adrenal fatigue tags

It hap­pens often – someone will join a patient group, and right off the bat, you notice they are very defen­sive about cer­tain sub­jects,  know-it-all argu­men­ta­tive, con­des­cen­dingly over­bea­ring, and/or paranoid.

They may quickly fly off the handle.  They might see impli­ca­tions in words that were never there. They can also be chil­dish in their reac­tions, obses­sive about cer­tain topics or peo­ple, mis­trust­ful of others, for­get­ful, com­ba­tive, and/or jittery.

Even worse, com­bine someone with inte­lli­gence and a way with words along with all of the above, and you’ve got a royal pain in the butt.

And the worst part?  Most have no idea how badly they are mani­fes­ting the above.

It’s called adre­nal fati­gue.  It starts out with exces­si­vely high cor­ti­sol, then falls to low cor­ti­sol with a bas­ket full of con­se­quen­ces when it comes to coping and inte­rac­ting with life and peo­ple. i.e. those with adre­nal fati­gue are all the above and more.  And it’s very very com­mon among thy­roid patients thanks to being left undiag­no­sed due to the lousy TSH lab test, or being put on T4 medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, etc.  It’s also unfor­tu­na­tely com­mon for many doc­tors to deny its exis­tence or be clue­less on how to treat it. So you can ima­gine the thrill when we hear of a few who are listening!

You can read about this con­di­tion here, as well as send others whom you sus­pect has this pro­blem. Or, there are more details in Chap­ters 5 and 6 in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, which you can order from the publishing com­pany and have the book sent straight to them. There appear to be a huge body of thy­roid patients with this con­di­tion – at least 50% or more – and it’s a topic that needs unders­tan­ding and a con­di­tion that needs the right treatment.

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Janie will be on two radio shows this wee­kend, and these will be good to recom­mend to your family and friends of whom you think need to hear about desic­ca­ted thy­roid and bet­ter treat­ment strategies:

• SATURDAY: Michi­gan Talk Network’s “Health and Well­ness Show” by Dr. John Wycoff, D.O., an edu­ca­tio­nal & patient inte­rac­tive call radio show. Two hours long. Live steam here: http://www.wjimam.com/plus more infor­ma­tion here:  http://www.michigantalknetwork.com/dr%20wycoff/new/hws_home.html Time: 6 am Paci­fic, 7 am Moun­tain (groan), 8 am Cen­tral and 9 am Eas­tern. Dr. Wycoff and I will talk about pro­blems with thy­roid treat­ment,  desic­ca­ted thy­roid and bet­ter treat­ment strategies
• SUNDAY: Just Ask Nish, a new TRN natio­nally syn­di­ca­ted radio show heard on 53 sta­tions in 1400 cities. Time:  10am Paci­fic, 11 am Moun­tain, 12 noon Cen­tral and 1 pm Eas­tern http://ask-nish.com/radio_justasknish.php The host is  Nisha Jack­son, N.D. who has 18 years of expe­rience in research and prac­tice, as well as mul­ti­ple T.V. appea­ran­ces, moti­va­tio­nal spea­king, and two other radio shows (although this is her largest). I’ll be tal­king about thy­roid issues and well as bet­ter treat­ment strategies.

I am blown away by the mag­ni­tude of what I have dis­co­ve­red just recently. And this poten­tially invol­ves YOU.

I had seve­ral labs done just to keep track of how I stood in seve­ral areas. One was RBC Mag­ne­sium.  “RBC” (red blood cell) mea­su­res the intra­ce­llu­lar levels of mag­ne­sium – a more accu­rate pic­ture than a “serum” mea­su­re­ment of your mag­ne­sium, which only mea­su­res 1% (and sadly, most doc­tors only mea­sure your serum levels). i.e. even if your serum mea­su­re­ment was nor­mal, your cellu­lar levels may NOT be.

And my result?? My RBC mag­ne­sium mea­su­red at the bot­tom, very bot­tom, of the range. I was shoc­ked. I eat healthy, and have been giving myself liquid mine­rals off and on for awhile. But clearly, I have been una­ble to raise my mag­ne­sium level. When I tried to raise my sup­ple­men­ta­tion, I’d have to runnnn to the bathroom.

