• +Audience
• Reverse T3

A huge dis­co­very over the last few years by thy­roid patients is the wides­pread pro­blem of high levels of Reverse T3, aka RT3, in many patients. And those thy­roid patients have to use a T3-only pro­duct for awhile to lower the high RT3, which comes from the T4 in desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Higher levels of RT3 can occur in the pre­sence of adre­nal fati­gue, low B12, low ferri­tin, and other issues, all which need treat­ment to stop the RT3 pro­blem. And in case you are one who is on the Pad­dock brand of T3, this comes from the FDA this week:

PRODUCT
Liothy­ro­nine Sodium Tablets, USP 5 mcg, RX only, Net con­tents 100 tablets, NDC0574-0220 – 01, UPC code (01) 00305740220016. Recall # D-695‑2010
CODE
Lot # 9C548
RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER
Reca­lling Firm: Pad­dock Labo­ra­to­ries, Inc., Min­nea­po­lis, MN, by let­ter dated May 18, 2010.
Manu­fac­tu­rer: Metrics Inc., Greenville, NC. Firm ini­tia­ted recall is ongoing.
REASON
The recall is being con­duc­ted due to a sta­bi­lity fai­lure at the 12 month time­point; the assay value of this lot was found to be sub-potent.
VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE
11,064 bott­les
DISTRIBUTION
Nation­wide inc­lu­ding DC and PR

• Want to learn more about RT3 and the pro­blems it can cause you?? You can read about it here on STTM’s Reverse T3 page, plus more details in the STTM book chap­ter on T3.
• Like being infor­med?? Go directly to the STTM blog page and sign up for noti­fi­ca­tions on the left beneath the links.
• Need other thy­roid patients to talk to? Go to the Talk to Others page.
• Have ques­tions about what thy­roid patients have lear­ned? Check out the newest Ques­tion and Ans­wers page.

It’s a con­ti­nuing tra­vesty, and you see it in patient groups.

i.e. many patients still find them­sel­ves sick and disa­bled, stum­bling mise­rably from one unin­for­med doc­tor to another…in spite of the won­ders of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid, the tes­ti­mony of chan­ged lives, the edu­ca­tion of patients thanks to the STTM web­site & book, and a small but gro­wing body of wise doc­tors who seem to be “get­ting it”,

So what’s the pro­blem?? It lays with our doc­tors and the entire medi­cal pro­fes­sion.

