adrenal tags

Who, as a smo­ker, hasn’t heard how dele­te­rious tobacco smo­king is for your health. Not only will you acquire health pro­blems directly rela­ted to smo­king, but your life is shor­te­ned by 10 – 15 years ave­rage accor­ding to sta­tis­tics. My own father died at age 63 directly rela­ted to his smoking.

But in spite of strong rea­sons to quit, most smo­kers will tell you it’s NOT easy. Why? Because the nico­tine in tobacco is the addic­tive bogey­man. Nico­tine sti­mu­la­tes those plea­sure cen­ters in your brain, besi­des being a subs­tance which “gets you going” by relea­sing both blood sugar and adre­na­line. The Ame­ri­can Heart Asso­cia­tion sta­tes that “Nico­tine addic­tion has his­to­ri­cally been one of the har­dest addic­tions to break.”

But for hypothy­roid patients, tobacco smo­king pre­sents another whammy. Namely, it stres­ses your adre­nals over and over. And with adre­nal fati­gue being a com­mon side effect of trea­ting hypo with T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, et all, as well as being dosed by the lousy TSH, you’ve got a third rea­son to fall into adre­nal fati­gue if you are a smoker.

Addi­tio­nally, another fac­tor in the dif­fi­culty of quit­ting is that cor­ti­sol dec­rea­ses when you try to quit. A 2006 research report found that the lowe­red cor­ti­sol after quit­ting is asso­cia­ted with smo­king relapse and with reports of inc­rea­sed with­dra­wal seve­rity and dis­tress. So, when you already have adre­nal fati­gue, and you quit smo­king – a dou­ble whammy against being successful.

What’s the solu­tion? If you don’t have adre­nal fati­gue and want to quit, it may be wise to have a good adre­nal sup­port on hand, such as Iso­cort or any qua­lity OTC adre­nal pro­duct at your health food store. If you DO have adre­nal fati­gue, sta­ying away from cigs may require adding addi­tio­nal cor­ti­sol to your daily amount. Chap­ters 5 and 6 in the STTM book have good infor­ma­tion to help you with cor­ti­sol support.

Are you a smo­ker with hypo? Don’t hesi­tate to res­pond to this post with your expe­rience. (Please note that replies are not for questions.)

READ DEBORAH’S STORY ABOUT HER ATTEMPT to STOP SMOKING.

Have you ever had someone say something in JUST a way that it hits you bet­ween the eyes?? That’s what Diane did to me. She’s a thy­roid and adre­nal patient, and we were dis­cus­sing the way a huge medi­cal web­site still gives out back­wards and harm­ful thy­roid treat­ment infor­ma­tion, telling patients to “raise their Synth­roid” to coun­ter their con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms (which doesn’t work), or pro­noun­cing that because their TSH is “nor­mal”, those symp­toms are not rela­ted to hypothy­roid (they are.) This huge web­site has kept patients sick for YEARS, and is one of the main rea­sons I crea­ted STTM!

And Diane said to me “Somehow the true mes­sage needs to get into the main stream.”

Boink! That just hit me squa­rely bet­ween the eyes! Sure, I’ve been saying the same in a dif­fe­rent way for years – that our mes­sage needs to get out. But when Diane men­tio­ned the “mains­tream”, it hit me. 

Here we are, vic­tims of a medi­cal scan­dal which has been going on for 50 years, and which has effec­ted HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS all that time. Some of those vic­tims are dead; and many more are still alive, with new vic­tims hap­pe­ning DAILY. Yet, the “mains­tream media” has never taken the time or inte­rest to report on this. HUHHH??

Wiki­pe­dia defi­nes the mains­tream media as the sec­tion of the media spe­ci­fi­cally envi­sio­ned and desig­ned to reach a very large audience, and that might inc­lude tele­vi­sion, radio, news­pa­pers and maga­zi­nes. Yet, what do you see on any of those mediums? You see the regur­gi­ta­tion of the old-boy, Poll­yanna methods of hypothy­roid diag­no­sis and treat­ment – the use of the TSH and total T4, plus T4-only meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, et al. And if there is men­tion of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, it’s bare. YAWN.

