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Thanks to Dr. Lowe for a very valuable call last night

Dr.JohnCLoweAnyone who lis­te­ned to the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call last night will know that we were lis­te­ning to a powerhouse of a man with an encyc­lo­pe­dia of valua­ble infor­ma­tion: Dr. John C. Lowe.

He is the author of an exhaus­tive book on Fibrom­yal­gia called The Meta­bo­lic Treat­ment of Fibrom­yal­gia, which explains how the pro­per diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism is a good choice in the treat­ment of fibro. He also owns drlowe.com and the research web­site Thy­roid Science.

I already knew he was great. He’s lis­ted in the Ack­now­led­ge­ments of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book as one of a hand­ful of medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals who pla­yed a huge role in edu­ca­ting and empo­we­ring patients all these years.  He, like the others, was a spring­board for patients to move for­ward in gai­ning far bet­ter infor­ma­tion about thy­roid treat­ment and everything else we have have lear­ned over the years!

And he has agreed to come back, since we had many more ques­tions to ask him! I’ll announce that when we secure a date.

Below are some high­lights from our talk with Dr. Lowe:

  1. The use of high dose B-vitamins is very impor­tant for the thy­roid patient, and even more so when you are fee­ling bet­ter in your treat­ment. Thy­roid inc­rea­ses the pro­duc­tion of pro­tein, which dri­ves energy, and you’ll need the B’s to help this higher energy production.
  2. Sadly, it’s eco­no­mics which domi­nant science and and researching, and it’s all for mar­ke­ting pur­po­ses ins­tead of the pur­suit of truth and the real health of patients.
  3. What dri­ves your medi­cal inves­ti­ga­tions? To gain wealth, or to help patients?
  4. 75% of the time, if a doc­tor uses the TSH to either diag­nose hypo or treat it, he will be wrong.
  5. In the 1980’s, the top of the TSH range was 7.5.
  6. Abbott Labs, the makers of Synth­roid, gives one million dollars in an unres­tric­ted edu­ca­tio­nal grant to the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist (AACE) i.e. no won­der Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists have a love affair with Synth­roid, a medi­ca­tion like other brands which has left the vast majo­rity of us under­trea­ted. You can read more details from Lowe on this sub­ject here.
  7. Iso­cort, an OTC treat­ment for low cor­ti­sol, is pro­tec­ted by the 1994 Die­tary Sup­ple­ment Health and Edu­ca­tion Act.
  8. HC, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, is water solu­ble. Iso­cort is fat solu­ble. Peo­ple need bile so the lipase enzy­mes are able to work on it.
  9. There are no stu­dies to com­pare Iso­cort to HC, and should be.
  10. If swa­llo­wing, take thy­roid one hour before eating for best absorp­tion. If meal will have a lot of fat, 3 – 4 hours before eating.
  11. Elderly peo­ple have less Hydroch­lo­ric Acid and do a worse job absor­bing nutrients. (And so do under­trea­ted hypo patients, remin­ded Diane)  Betaine is a good sup­ple­ment to help.
  12. Why it can be a bad idea to swa­llow thy­roid with meals: we never know how many com­pounds are in the food that will bind it, like cal­cium and iron.  T4 is the most badly absorbed.

To hear more, just click above and lis­ten to the recor­ded call. Thank you for being you, Dr. John C. Lowe.

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icicles2BRRRRR. In the US and many other coun­tries,  we are having one of the col­dest win­ters we’ve seen in a long time. And if you are out in it alot, you may need a tad more thy­roid meds to keep your­self optimal.


  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.

Dr. Lowe is coming to our party – listen directly or ask him questions one-on-one

Dr.JohnCLoweThis coming Thurs­day, January 7th, Dr. John C. Lowe DC, PLLC will be joi­ning me for the Talkshoe THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL and it’s one you don’t want to miss.

Dr. Lowe has been highly res­pec­ted by thy­roid patients for years for the exce­llent infor­ma­tion he has dis­se­mi­na­ted about bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment on his web­site drlowe.com.  In fact, he’s one of a hand­ful of doc­tors that I men­tion with gra­ti­tude in the Ack­now­led­ge­ments of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.  His web­site and wise unders­tan­ding pla­yed an empo­we­ring and self-educating role in the early move­ment by patients for bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and bet­ter labs.  You can read his own writ­ten bio­graphy here.

Mark your calen­der and set your cell phone alarm: the Com­mu­nity Call starts at 9 pm Eas­tern, 8 pm Cen­tral, 7 pm Moun­tain and 6 pm Paci­fic.  You can log on any­time within 15 minu­tes before the call starts and par­ti­ci­pate in the Chat box. That same box will be right there during the entire call.

The entire live audio chat with Janie and Dr. Lowe will come right on your com­pu­ter, so remem­ber to turn your audio up.

Addi­tio­nally, those who log in can also choose to call in and ask Dr. Lowe direct ques­tion. Don’t miss this great opportunity!

The Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness Talkshoe page: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

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See the blog post below for a very insight­ful Guest Blog Post by Amy about her role as an Under­co­ver Thy­roid Advo­cate. Below that, you can read how I was wrong about what it was like to be thy­roid­less, and seve­ral great comments.


  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.

Reverse T3 – do you have this problem in excess? Let’s talk!

RT3 CloggedYes, 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 19th (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!


  • Want to keep track of these “fringe web­site” blog posts? ;-) Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the noti­fi­ca­tion on the lower left of the links, called a News­let­ter, or an RSS Feed.
  • The extre­mely hip and sophis­ti­ca­ted STTM t-shirts are half price! Great BUMPER STICKERS, too. Spread the word – YOU may make a dif­fe­rence in someone’s life.
  • Check out the patient-to-patient book with even more detail (and which doc­tors seem to res­pect more than websites).
  • Need to unders­tand all your best options for thy­roid treat­ment? Go here.
  • Keep infor­med of each live Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe by sig­ning up as a follo­wer.
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