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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.

Before my thy­roid disease of hypothy­roi­dism was dis­co­ve­red, I had horri­fic and debi­li­ta­ting con­se­quen­ces from exer­cise or any acti­vity.  You can read about it all here or even more detail in the Intro­duc­tion of the patients-to-patients Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

When my so-called “bor­der­line hypothy­roid” was dis­co­ve­red by age 30, I thought whoo-hooo, I’ll finally get rid of this strange night­mare whe­ne­ver I tried to do ANYTHING.  I was put on Synth­roid and my anti­ci­pa­tion for a bet­ter life was profound.

But my hope was dashed. Not only did my body con­ti­nue to ove­rreact to acti­vity, it got worse over time.  Horribly worse.  Nearly twenty years after I had star­ted on a T4-only medi­ca­tion, and was told by one doc­tor after another that my pro­blem was not my thy­roid, I was going to apply for social secu­rity disability.

But they were all dead wrong. Sure, turns out I have a form of Dysau­to­no­mia, a mal­func­tion and ove­rreac­tion of my auto­no­mic ner­vous sys­tem, cau­sing my body to far ove­rreact to stress. But remai­ning hypothy­roid, as we all do on the sucky t4-only medi­ca­tions, had made it far worse. And I pro­ved it. When I switched to Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2002 and rai­sed it accor­ding to what patients have lear­ned, a miracle occu­rred.  My severe auto­no­mic reac­tions made an almost com­plete tur­na­round.

And my expe­rience of change or impro­ve­ment when it comes to other disea­ses or con­di­tions has been sha­red by others.

Last week, I recei­ved an email from a man whose brother has MS – Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis.  And though Armour has not taken his MS away, it allo­wed him to move from this wheelchair to a wal­ker! That is impressive.

So I am left won­de­ring:  what other con­di­tions or disea­ses, which are uni­que in them­sel­ves, are wor­se­ned being undiag­no­sed thanks to the lousy TSH lab test or the ina­de­quate treat­ment of Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin and all other T4-only medi­ca­tions? It’s awful to think about it.

Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my nind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the bot­tom of the links to the left.

Ever heard of perch­lo­rate?? It’s a salt taken from perch­lo­ric acid, and it’s used in roc­ket fuel and explo­si­ves.  It was also once used in a medi­ca­tion to treat hyperthyroidism.

And guess where resi­dues of it are hiding? In our drin­king water and in infant for­mula. (EPA map shows where perch­lo­rate is manu­fac­tu­red just in the US — nearly every state)

In a recent article by the Envi­ron­men­tal Wor­king Group,  it’s esti­ma­ted that 15 brands of infant for­mula are con­ta­mi­na­ted with it, and two of the most con­ta­mi­na­ted brands of those 15 made up 87% of pow­de­red for­mula used in 2000…all accor­ding to the CDC (Cen­ters for Disease Con­trol and Prevention).

As bad as that is, this goes beyond infant for­mula. It’s esti­ma­ted that the drin­king water of 28 sta­tes is con­ta­mi­na­ted by perch­lo­rate, and other esti­ma­tes are 35.  In addi­tion,  the majo­rity of women who breast­feed have it in their milk.  And you can find it in water-rich foods such as toma­toes and melons, or carrots and spi­nach.  It could even be found in milk.  Ouch.

So we not only have millions of US babies being expo­sed to a toxin which can dimi­nish thy­roid health, but adults who can be drin­king their water and eating their food.

But guess what can coun­ter the toxic effect of perch­lo­rate? Iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion, if you take enough. In spite of some con­tro­versy with the use of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion, this gives one pause in favor of it.

Luc­kily for all of us who know that desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour is a bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, it also con­tains iodine. And some go beyond that, adding iodine to their sup­ple­ments via Lugols or Iodo­ral.  It might be worth loo­king into.

P.S. The buck doesn’t stop with perch­lo­ra­tes in our water. We could also be expo­sed to a variety of pes­ti­ci­des, che­mi­cals from depo­sed presc­rip­tion drugs, and even mer­cury in our water.  Sad.  Our poor thy­roids are assaulted.

