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Six years ago, when I got invol­ved in thy­roid patient advo­cacy by star­ting the Natu­ral Thy­roid Hor­mone Users group on Yahoo, I did it because I was ama­zed and shoc­ked what switching to desic­ca­ted natu­ral thy­roid did for me! There I was, on the brink of appl­ying for Social Secu­rity Disa­bi­lity after YEARS of misery & lack of ans­wers, and simply chan­ging to a dif­fe­rent thy­roid treat­ment com­ple­tely tur­ned my life around. I owe some of that change on what I found out on Mary Shomon’s Thy­roid group in early 2002.

And it daw­ned on me: if desic­ca­ted thy­roid with its T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin did this for ME, what could it do for others?!I  A group was NEEDED with a direct focus on desic­ca­ted natu­ral thyroid.

And over time, as NTH grew and other fine inter­net patient groups evol­ved and grew, other patients were just as ama­zed at what it was doing for them, as well.  This wasn’t coming across at ALL as a treat­ment only for “some”. It was coming across as a treat­ment that might just bene­fit quite a large body on indi­vi­duals! We also lear­ned by the seat of our collec­tive pants about low ferri­tin, low cor­ti­sol, low B-12, Celiac and glu­ten into­le­rance – you name it.

From all the above came the STTM move­ment: a patient-to-patient com­pi­la­tion of all we have lear­ned – and then the book with even more infor­ma­tion.  The STTM move­ment was crea­ted because “inter­net groups” were NOT enough to get the word out about the effi­cacy of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, nor were they enough to change the huge and rigid medi­cal esta­blish­ment. Change had to come from the bot­tom up – in other words, edu­cate patients, who in turn can take the new infor­ma­tion into their doctor’s offices.

But sadly, with the suc­cess of patient infor­ma­tion about the ama­zing results of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment has come vei­led cri­ti­cism and over­blown mis­con­cep­tions within our own ranks. And it’s a sad thing to behold!

Namely, we can now read a Sep­tem­ber 10^th inter­net blog “con­ver­sa­tion” by so-called thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes who imply that it is “dogma and narrow-minded” if anyone dares state there just might be a thy­roid treat­ment which JUST MIGHT BE bet­ter for most all thy­roid patients. IMAGINE the auda­city!! I guess it was just as “dog­ma­tic and narrow-minded” when it was first sug­ges­ted there were bet­ter ways to deal with cer­tain health con­di­tions than blood­let­ting. I can hear it now: “To deny blood­let­ting is just boxing peo­ple in!” “Offe­ring blood­let­ting as a choice is hel­ping peo­ple expand.”

And con­trary to the self-righteous tone, con­des­cen­ding mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions, and vei­led cri­ti­cisms towards cer­tain patient groups, this patient move­ment is not a one size fits all move­ment.  Ins­tead, it’s a “one size JUST MIGHT BE a bet­ter alter­na­tive” than the other avai­la­ble alter­na­ti­ves, and we strongly encou­rage that each patient con­si­der fin­ding a doc­tor to help them give it a try.  And, if something about desic­ca­ted thy­roid isn’t wor­king, we strongly encou­rage patients to look at par­ti­cu­lar rea­sons that can under­lie problems.

If you think T4 is wor­king for you, go for it! The same goes for the use of T3 only, or synthe­tic T4/T3, or cer­tain ratios of T4 and T3.  Choice is a bles­sing we can all res­pect.  Just keep an eye out for depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, less sta­mina than others, adre­nal issues and/or a myriad of other con­ti­nuing hypo symp­toms that just might creep up on you as you age on these treat­ments.  Or, con­si­der that we’ve seen many peo­ple on these treat­ments, who, when they switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, etc, they repor­ted even bet­ter results. (The use of T3-only for high RT3 is a dif­fe­rent issue and is where T3-only may be abso­lu­tely nee­ded and good. We also res­pect those who have ethi­cal issues with ani­mal products.)

Finally, I encou­rage others who con­si­der them­sel­ves thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes to TAKE A BIG BREATH and TAKE THE TIME to be in open-minded dia­lo­gue with all patients, inc­lu­ding me and all of us over here, ins­tead of openly igno­ring our exis­tence or deci­ding what we pro­mote is simply narrow-minded dogma.  You might find that direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion and kind­ness is a far bet­ter method to help thy­roid patients ins­tead of the underhan­ded vei­led bashings and mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions within this recent blog con­ver­sa­tion.

In the Feb. 2^nd issue of the New York Times given to me, an edi­to­rial ques­tio­ned the prac­tice of doc­tors recei­ving gifts from the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry and medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­rers. The edi­to­rial desc­ri­bed how an article published in the Jour­nal of the Ame­ri­can Medi­cal Asso­cia­tion clearly sta­ted that current gui­de­li­nes against gifts, free sam­ples and pro­mo­tio­nal incen­ti­ves “are far too weak”, and these prac­ti­ces should be prohibited.

