sure and click on the green What’s Inc­lu­ded icon on the lower right. You get a lot!)

Just as I was finishing up the post below about a short sum­mary on the Endoc­ri­no­logy Today web­site, I saw a link at the bot­tom of the page that inte­res­ted me.  It took me to a blog post on the same site from Decem­ber 10^th tit­led “Why can’t it be my thyroid?”.

And a slew of thy­roid patients around the world, as well as a gro­wing body of doc­tors,  would com­ple­tely disa­gree with this post.

Namely, a DO explains the pro­blem of patients arri­ving in doc­tors offi­ces with “innu­me­ra­ble pos­si­ble symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism” inc­lu­ding “fati­gue, cold into­le­rance, dec­rea­sed energy, weight gain, depres­sion, hair loss, low libido, mens­trual irre­gu­la­rity and others.”

Yet, he bemoans, these patients have a “nor­mal TSH” which is “well within the nor­mal labo­ra­tory refe­rence range.” He also refers to their nor­mal free T3 and free T4, and sta­tes there is no his­tory to sug­gest pitui­tary dys­func­tion or that the TSH is unreliable.”

He then pro­ceeds to pat him­self on the back because he 1) will treat some patients with a high-normal TSH and other cli­ni­cal fea­tu­res,  2) he will treat to a low-normal TSH of less than 2.0, but like the good-boy-doctor, “still within the nor­mal labo­ra­tory refe­rence range” and 3) he will not induce iatro­ge­nic hyperthy­roi­dism, even if symp­toms per­sist. (yikes)

“Iatro­ge­nic hyperthy­roi­dism”??  Since “iatro­ge­ne­sis” refers to harm­ful medi­cal pro­ce­du­res, he’s pro­bably refe­rring to a TSH below the range, which in his mind, equa­tes to hyperthyroidism.

***Then comes the obser­va­tion that has made many thy­roid patients shi­ver, since so many doc­tors have said it: because he feels that adding T3 to T4 has more nega­tive results than posi­tive, he explains to his patients “that there may be cau­ses of their symp­toms besi­des the thyroid.”

THUD.

So here is my 6-point res­ponse to any doc­tor who might share these beliefs:

1) There’s hardly a thy­roid patient around who hasn’t had a so-called “nor­mal” TSH in spite of clear and obvious hypothy­roi­dism.  The TSH lab test fre­quently lags behind what is rea­lity in the body, and has been doing so since it’s crea­tion in the early 1970’s (see Chap­ter 4 in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book for his­tory).

2) Having a “nor­mal” free T3 and free T4 means nothing. It’s “where” the result falls in that range that means something. i.e. patients all around the world are noti­cing that having a free T3 mid-range or lower in the pre­sence of hypothy­roid symp­toms is usually a BINGO lab result poin­ting to hypothyroidism.

3) Exactly because doc­tors tend to dis­miss clear hypothy­roid symp­toms as “something else” thanks to a lousy TSH refe­rence range, a bur­geo­ning num­ber of thy­roid patients are falling into adre­nal fati­gue with its low cor­ti­sol, which ser­ves to mess them up even more.

4) A huge body of thy­roid patients who are on desic­ca­ted thy­roid hor­mo­nes (aka Armour, Natu­reth­roid, etc), and who finally have a com­plete remo­val of symp­toms with a nor­mal tem­pe­ra­ture and hear­trate, also have a sup­pres­sed TSH lab result, and not one iota of “iatro­ge­nic hyperthyroidism.”

5) When it appears that adding T3 to T4 is having nega­tive effects, the pro­blem is most likely adre­nal fati­gue that needs correc­tion, and/or low ferri­tin, NOT deci­ding that the symp­toms must be from another cause or T3 doesn’t work.

6) “Fati­gue, cold into­le­rance, dec­rea­sed energy, weight gain, depres­sion, hair loss, low libido, mens­trual irre­gu­la­rity and others” may be sha­red in other con­di­tions, but you are most likely mis­sing CLEAR symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, both in the undiag­no­sed patient with a so-called nor­mal TSH, or with a patient trea­ted with the lousy thy­ro­xine, which lea­ves most ever­yone with con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms.

“I’m sorry. It IS your thy­roid” is exactly what patients need to hear.

Today, I came across a short sum­mary on recent study fin­dings pre­sen­ted at the 79^th Annual Mee­ting of the Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion in Novem­ber, 2008.

It sta­tes that in a study with thy­roid patients 65 and older, there was no impro­ve­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion when a patient is opti­mally trea­ted on thy­ro­xine, aka Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, et al.