When I  was ten years old, my mother had elec­tric shock treatment.

The memory stands out in my mind like a bea­con. And when my Dad brought her home, he took me aside and explai­ned that my mama was not going to remem­ber where things are for awhile, and we’d have to help her. That was espe­cially true with the 4-legged sewing basket.

She even­tually regai­ned her memory. But she was never again the same bright and quick wit­ted mother I used to have when I was younger.

Why was shock treat­ment done?  To coun­ter her mys­te­rious ongoing and disa­bling depres­sion.  And this was her last option.

It didn’t work.

She lived on anti-depressants, spe­ci­fi­cally a high dose of Ela­vil, the rest of her com­pro­mi­sed life.

And more than 40 years later, about a year after her death, a change in my own life with Armour hel­ped me rea­lize why she had to be depen­dent on an anti-depressant for so many years:  Synth­roid.  My mother was on Synth­roid almost her entire adult life — a medi­ca­tion, along with Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Unith­roid, Eltro­xin, Leva­xin, Nor­ton, Eutro­sig  and Oro­xine, which lea­ves nearly all patients with lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms, inc­lu­ding one of the most com­mon one:  chro­nic on-going depression.

And a large body of doc­tors all around the world just don’t get it.

What brought this memory of my mother up in my mind? Because two days ago, I chat­ted with a gal on Synth­roid.   By all appea­ran­ces, she see­med to be doing well, as some will make you think.  She said she had enough energy, wasn’t losing her hair, and felt okay. But when I pro­bed dee­per, she admit­ted that her blood pres­sure was going too high (as hap­pe­ned to my mother on a T4-only med) and she had a pro­blem with depres­sion and was on Well­bu­trin.  Bingo.

See http://biopsychiatry.com/hypothyroidism.htm which is also here: http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/10/1142

Want to be infor­med of these blog posts?? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion fea­ture on the bot­tom left of the links.

Just two months ago on January 15^th, I wrote an article tit­led Ten Rea­sons You May Still Feel Bad.  Nearly every hypothy­roid patient can have some of those ten pro­blems, and if so, they need to be dis­co­ve­red and corrected.

And one of those issues was low B12. B12 is a vita­min which has a key role in cell meta­bo­lism of your entire body, giving you energy, sharp­ness in your brain, and healthy ner­vous sys­tem functioning.

And unfor­tu­na­tely, a cer­tain per­cen­tage of hypothy­roid patients have low levels of this impor­tant vita­min, lar­gely due to diges­tive issues com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism– either undiag­no­sed due to the lousy TSH lab test, or under­trea­ted on T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Symp­toms of low B12 can vary from per­son to per­son, but can inc­lude numb­ness and tin­gling in your hands or feet,  tre­mors, poor refle­xes, ton­gue sore­ness, leg pain, or dif­fi­culty wal­king with balance.   Psycho­lo­gi­cally, you may have memory issues, con­fu­sion, or depres­sion. Young women may have dif­fi­culty get­ting preg­nant due to low B12.

When doing lab work, you want a result in the upper end of the range.  To correct ina­de­quate levels of B12, you’ll want to use high oral B12 (methyl­co­ba­la­min is the recom­men­ded form of B12), B12 cream, or injec­tions by your doc­tor (espe­cially if you have per­ni­cious ane­mia) .  It’s also recom­men­ded to inc­rease your con­sump­tion of meat and dairy pro­ducts, which can be rich in B12.

March 27, 2009 is the kick-off date to begin an awa­re­ness cam­paign of B12 health, with Sep­tem­ber 23^rd being “Vita­min B12 Awa­re­ness Day”. And I highly recom­mend the book Could It Be B12? An Epi­de­mic of Mis­diag­no­ses by Sally Pacho­lok, R.N. and Jef­frey Stuart, D.O., who are spearhea­ding this awareness.

Have you found your­self with low B12? Tell us your symp­toms, how you trea­ted it, and how long it took to stop the symptoms.

Want to be noti­fied of these blog posts? Curious what Janie is ran­ting about this time? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the bot­tom left of the links.