adrenal fatigue tags

Yup, we’re all hea­ding in the same direc­tion — being just a tad older every sin­gle year and get­ting that first mai­ling from AARP.  Yup.

And get­ting older inc­rea­ses the inci­dence of thy­roid disease.

Even worse, those who acquire it at an older age are pro­bably going to go through the same bunk and bull those youn­ger have gone through – having depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, osteo­po­ro­sis or oste­pe­nia, weight gain, easy fati­gue, couch potato syn­drome, dry skin and hair, plus more––all clas­sic symp­toms of undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypothyroidism.

But older folks are told it’s all just part of aging so here’s your latest tablet for your handy-dandy Wal Mart pill box.

I recently found a great blog by Pam whose Feb. 23^rd, 2010 post is tit­led Older Women and Low Thy­roid. She tur­ned 65 in 2009 (and she looks a lot youn­ger) and wri­tes how she found her­self with hypothy­roid at a later age as well.  And Pam is WAY ahead of the game in her know­ledge. She unders­tands that most older folks are put on Synth­roid (which can be a lousy way to treat hypothy­roi­dism for many), that get­ting older means con­ver­sion from T4 to T3 can be more dif­fi­cult,  that being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid or T3-only just might be the bet­ter treat­ment, and you can get adre­nal fati­gue at an older age as well (thanks to poor treat­ment with T4, the TSH lab test, or being under­do­sed even on desic­ca­ted thyroid).

You can read Pam’s post here, as well as about the phone call from her friend who is 50 lbs over­weight, has brain fog, is out of work, has no energy…and voila – is on Synth­roid so it can’t POSSIBLY be her thy­roid. Sad. In fact, what has hap­pe­ned to Pam’s friend is what I keep sta­ting to those who feel they are just doing peachy on T4: watch out, because as you age, the truth about T4 will reveal itself!

Pam, I love your blog posts, and I’m going to hope to see more of those in the “vene­ra­ble age range” be just as wise as you are!!

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FDA HAS MADE A STATEMENT ABOUT NATURAL DESICCATED THYROID: Just before I was going to plop into my bed for the eve­ning, I chec­ked my noti­fi­ca­tions to dis­co­ver that right on the FDA web­site and their 2010 Drug Shor­ta­ges page (3^rd column up from bot­tom), it sta­tes: Forest reports manu­fac­tu­ring issues invol­ving the raw mate­rial and RLC reports inc­rea­sed demand. FDA has not orde­red Forest or RLC to remove these thy­roid (desic­ca­ted) tablets from the mar­ket. BINGO. I’ve been wai­ting for this for months, because though web­si­tes and groups were for­med last year as if we nee­ded to “res­cue” desic­ca­ted thy­roid from being ban­ned, I couldn’t join the fear­ful rally of a few because my gut was telling me something quite dif­fe­rent.  And a few others, I dis­co­ve­red, had the same fee­ling.  And hoo­ray! Our guts were right on!

Does this mean the FDA “gets it” about desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Maybe, or maybe not. Yes, their timing WAS awful last year with Time Caps Labs, right when we were star­ting a shor­tage. And there does appear to be some kind of future requi­re­ment “pro­ving” the safety and effi­cacy of dess. thy­roid – two things we ALREADY KNOW from 110 years of safe and effec­tive use. Duhhh on the FDA. But it’s FAR more hope­ful now, and rea­lis­tic, and will hope­fully pro­mote more rea­so­na­ble thin­king from now on.

Onward and upward, folks.

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Natu­reth­roid is coming back in phar­ma­cies all over the US! See the blog post below or here for infor­ma­tion about  the “new” Naturethroid.

(If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to come directly to the site where you can Comment).

I’ve been dis­trac­ted the past week, having to do exten­sive research and tra­ve­ling to find the per­fect “new used car”.

Then I caught a cold from hell – rare for me.  I was taking zinc and Vit. C. But a good friend remin­ded me about Vit. D and it’s immune enhan­cing effect. OMG, I for­got about it!  So later last night, I took what I thought was 12,000 IU on the first night of being sic­ker than a dog.  They say to take 1000 mg per 10 lbs of weight. Tur­ned out the gel caps were not 1000 IU each, as I thought, but 2000 IU each. So I ended up taking 22,000 IU.  lol. But the long and short of it is this: though I woke up this mor­ning quite tired and weak, I’ve slowly got­ten bet­ter all day!! My con­ges­tion has hugely impro­ved.  Read this: http://pandemicsurvivor.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/eliminate-the-common-cold/

Love your green pow­der drink? Just a word of cau­tion: much of what is in many of those pow­de­red greens are goi­tro­gens, which inhi­bit thy­roid pro­duc­tion, such as wheat grass, bar­ley grass, broc­coli, spi­nach,  cab­bage, maca and spi­nach, plus much more. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the green pow­der. You’ll just have to be sure to use it in mode­ra­tion, and not con­sume too many other goi­tro­gen foods each and every day. Or, raise your thy­roid meds.