The Times edi­to­rial sta­ted that such pro­po­sals “are hardly one­rous,” and added, “It is long past time for lea­ding medi­cal ins­ti­tu­tions and pro­fes­sio­nal socie­ties to adopt stron­ger ground rules to con­trol the noxious influence of industry money on what doc­tors can presc­ribe for their patients”.

Sounds good, so far.

But the follo­wup Let­ter to the Edi­tor by Ken John­son, a senior vice pre­si­dent at the Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Research and Manu­fac­tu­rers of Ame­rica, was enough to make you puke. 

He sta­ted that res­tric­ting the free sam­ples given to doc­tors would be “unfor­tu­nate and could nega­ti­vely affect patients who rely upon the $16 billion worth of medi­ci­nes dis­tri­bu­ted each year.” 

Uhh, Mr. John­son, I don’t doubt that there are medi­ca­tions which save the life of many folks, and are bene­fi­cial. But the fact that patients “rely” on $16 billion worth of medi­ci­nes is a crock in itself, since SO many of those presc­ri­bed medi­ci­nes, like the lousy T4-only thy­roid medi­ca­tions, DON’T WORK, or cause side effects WORSE than the con­di­tion they were trea­ting. Addi­tio­nally, there are a plethora of natu­ral or safe sup­ple­ments which can create the same GOOD effect of some medi­ca­tions, WITHOUT the side effects. My hus­band, for exam­ple, used to be on Cele­brex, and now gets the same great relief by being on 2 cap­su­les of Gin­ger Root a day. He also used to be on Sta­tins, but now keeps his Cho­les­te­rol down by using ground Flax Seed and Flax oil. 

Mr. John­son con­ti­nued it his reply: “We believe that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies should not offer or pro­vide anything to doc­tors that would inter­fere with the inde­pen­dence of their presc­ri­bing prac­ti­ces,” but, “clearly, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­ke­ting bene­fits patients.” He conc­lu­des, “It also ena­bles doc­tors to learn about new the­ra­pies and diag­nos­tic tools,” and, in the end, “know­ledge is the best medi­cine of all.” 

Mr. John­son, we as patients have seen it CLEARLY demons­tra­ted that your free sam­ples and incen­ti­ves DO INTERFERE with inde­pen­dent thin­king of our doc­tors. They give us the Synth­roid presc­rip­tions which you have so aptly pro­mo­ted, and we still have hypo symp­toms. When we com­plain of con­ti­nuing symp­toms, they throw out a cou­ple of those free anti-depressants you give them, with a presc­rip­tion to follow…or they cast out those presc­rip­tion papers for Sta­tins when our Cho­les­te­rol is too high from being on the infe­rior T4-only meds. Or they toss us a few pac­kets of anti-inflammatory meds when we ache and hurt from being on the infe­rior T4-only medi­ca­tions you pro­mo­ted like the ads on your free note­pads and pens.

And yes, know­ledge is the best medi­cine of all – know­ledge that many medi­ca­tions you blindly pro­mote have toxic side effects, or don’t work, or there are MUCH bet­ter alternatives.

Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­ke­ting, Mr. John­son, has mostly bene­fit­ted the linings of your poc­kets, and has made thy­roid patients like us sic­ker, and has made our doc­tors robotic-thinking lac­keys who seem to think they are “doc­to­ring” when they throw us your latest pills. And that mind­less way of prac­ti­cing medi­cine is fai­ling the oath to “do no harm”. 

Wel­come to StopTheThyroidMadness.com. You might say I became a fled­ging thy­roid patient advo­cate in 2002, when I star­ted a site on Yahoo Groups. That site grew and grew, and so did my know­ledge along with with ever­yone else’s. We have all been living gui­nea pigs and self-educated in the face of doc­tors who had little to NO insight about Armour, correct treat­ment, and side issues like Ferri­tin and Adrenals. 

And having a web­site on the side was something always on my mind. But with the gro­wing Yahoo group, and with my busy pri­vate life, it kept being swept under the carpet. 

But last year, I star­ted paying atten­tion to a few doctor-to-patient web­si­tes. And I was APPALLED at the LOUSY advice a par­ti­cu­lar doc­tor was giving des­pe­rate patients who came to their site, see­king help. The more I read, the more frus­tra­ted and angry I got. Thus, I finally put “the pedal to the metal” in the Fall of 2005, and with the help of a web­site desig­ner, put all my artic­les and infor­ma­tion together, as well as brought on board a few other know­led­gea­ble thy­roid patients whom I knew could offer a lot. 

The result: Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness. This site is inten­ded to edu­cate and to give HOPE to the millions of thy­roid patients who remain sick due to untrea­ted hypothy­roid, or under-treated hypothyroid.

Addi­tio­nally, this site is dedi­ca­ted to a young and des­pe­rate gal named Mise­ra­ble Mom, who came to one of these doctor-to-patient sites, got advice which only left her sick, and she never came back again.