1. Heavy-handed con­trol over your medi­ca­tion: You go to pick up your presc­rip­tion, and find your medi­ca­tion has been lowe­red by your doc­tor without your agree­ment or know­ledge, as hap­pe­ned to Terry here (scroll down to find her post).
2. Igno­rance about adre­nal fati­gue and treat­ment: You clearly have an adre­nal pro­blem, and one doc­tor dis­mis­ses its exis­tence, another doc­tor poo-poos the saliva test, another doc­tor tells you cor­ti­sol sup­ple­men­ta­tion is dan­ge­rous, another doc­tor thrusts all his her­bal sup­ple­ments at you, another doc­tor thinks that 5 or 10 mg cor­ti­sol is enough…and on and on and on.
3. Dis­mis­sing the Ferri­tin test: You want to know what your ferri­tin is, but the doctor’s nurse unders­co­res that they’ve already chec­ked your iron levels, so there’s no need for more testing.
4. Dis­mis­sing you: You are wise thanks to rea­ding, researching and living in your own body, yet your doc­tor calls you a pro­ble­ma­tic patient on your charts, dis­mis­ses you, or gets angry.
5. RT3 huh? You have strong sus­pi­cions that your Reverse T3 is too high thanks to adre­nal fati­gue, low ferri­tin, undiag­no­sed glu­ten issues, or other rea­sons, yet this doc­tor refu­ses to test you, that doc­tor says an RT3 excess is rare.
6. Look at me! Look at me! You make an appoint­ment with that great doc who has a fabu­lous website/book and who shouts that he uses desic­ca­ted thy­roid with a big smile…yet any or all of the above and below occurs with him/her or his “trai­ned” associates.
7. Con­ti­nued worship of the TSH lab test:  Too many doc­tors still think the TSH lab test is from God Almighty. So when you finally start to feel well on desic­ca­ted thy­roid with a TSH at zero or below…WHAM…you must lower your meds because you are somehow “hyper” in spite of no symp­toms to match.
8. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal addicts: You men­tion your lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms, and you are ban­dai­ded with anti-depressants, anti-anxietal meds, sta­tins, BP pills, pain tablets, acid reflux pills, cal­cium for your thin­ning bones…instead of unders­tand that these are ALL side effects of poor treat­ment or undis­co­ve­red issues.
9. The country you live in: The des­pe­ra­tion of UK thy­roid patients is deep thanks to a thy­roid asso­cia­tion and a College of Phy­si­cians which tigh­tens the screws if a doc­tor dares to presc­ribe a life chan­ging medi­ca­tion with T3 in it.  Or just as frus­tra­ting, having a govern­ment which for­bids desic­ca­ted thy­roid to arrive to you in the mail.
10. Refor­mu­la­tions and Big Pharma apathy: Forest Labs tur­ned one of the most popu­lar and effec­tive desic­ca­ted thy­roid brand, Armour, into a pill with too much cellu­lose and too little suc­rose , cau­sing a mas­sive return of symp­toms in many, soo­ner or later. RLC also refor­mu­la­ted their Natu­reth­roid, and though some patients still do well on it, others do mise­rably, and we are left won­de­ring WHAT to take. (Thank God for Erfa’s Cana­dian “Thy­roid”, but will we be able to con­ti­nue with this fabu­lous desic­ca­ted thy­roid product?)

And there are more rea­sons you might want to bring up in the Com­ments part of this post.

So you see, it’s no won­der so MANY patients feel for­ced to self-treat, yet they are also con­dem­ned for doing so. I refuse to con­demn them for exactly the rea­sons above.  Petty. All I ask is that we all try to find a good doc, but it may be quite hard when you con­si­der all the above.

All-in-all, we still have  a way to go, baby, and espe­cially with the doc­tors we try so hard to get help from…but can’t.

P.S. Are you brave? Walk into your doctor’s office with the STTM shirt.

The news this mor­ning about Oprah made me pause.

Yes, it’s being announ­ced today that there will be no more Oprah Win­frey Show on CBS after Fall of next year.  She’s saying goodbye. And the rumor is that she will move her talk show to The Oprah Win­frey Net­work, which repla­ces the Dis­co­very Health Chan­nel. We’ll see when she for­mally announ­ces it today on her show.

But the change sure does shine a bright spot­light on a colos­sal and com­plete fai­lure by Oprah and The Oprah Win­frey Show for hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients. Though she had her own bout with thy­roid disease (and may still be dea­ling with it when you con­si­der her weight issues), we all win­ced a year ago when she sta­ted that a month long Hawaiian vaca­tion and eating fresh foods with soy milk (a goi­tro­gen) were a great way to treat her thy­roid con­di­tion. Yikes.   We equally squir­med in our seats when Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup made the 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.” Dou­ble yikes.

And since then, we have watched nothing, zilch, zero from Oprah and The Opray Win­frey Show about a horren­dous 55-year medi­cal scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment that has nega­ti­vely affec­ted the lives of hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients world­wide. T4-only meds like Synth­roid, the dar­ling medi­ca­tion of the medi­cal com­mu­nity for hypothy­roi­dism treat­ment, has left hun­dreds of millions sick.  The TSH lab test has equally sent us to hell.  Because we have been for­ced to live with con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, we’ve endu­red much more tes­ting and have been put on many other medi­ca­tions to ban­daid our con­ti­nuing symp­toms. And a majo­rity of us have had to deal with the addi­tio­nal bur­den of adre­nal fati­gue thanks to all the above.