Gee golly.  What brea­king and cutting-edge news!

NOT.

Too bad it takes the results of a research study to reveal what has been bla­tantly obvious in patients of all ages for 50 years: thy­ro­xine ove­rall does not work and lea­ves patients with a variety of NON-improvements, as well as wor­se­ning symp­toms of lin­ge­ring hypothy­roi­dism as they age.  Duhhhh.

My mouth just fell open last night.

Appa­rently, in Decem­ber of 2002, an Aus­tra­lian doc­tor named JP Walsh (Depart­ment of Endoc­ri­no­logy and Dia­be­tes of Sir Char­les Gaird­ner Hos­pi­tal, Ned­lands, Wes­tern Aus­tra­lia), and an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist to boot, wrote an most inte­res­ting article in the jour­nal Current Opi­nion in Phar­ma­co­logy.

This inc­re­dibly stun­ning article was tit­led Dis­sa­tis­fac­tion with thy­ro­xine the­rapy — could the patients be right?

The abs­tract states:

In some patients with hypothy­roi­dism, symp­toms of ill health per­sist des­pite thy­ro­xine treat­ment. It is unc­lear whether this ari­ses from comor­bi­dity or because stan­dard thy­ro­xine repla­ce­ment is in some way ina­de­quate for some indi­vi­duals. Some patients feel bet­ter if they take a slightly exces­sive dose of thy­ro­xine, but this carries a poten­tial risk of adverse car­diac and ske­le­tal effects. There are con­flic­ting data on whether com­bi­ned thyroxine/triiodothyronine treat­ment is pre­fe­ra­ble to thy­ro­xine alone in dis­sa­tis­fied patients

I am una­ble to read the full article, as it is requi­red that you pay a sum I don’t have. But you defi­ni­tely get the impres­sion that this doc­tor was on the cusp of figu­ring out what we have known solidly all along.  Because Dr. Walsh, the patients WERE right, and still are.  Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, levothy­ro­xine and all other T4-only medi­ca­tions suck, and have suc­ked for a long, long time.  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/t4-only-meds-dont-work and  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/long-and-pathetic

I so hope to be able to con­tact Dr. Walsh.  Do you know him?  Because he and I need to have a long talk.

Janie

p.s. Thank you Gerry.

Who, as a smo­ker, hasn’t heard how dele­te­rious tobacco smo­king is for your health. Not only will you acquire health pro­blems directly rela­ted to smo­king, but your life is shor­te­ned by 10 – 15 years ave­rage accor­ding to sta­tis­tics. My own father died at age 63 directly rela­ted to his smoking.

But in spite of strong rea­sons to quit, most smo­kers will tell you it’s NOT easy. Why? Because the nico­tine in tobacco is the addic­tive bogey­man. Nico­tine sti­mu­la­tes those plea­sure cen­ters in your brain, besi­des being a subs­tance which “gets you going” by relea­sing both blood sugar and adre­na­line. The Ame­ri­can Heart Asso­cia­tion sta­tes that “Nico­tine addic­tion has his­to­ri­cally been one of the har­dest addic­tions to break.“

But for hypothy­roid patients, tobacco smo­king pre­sents another whammy. Namely, it stres­ses your adre­nals over and over. And with adre­nal fati­gue being a com­mon side effect of trea­ting hypo with T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, et all, as well as being dosed by the lousy TSH, you’ve got a third rea­son to fall into adre­nal fati­gue if you are a smoker.

Addi­tio­nally, another fac­tor in the dif­fi­culty of quit­ting is that cor­ti­sol dec­rea­ses when you try to quit. A 2006 research report found that the lowe­red cor­ti­sol after quit­ting is asso­cia­ted with smo­king relapse and with reports of inc­rea­sed with­dra­wal seve­rity and dis­tress. So, when you already have adre­nal fati­gue, and you quit smo­king – a dou­ble whammy against being successful.

What’s the solu­tion? If you don’t have adre­nal fati­gue and want to quit, it may be wise to have a good adre­nal sup­port on hand, such as Iso­cort or any qua­lity OTC adre­nal pro­duct at your health food store. If you DO have adre­nal fati­gue, sta­ying away from cigs may require adding addi­tio­nal cor­ti­sol to your daily amount. Chap­ters 5 and 6 in the STTM book have good infor­ma­tion to help you with cor­ti­sol support.

Are you a smo­ker with hypo? Don’t hesi­tate to res­pond to this post with your expe­rience. (Please note that replies are not for questions.)

READ DEBORAH’S STORY ABOUT HER ATTEMPT to STOP SMOKING.