So I ope­ned a book that a good friend gave me: Trans­der­mal Mag­ne­sium The­rapy by Mark Sir­cus, OMD. And folks, I am blown away. Here is what I have lear­ned, and YOU may need to as well:

Mag­ne­sium Deficiency

• Affects at least 7 out of 10 rea­ding this
• Can be there even if you feel well (me); will be there if you have mal-absorption (think glu­ten issues)
• Is com­mon with dia­be­tes, liver disease, and if you take or eat a lot of calcium
• Is espe­cially pro­ble­ma­tic if you drink alcohol, sodas, caf­feine and excess sugar, have a stress­ful life, sweat a lot, or take birth con­trol pills
• Inc­rea­ses your risk of heart disease, stro­kes, musc­les pro­blems, can­cer and many other illnesses
• Is com­mon in a stress­ful life (and espe­cially so if you have adre­nal fati­gue, or you are a Type A personality)
• Can be even worse than a lab test reveals
• Is found in someone like me who eats right!!

How a defi­ciency of mag­ne­sium affects you

• Can cause heart disease (and exa­cer­ba­tes my Mitral Valve Pro­lapse), plus strokes
• Pro­mo­tes tooth decay, muscle cram­ping (me for over a decade)
• Lowers your immune sys­tem strength, energy levels, meta­bo­lism (I have to eat like a mouse, even on desic­ca­ted thyroid)
• Inc­rea­ses blood pres­sure (mine has risen at the same time I’ve noti­ced leg cramps…hmmmm)
• Dec­rea­ses your body’s abi­lity to use Vit. C and E
• Lowers the pro­duc­tion, func­tion and trans­port of insulin
• Cau­ses an inc­rease of toxins and acid in your body (think ciga­ret­tes, radia­tion, toxins in food/water/air)
• Makes you sus­cep­ti­ble to host of disea­ses and conditions

Why you need higher levels of magnesium

• Helps the meta­bo­lism of carbs, fats and amino acids and influen­ces 325 enzymes
• Coun­te­racts and regu­la­tes the influence of cal­cium, which can harm you if too much
• Is requi­red for the body to pro­duce and store energy (just like desic­ca­ted thyroid)
• Calms the brain
• Remo­ves toxins along with Vit. C
• Inc­rea­ses the effi­ciency of white blood cells (your immune system)
• Helps pre­vent can­cer and slows down the course of can­cer (along with zinc and selenium!)
• Can raise tes­tos­te­rone levels in men (and with zinc)
• Relie­ves pain! (impor­tant news for those with arth­ri­tis or other pain issues)
• Does the oppo­site of what is lis­ted above about how defi­cien­cies affect you
• Is nearly mira­cu­lous for the depth and scope of its application
• Saves billions of dollars as well as millions of lives

How will I treat my own low mag­ne­sium?? After con­fir­ming my situa­tion via the RBC Mag­ne­sium lab test (very impor­tant to first find out. My doc­tor did it through Quest Labs),  I know I can’t improve it with oral sup­ple­ments. The amount I would need simply cau­ses diarrhea.

Ins­tead, I am follo­wing the infor­ma­tion I’ve read in this book and heard about from others: the use of  “mag­ne­sium oil”, which is mag­ne­sium chlo­ride, and I’ll be rub­bing it on my skin and follo­wing the infor­ma­tion on how much. That is appa­rently the best way to give myself enough mag­ne­sium. I have per­so­nally orde­red the Ancient Mine­rals brand–found it on the net. I may also use mag­ne­sium salts in water, soa­king my feet in it. I plan on making sure my hus­band is tes­ted, as I strongly sus­pect he is low as a dia­be­tic with diges­tive issues.

Have ques­tions about this? Get the book from the web or your favo­rite books­tore. Half.com has seve­ral copies. There is much more detail than I lis­ted above which blew me away!

Yes, I feel really good with my natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the treat­ment of my hypothy­roid. But I want to be healthy in all areas, and this is one that looks impor­tant to me. (Thanks Stephanie)

I am plea­sed to note that Mary Sho­mon of about.com,  who in her blog post on Thurs­day, April 22, 2010, has not only sof­te­ned her wor­ding about self-treatment by hypothy­roid patients, but has also writ­ten expres­si­vely con­cer­ning surroun­ding issues. These are also issues which I pre­sen­ted in two blog posts ear­lier this week con­cer­ning the immense pro­blem with doc­tors as expres­sed by patients, and self-treatment.

Good for Mary!