Some pun­dants feel that there is a form of lite­rary cen­sorship going on in the main media…i.e. if it’s not sen­sa­tio­nal, for­get it. Others will cite bias and mani­pu­la­tion by those that report, espe­cially in the poli­ti­cal arena. 

But what I lean to believe is that there’s a monkey-see, monkey-do men­ta­lity in the media. Namely, the mains­tream media lazily con­forms itself to the lou­dest, lon­gest or most financially-influential voice. And who’s had that voice in the thy­roid treat­ment arena?? The money-grubbing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, who thrust billions of dollars into medi­cal schools, besi­des their bright-eyed reps, to even­tually con­vince every doc­tor since the early 1960’s that the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions (Synth­roid, Levoxyl, et al), and the dubious TSH lab tests, are from God Almighty. 

So, that lie keeps being repea­ted, ad nau­seum, and the TRUTH, which comes from every­day patients all around the world, gets igno­red by the mains­tream media. Thus, millions out there still sit, mise­ra­ble or com­pro­mi­sed in their day-to-day lives, and on a myriad of other pills to coun­ter the lin­ge­ring symptoms…because their main con­tact with the world – the mains­tream media – is deaf and dumb – and they have not yet found Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, and may not for years!

So.…what can YOU do?? Con­tact the mains­tream media. SCREAM at the mains­tream media. DOG the mains­tream media. I have wor­ked hard to put YOUR truth up here and in the book. You can help by sprea­ding that word, one by one, like the Lilli­pu­tians who moved the giant. 

*To con­tact ABC, go here.
*To con­tact MSNBC, go here or email Health@MSNBC.com
*To con­tact CBS, go here. Use the drop down menu to click on a news pro­gram
*To con­tact Fox News, go here.
*To con­tact CNN, go here.
*The top 20 Women’s maga­zi­nes are here.

Want to add more emails or web­site URL’s for con­tact? Just add a com­ment to this post below. 

**Patients are repor­ting that the STTM book is even bet­ter than the web­site! Yeehaw! To order your copy, go to the publishing web­site here. There are also options to order one for your doc­tor, and one for Oprah!

For 2008, as a hypothy­roid patient: I will: 

1) expect that the rela­tionship with my doc­tor will be a TEAM approach to my health care: not just his medi­cal school/continuing education/experience, but also my own impor­tant know­ledge and wis­dom that I have gai­ned (from rea­ding sites like this), plus my sub­jec­tive expe­rience on my medi­ca­tion. My doc­tor does not live in my body or expe­rience my symp­toms; I do. 

2) take the time to find a bet­ter doc­tor if my doc­tor refu­ses to res­pect the know­ledge I have gai­ned from rea­ding sites like this, and/or will not lis­ten to my sub­jec­tive expe­rience in my own body! 

3) make my symp­toms far more impor­tant than ink spots on a piece of paper called lab results, and will not pas­si­vely allow a doc­tor to treat me ONLY accor­ding to those lab results.

4) give myself impor­tant sup­ple­ments, inc­lu­ding, but not limi­ted to: sele­nium and zinc (helps con­ver­sion of T4 to T3), other mine­rals which may inc­lude mag­ne­sium, etc., plenty of B-vitamins (which are nee­ded as I improve my thy­roid func­tion, besi­des sup­por­ting my adre­nals), Vita­min C (also sup­ports my adre­nals) and more that I feel are sui­ted for my needs.

5) be open to the fact that if Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts don’t seem to be wor­king, I am making one of seve­ral mis­ta­kes in my use of it, and will iden­tify my mis­ta­kes and correct them. 

Do you have others as a thy­roid patient? Just res­pond to this post.