It’s been hell, Oprah. But you never lis­te­ned.  So for me per­so­nally, I could care less what you do now. You’ve let millions of us down.

********************************

On a far bet­ter note:  Last night’s Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe was exce­llent. From thyroid/adrenal patient Vale­rie Tay­lor, who is abso­lu­tely one of the most know­led­gea­ble patients in the world about adre­nals and RT3, we gai­ned good infor­ma­tion how it rai­ses its ugly head when you have high or low cor­ti­sol, low B12, low ferri­tin and other untrea­ted issues, and how to treat it. You can go back to Talkshoe and lis­ten to the broad­cast, which was Epi­sode 7.  See my blog post right below this. As far as future Talkshoe Com­mu­nity Calls: they will always be announ­ced here first.

Below that, you’ll read how cellu­lose as a filler just may be a huge pro­blem in natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds. But we are also dis­co­ve­ring that a good desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, even with its cellu­lose, can seem even worse if we have undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted issues like low B12, low Vit. A, low ferri­tin, low Vit. D and other con­di­tions com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism.  Make sure you have tes­ted for these.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

Yes, we’ve all heard about T4 (the thy­roid sto­rage hor­mone) and T3 (the active thy­roid hor­mone which rids us of hypothy­roid symp­toms). We’ve lear­ned that the body not only con­verts T4 to T3, it also pro­vi­des some of  T3 directly. The lat­ter fact is why patients have found natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, Erfa’s Thy­roid, etc. to be a far bet­ter treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism, besi­des the T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin you’ll also find in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just like your own thy­roid would be making.

But in every indi­vi­dual, a thy­roid also con­verts T4 to the inac­tive RT3 (reverse T3) as a way to clear out excess T4 that the body doesn’t need.  It’s natu­ral and neces­sary. It will espe­cially hap­pen if you go through sur­gery or a diet.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, many thy­roid patients make far too much RT3, and patients have been making cut­ting edge dis­co­ve­ries about this fact and how to treat it with their doc­tors.  High levels of RT3 can be found if you have high cor­ti­sol, low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, low B12 and other undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted underl­ying issues that can go hand-in-hand with being hypothyroid.

Why is a high level of RT3 is pro­blem? That excess RT3 is making itself lazily com­for­ta­ble on your cell recep­tors, pre­ven­ting T3 from gai­ning access to your body.  It beco­mes like a clog­ged up drain to your body. So you stay hypo and symp­to­ma­tic, in spite of see­mingly nor­mal labwork.

This coming THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19^th (tomo­rrow as I write this) on the TALKSHOE THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL, we’re going to talk about the Reverse T3 pro­blem with thy­roid patient advo­cate Vale­rie Tay­lor. She not only owns the NTH Adre­nals group (and is con­si­de­red the most know­led­gea­ble patient on adre­nal fati­gue in the world), she also crea­ted the RT3/T3  group on Yahoo, which you will find on the Talk To Others page.

We’ll talk about excess RT3, symp­toms that can go along with it, how to do lab­work to deter­mine if you have this pro­blem, how to treat it with T3-only, and more. There’s a Chat Box you can par­ti­ci­pate in while the show is going on. Audio will come directly out of your com­pu­ter, and you can call in and ask Vale­rie or Janie a ques­tion. Times are 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eastern.

Want to read more? Thy­roid patient Nick Foot, who also mode­ra­tes the RT3/T3 group, has crea­ted an exce­llent Ques­tion and Ans­wer RT3 web­site. This will make you even more infor­med before this Talkshoe event. Note that the web­site is still work-in-progress, so expect to see more as he works on it.

For those with the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, there is also more good detail in Chap­ter 12 called T3 is the Star of the Show, page 155. This is all good infor­ma­tion to take into your doctor’s office.

Update: cellu­lose in our desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds may be much more of a pro­blem than we ever ima­gi­ned. See my blog post below.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!