As wit­nes­sed by Sheila Turner’s exce­llent edi­to­rial towards those who cri­ti­cize self-treatment, as well as angst expres­sed by many patients toward those who cri­ti­cize,  self-treatment is an impor­tant issue and can’t be dilu­ted down as simply “self-destructive” in our current medi­cal climate.

The follo­wing are dif­fe­ren­ces in how this is vie­wed, though, with one com­mon thought:

• Is self-treatment one  of the “most con­tro­ver­sial” issues with thy­roid patients? The ans­wer is “only to those who make it so”. Far more trou­bling to thy­roid patients is a medi­cal esta­blish­ment which worships a medi­ca­tion which has left millions under­trea­ted, and which makes a pitui­tary hor­mone lab called the TSH as if it’s from God Almighty. Equally as trou­bling to patients are doc­tors whom they report as con­des­cen­ding, close-minded, robo­tic, and/or igno­rant about issues that keep thy­roid patients sick – low ferri­tin, adre­nal fati­gue, and more. Self-treatment is only the symp­tom of a much lar­ger, more con­tro­ver­sial problem.
• Does self-treatment have “obvious draw­backs” for thy­roid patients who feel for­ced to do it? The ans­wer is “yes”, but no dif­fe­rent and pro­bably far less than the “obvious draw­backs” patients face with clue­less doc­tors.  The com­ments on my blog posts are bloa­ted with patients who have been left sick, or made sic­ker, by one doc­tor, after another doc­tor, after one more.  It’s not a pretty picture.
• Is there a “risk of under­treat­ment” for thy­roid patients who self-treat? Yes, but pro­bably far less  than the huge num­ber of patients who report being left “under­trea­ted” by doc­tors who are blind to the pro­blems of T4, or doc­tors who remain clue­less about the ina­de­quacy of trea­ting by the TSH.
• Is the “grea­test con­cern” about self-treatment the pro­blem of being “over-medicated”? You betcha. But in the vast majo­rity of these unfor­tu­nate cases with patients who choose to self-treat, the pro­blem is undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted low cor­ti­sol and/or low ferri­tin, which results in thy­roid hor­mo­nes poo­ling in the blood and crea­ting hyper-like symp­toms.  This is a risk for self-treatment.
• Have “dozens of thy­roid patients” ended up in emer­gency rooms due to over-medication? “Dozens” is spe­cu­la­tion.  It may be more rea­lis­tic to state that “some”, yes, have sta­ted this unfor­tu­nate out­come when they made the choice.  But research and com­ment all over the inter­net shows anyone that hun­dreds of thou­sands of all patients can end up in the emer­gency room due to poor doc­to­ral deci­sions, or bad reac­tions to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal medi­ca­tions which doc­tors love to presc­ribe. Ending up in an emer­gency room is not solely con­nec­ted to self-treatment.
• Do “patients face many major obs­tac­les that pre­vent them from get­ting accu­rate and effec­tive thy­roid diag­no­sis and treat­ment?” Yes! That is where Mary is in agree­ment with me with her six exce­llent  points, inc­lu­ding the tra­gic situa­tion in the UK. And here are 10 rea­sons patients are frus­tra­ted, angry and sick.
• Has one nega­tive jour­nal article about someone who self-treated “resul­ted in desic­ca­ted thy­roid  get­ting grea­ter scru­tiny by the FDA?” The ans­wer can easily be:  no worse than the body of patients who were made fear­ful that the FDA was ban­ning desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and who follo­wed a strong cam­paign to con­tact the FDA about desic­ca­ted thy­roid. I was also per­so­nally told by two phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal repre­sen­ta­ti­ves that this action to con­tact the FDA made the pharms very uncom­for­ta­ble and put too much atten­tion on desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Time will tell, but it’s not help­ful to blame anything.
• Does “acti­vely pro­mo­ting self-medication” with natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid “work against thy­roid patient inte­rests”. The ans­wer to this loa­ded ques­tion resi­des in who you ask. Whether “acti­vely pro­mo­ted” or simply “read about”, there seems to be a body of patients who report that fin­ding out about desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and fee­ling for­ced to self-treat because of not fin­ding any doc­tor to help them, was one of the best deci­sions they ever made.