Dr. Peter Gott can give even bet­ter infor­ma­tion to rea­ders. I noti­ced that a column on the Tulsa web­site by Peter Gott, MD of the News­pa­per Enter­prise Asso­cia­tion  could have given dif­fe­rent infor­ma­tion to a dis­tres­sed rea­der who couldn’t find Armour anywhere.  He recom­men­ded to this rea­der, who already sta­ted that Synth­roid is not a well-handled treat­ment, to see if her phy­si­cian could “alter the Synth­roid dosage to find a level”  that could be tole­ra­ted.  Actually, there are far bet­ter options during this bac­kor­de­red time, which I have com­pi­led here, and inc­lu­des Erfa’s Thy­roid and more.

Natu­reth­roid is appea­ring in phar­ma­cies! Yup, patients are repor­ting it! No, it’s not all phar­ma­cies. But you might want to call and see if YOUR local phar­macy has it. Other­wise, it’s coming.  For options during the current natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges, go here. To see why we are where we are today, read this.

Is there research to prove having a free T3 in the upper quar­ter of the range when on desic­ca­ted thy­roid?? A gal emai­led me, wan­ting stu­dies to show her doc. But unfor­tu­na­tely, the ans­wer appears to be no. Ins­tead, this is what patients all over thy­roid groups dis­co­ve­red from their lab results when they were fee­ling fabu­lous again with no lin­ge­ring symp­toms.  So we simply spread the word. Patient expe­rien­ces DO count for something.  P.S. Here’s an ongoing list of research that DOES prove some things patients KNOW first hand.  And by the way, when you have a high free T3 and con­ti­nuing symp­toms, time to do labs for ferri­tin and adre­nal fati­gue.

By using a code, you can save on labs from Healthchec­kUSA. I was infor­med from Healthchec­kUSA that many patients were for­get­ting to men­tion the dis­count code. So look again, and be sure and use it from the Recom­men­ded Lab­work page.

Janie on radio shows, and a great guest for the upco­ming Talkshoe Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call. Can’t say much more, because it’s in the works. Watch for announ­ce­ments soon.

A new way to be infor­med of these thy­roid posts. The for­mer Noti­fi­xious noti­fi­ca­tions went out of busi­ness. But we have a new and GOOD one, refe­rring to the noti­fi­ca­tion as a new­let­ter, and you can sign up free and with no strings attached.  See on left below on the links.   Also, there are many more impor­tant posts right below this.

Yes­ter­day, I was mean­de­ring through a small biking/river run­ners store, exchan­ging a vest I got my son for Christ­mas that tur­ned out to be too large, and loo­king intently for a repla­ce­ment gift he’d like.

The only other shop­per left — a tall, dark and hand­some young man. And almost as quickly, he re-entered,  approached me, and asked if that was my car out there.

“My car?” I replied. “Yes, why?”

“I’m curious about the stic­ker you have on your back win­dow,” he sta­ted with a friendly but curious smile.

The stic­ker is of Cal­vin peeing on the word of a par­ti­cu­lar T4-only medi­ca­tion.  I give these away free if someone requests it with their current order of the STTM book.  And this was not the first time I’ve been asked about that attention-getting sticker.

So I pro­cee­ded to tell him that I’m a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist, owner of Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, about the his­tory of T4, how lousy many patients have repor­ted doing on it for nearly 60 years with their own variety and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring hypo symp­toms, and how much bet­ter natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been for patients all over the world.

I then inno­cently asked: “Are you on Synth­roid?” I just knew I had one more vic­tim of this treat­ment who nee­ded enlightenment.

“Nope”,  he said with a con­fi­dent and defiant air.  “I have until recently been a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal rep with Abbott Labs.”

THWACK.   Stan­ding before me stood a mighty well-trained Big Pharma cham­pion for Synth­roid who was going to reveal and defend his pro­pa­ganda like a mas­ter. And that led to the most hea­ted and pier­cing give-and-take I’ve ever expe­rien­ced, right in front of the cha­gri­ned and wide-eyed sales per­son at the chec­kout desk. We were like sumo wrest­lers but­ting our words against each other.

When I explai­ned the slew of con­ti­nuing symp­toms repor­ted by patients world­wide who have been on T4, and no mat­ter how high they rai­sed it…his res­ponse?  “Those symp­toms can be the result of many issues other than hypothy­roi­dism.“

I res­pon­ded: “Well isn’t it odd that those who are hypo and on Synth­roid, and who get on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, find those symp­toms com­ple­tely removed.”

His reply?? “Heroin can do the same thing”.  Groan. I simply had to laugh at him. How many times have we heard the same kind of baloney.