And to the last com­ment above, and since there have been “impli­ca­tions”, I want to unders­core (and ad nau­seum) that the patient-to-patient Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness was not crea­ted as a self-treatment site, nor does it “acti­vely pro­mote” it.  STTM is a site with a goal to edu­cate patients who can, in turn, take that infor­ma­tion into their doc­tors offi­ces and push for change. And it’s been wor­king, one doc­tor at a time, as wit­nes­sed by patients who report those doc­tors on patient groups, and by emails I get from some of those doctors.

But it’s also clear that those who self-medicate may be using STTM, as well as many other web­si­tes and books out there by doc­tors, advo­ca­tes and non-professionals alike, to help them. So at least there is edu­ca­tion out there to help those who choose this, even if none was crea­ted for that purpose.

Sum­mary

There are impor­tant dif­fe­ren­ces in opi­nion, and much more to the story as I out­li­ned above.

But the bot­tom line is this: for up to 60 years, hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients around the world have been sub­jec­ted to

1. a medi­ca­tion called thy­ro­xine which has left a heap of lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms,
2. a new debi­li­ta­ting con­di­tion like adre­nal fati­gue,
3. a lab test (TSH) which has dela­yed diag­no­sis for years or kept patients under­trea­ted, and
4. too many doc­tors who aren’t up to speed about most any of this, and have left patients frus­tra­ted, angry and still sick.

And all the above is a far worse sce­na­rio which only pushes some patients to self-treat as a side-effect. But if  you aren’t totally wiped out finan­cially and emo­tio­nally in trying to find an infor­med doc, two sug­ges­tions: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/how-to-find-a-good-doc as well as pos­ting your city/state in the sub­ject line of patient groups here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/talk-to-others

P.S. Please note that you will never see this blog, or this web­site, kno­wingly allow non-professional,  nega­tive, nasty, false, abu­sive and/or pro­found slan­der about a collea­gue, as has been done elsewhere.

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.

I am amazed.

The Society for Endoc­ri­no­logy in the UK recently repor­ted that taking higher doses of thy­ro­xine (which will lower the TSH lab result) may be safer than has been pur­por­ted for decades.

And how low a TSH lab result did they find to be safe? As low as 0.04 – 0.4, the research found, is still safe enough to not cause an inc­rea­sed risk of  “heart disease, abnor­mal heart­beat pat­terns and bone frac­tu­res”, aka HYPERthy­roid symp­toms.

And those of us world­wide who know about the supe­rio­rity of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid can also use these research results in our fight to be on enough desic­ca­ted thy­roid with TSH-obsessed doc­tors, who view research as the end-all to the truth rather than solid cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion, sadly. Because when we are on enough desic­ca­ted thy­roid to feel fabu­lous again with all symp­toms remo­ved (in the pre­sence of good cor­ti­sol levels, ade­quate ferri­tin, B12 and diges­tive issues), our TSH lab result is always low, aka sup­pres­sed, and without one iota of hyper symptoms.

Patients have expe­rien­tially known this truth about the lousy TSH lab test, without research, for years!

But here’s what’s mis­sing from their research:

1. Those “safe, low levels of an “ink spot on a piece of paper” do not mean the 16,426 patients they follo­wed will be without nume­rous issues rela­ted to being on a sto­rage hor­mone.  i.e. the body is not meant to live for con­ver­sion alone! A healthy thy­roid will con­vert T4 to the active T3, but it will also pro­vide direct T3 in addi­tion to the T2, T1 and calcitonin…none of which a T4-only med pro­vi­des directly.
2. Addi­tio­nally, the TSH lab test only reveals the action of a pitui­tary mes­sen­ger hor­mone called the Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hor­mone (TSH).  The lab test does NOT mea­sure whether your tis­sue is recei­ving enough thy­roid hor­mone, which is why so many patients on T4 end up with depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, high blood pres­sure, low B12, low ferri­tin and many symp­toms, as well as adre­nal fati­gue thanks to the ina­de­quate treat­ment of T4.
3. Rai­sing T4 often encou­ra­ges an excess pro­duc­tion of Reverse T3 over time, which will block cell recep­tors and inc­rease the very symp­toms the researcher state is avoi­ded, as well as far more hypothy­roid symptoms.

But on the posi­tive side: this is just one more research study that ends up being on our side in our quest in teaching our doc­tors about far bet­ter treat­ment pro­to­cols. I have also inc­lu­ded men­tion of this study on the follo­wing page on STTM, where I keep a ongoing list of  research which sup­ports what patients already know by their expe­rience and cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion:  http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/medical-research/