He pro­cee­ded to tell me in great detail with each point he made that:

1. He has wor­ked with many patients and they do well on Synth­roid (A rep has wor­ked with many patients? And what in the world does “well” mean?)
2. Cli­ni­cal trials have pro­ven that Synth­roid works. (Ah! You mean those finan­ced by Abbott Labs and which are con­trary to the repor­ted expe­rience of millions of patients around the world? Those??)
3. The TSH lab test gives proof about the effi­cacy of T4 (Funny how patients all over the world have pro­ven by their con­ti­nuing symp­toms that the TSH lab test for the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism belongs at the bot­tom of a trash heap)
4. There are many dif­fe­ren­ces in the effi­cacy of T4 brands to explain any issues in patients (Funny how not ONE brand of T4 has been exempt from lea­ving con­ti­nuing symp­toms accor­ding to the glo­bal rex­pe­rience of a huge body of patients) 
5. Bla­ming T4 for the amount of adre­nal fati­gue that “sup­po­sedly” some T4-treated patients find them­sel­ves with is silly since there can be other rea­sons for it. (Another laugh on my part.  Clearly, when someone isn’t ade­qua­tely trea­ted on T4, something has to kick in to keep them going, and voila – it’s those trusty dusty adre­nals which even­tually just poop out thanks to T4 and the TSH.)

There were much more machine gun stan­ces bet­ween us, but that would make this blog post far too long.

One truth we did agree on? That “some” patients do get bene­fit from using T4. He spe­ci­fi­cally refe­rred to the elderly. And my quick res­ponse? Why accept “some” when patients all over the world report get­ting rid of that “some” with desic­ca­ted thy­roid (and espe­cially for cer­tain ones who also treat their low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, and other issues most likely rela­ted to an infe­rior treatment.)

Clearly, we were each dead­loc­ked in our posi­tions.  And he conc­lu­ded, loo­king at the sales asso­ciate, that neither of us were wrong; we just repre­sen­ted two sides.

And I tur­ned my head, loo­ked him straight in the eye, and said:  Uhhh, no. YOU are com­ple­tely and totally wrong.

P.S. After he left, the sales gal said she was totally in tune with what I was saying, and wrote down the name of this web­site. lol lol

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See the blog post below about favo­red Cana­dian phar­ma­cies, plus many more com­ments by patients.

What the heck is going on with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and current shor­ta­ges? Read about it here.

Seve­ral years ago, a large per­cen­tage of thy­roid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figu­ring out that they had adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, from years of adre­nals wor­king over­time due to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Not only does low cor­ti­sol keep desic­ca­ted thy­roid from wor­king well, it also cau­ses all sorts of angst with para­noia, depres­sion, anxiety, easy anger, sen­si­ti­vity to light and/or sounds, rec­lu­si­ve­ness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients dis­co­ve­red the impor­tance of using the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test rather than blood or urine. When low cor­ti­sol was con­fir­med, the treat­ment was using cor­ti­sol, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, to give them­sel­ves back what their adre­nals were not, to allow thy­roid hor­mo­nes to reach the cells, and to give the poo­ped out adre­nals a rest.

And suc­cess was achie­ved! When all other issues were dis­co­ve­red and trea­ted, patients were finally able to heal their adre­nals with cor­ti­sol use, wean off, and be suc­cess­ful in their con­ti­nued treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid! That suc­cess con­ti­nues today!

Yet in spite of clear suc­cess in the treat­ment of low cor­ti­sol with sup­ple­men­tal cor­ti­sol in the correct amount for each indi­vi­dual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg gene­rally – men often need the higher end), as well as exce­llent books on the sub­ject by Wil­son, Peat­field, Jef­fries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encoun­ter doc­tors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I dis­co­ve­red your web­site which are both great. They are a superb source of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for thy­roid and adre­nal fati­gue suf­fe­rers. Thank you so much!

Per­so­nally I got adre­nal fati­gue by a sus­tai­ned lack of sleep for seve­ral years (crying babies).  I found a doc­tor who presc­ri­bed Hydro­cor­ti­sone (17.5 mg/day, 5 – 5-5 – 2.5), Flu­dro­cor­ti­sone, DHEA and Tes­tos­te­rone. Symp­toms disap­pea­red in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symp­toms reap­pear very quickly, so I retur­ned to the ori­gi­nal dose.

It is very stress­ful that many esta­blished doc­tors (our family doc­tor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are sca­ring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am des­tro­ying my body and I will never suc­ceed in wea­ning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symp­toms. She also has been sca­red about des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and HC. Rea­ding your book I was howe­ver con­vin­ced she could bene­fit a lot from a bet­ter treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfor­tu­na­tely, it’s true. Thy­roid and adre­nal patients are left in the dark by many doc­tors about a variety of issues rela­ted to bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, adre­nal issues, low ferri­tin, and more.  So here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this impor­tant infor­ma­tion into your doc­tors offices:

• All about the pro­blem of adre­nal fatigue
• How to treat
• Symp­toms of having an adre­nal problem
• The STTM book, which not only has more detail, but can be taken right into the doctor’s office
• Talk to other patients, inc­lu­ding a group tar­ge­ted for adre­nal fatigue

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If you mis­sed the exce­llent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thurs­day eve­nings, you can lis­ten to the recor­ding, as well as sign up to be a Follo­wer of the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call, here.

Anyone 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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BRRRRR. 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.