adrenals tags

This past Satur­day, while brow­sing at the next-to-last garage sale (one of my favo­rite Satur­day mor­ning events), my ears per­ked up like a bunny when I heard a gal chat­ting with the owner of the house.  I heard things like “sick for 5 years…fibromyalgia…a lot of pain all over my body…had to quit my job and live with my parents…in bed for two years…they had to bath me...” and more mise­ra­ble ima­ges of something she was clearly glad to be over.

So, while my hus­band sat in the car with the patience of a saint, I lin­ge­red. When she finished chat­ting and was hea­ding to her car, I wal­ked towards her and said gin­gerly “I overheard your con­ver­sa­tion. Can I ask you about the fibrom­yal­gia and your expe­rience??” I couldn’t help myself.

As a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist who has stood up to the inane allo­pathic fai­lure in the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, I knew that the majo­rity of cases of “fibrom­yal­gia” were due to undiag­no­sed or poorly treat­ment hypothy­roi­dism, as well as the accom­pan­ying hell of adre­nal fati­gue,  thanks to the gar­bage can TSH lab test or the stu­pi­dity of T4-only treat­ment like Synth­roid.  Yet, here was a young woman, Mel, who was now the pic­ture of health. What was her story??

Mel’s story was a tale of sud­den onset follo­wed by five years of misery, all over body pain,  immense fati­gue, utter hel­pless­ness, debi­li­ta­tion, and neck lymph nodes SO swo­llen that they loo­ked like two huge goi­ters – right and left. It was also a sce­na­rio of no firm diag­no­ses, yet no hesi­ta­tion by doc­tors to make stabs– from fibrom­yal­gia to an unk­nown chro­nic fati­gue disorder.

But I knew right away what she pro­bably had: acute Eps­tein Barr Virus (EBV) reactivation.

I knew because I had the exact same malady which once took away more than a year of my life (as com­pa­red to Mel’s horri­fic five years).  And like her, with the use of medi­ta­tion (and in my case, intense ima­gery and homeo­pathics), I got well as if it never happened.

And we also sha­red a rea­son why the EBV virus became acti­va­ted in our bodies in the first place: STRESS.  For Mel, it appea­red to have nothing to do with anything thyroid-related, but an extre­mely stress­ful helping-vocation that was eating her alive. For me, it was the stress of having to be where I didn’t want to be, fee­ling overtly powerless…and on top of being on the lousy Synthroid.

And for thy­roid patients all over the world, inc­lu­ding you, the risk of reac­ti­va­tion of the Eps­tein Barr Virus is a cons­tant threat. It can result from one or more of the follo­wing bio­lo­gi­cal stresses:

• being undiag­no­sed thanks to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test
• being on a T4 medi­ca­tion like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc
• falling into low cor­ti­sol from adre­nal fatigue
• having chro­nic side issues pulling your body down such as glu­ten into­le­rance or celiac, low ferri­tin, poor diges­tion, or making mis­ta­kes in your treatment

Even worse, add life’s stres­ses as icing on the cake, and you’re a sit­ting duck for the risk of reac­ti­va­ted EBV.

What is EBV? Eps­tein Barr Virus,  also called human her­pes­vi­rus 4 ( HHV-4) is an oppor­tu­nis­tic virus that actually lies dor­mant in at least 95% of all adults over their 30’s. It’s what cau­ses mono­nuc­leo­sis, aka “mono”, as a tee­na­ger,  but you don’t have to have had mono to carry the dor­mant virus. Wiki­pe­dia sta­tes that it also pro­bably has a pri­mary role in many autoim­mune disea­ses, inc­lu­ding ” der­ma­tom­yo­si­tis, sys­te­mic lupus erythe­ma­to­sus, rheu­ma­toid arth­ri­tis, Sjogren’s syn­drome, and mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis.” i.e. this is one nasty virus!

Why do so many thy­roid patients find them­sel­ves with it? Millions of thy­roid patients live their lives com­pro­mi­sed due to being on T4-only meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, and other T4 med brands.  Addi­tio­nally, patients find them­sel­ves with poorly func­tio­ning adre­nals, poor diges­tion and other con­di­tions rela­ted to a poor treat­ment – all adding to a lowe­red immune sys­tem, which allows the oppor­tu­nis­tic EBV virus to take ahold, espe­cially in the face of extreme or chro­nic life stress.

What are symp­toms of a reac­ti­va­ted EBV? It can vary from patient-to-patient, but can inc­lude easy and excess fati­gue, achi­ness, joint pain, all over body pain, swo­llen lymph nodes, slight fever, rin­ging in the ears, and a gene­ral I-don’t-feel-well. When my EBV anti­bo­dies were acute, I would be in bed for 2 – 3 days after pulling weeds for just twenty minu­tes while sea­ted.  I couldn’t gro­cery shop; I couldn’t do hou­se­work. Nothing. Nada. I also had cons­tant rin­ging in the ears and achiness.

How do I find out if I have it?? Ask your doc­tor to send you to a lab to be tes­ted for it.   Or you can use Healthcheck USA–scroll down on the lat­ter link to find the test. Put STTM10 in the form to get a discount.

How do I treat it?? It’s not easy. I per­so­nally bene­fit­ted from taking a presc­ri­bed anti-virus medi­ca­tion. Though that les­se­ned my symp­toms by 50%, it wasn’t enough. I then moved to homeo­pathic medi­ca­tions and some dedi­ca­ted men­tal ima­gery to finally get rid of it, as well as lots of rest and the immune enhan­cing sup­port of vita­mins, mine­rals, sup­ple­ments plus healthy stra­te­gies i.e. wha­te­ver it takes to nou­rish your immune sys­tem. Nou­rishing sup­ple­ments inc­lude high dose Vit. C (2000 mg mini­mum),  Vit E as mixed tocophe­rals,  sele­nium (200 — 400 mcg), mush­room extracts, CoQ10, high dose B-vitamins, mine­rals plus plenty of healthy and raw foods.  And ulti­ma­tely as a thy­roid patient, being on a MUCH bet­ter hypothy­roid treat­ment with natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid is the key, besi­des trea­ting one’s adre­nal fati­gue, glu­ten or diges­tive issues, low ferri­tin, and all other rela­ted conditions.

Bot­tom line, once you are ade­qua­tely trea­ting your thy­roid pro­blem (see the current Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment), addres­sing poten­tial adre­nal fati­gue, low ferri­tin, glu­ten issues, low B12, for exam­ple, and using good stress mana­ge­ment in the face of pres­su­res within your life, your risk of having a reac­ti­va­tion of the dor­mant EBV virus is very low.

When the shor­ta­ges hit the Uni­ted Sta­tes for natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2009, we all had to figure out which way to turn, since the 110-year-old natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been a far, far bet­ter treat­ment for our hypothy­roid state than levothy­ro­xine T4-only such as Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc.

Addi­tio­nally, Armour thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted in early 2009, and patients world­wide repor­ted a return of symp­toms as well a stress on their adre­nals.  So patients star­ted an exo­dus away from Armour.

Luc­kily, the FDA loo­se­ned res­tric­tions and allo­wed us to order the Cana­dian brand by Erfa Canada Inc, called simply “Thy­roid”.   Erfa’s Thy­roid pro­ved to be an exce­llent desic­ca­ted thy­roid for most, espe­cially if they rai­sed high enough once again to rid them of symp­toms.  And since it con­tains suc­rose, patients have been able to do it sublin­gually – a method which is not neces­sary for bene­fits, but is pre­fe­rred by many.

I gathe­red a list of known Cana­dian online phar­ma­cies, which you can view on the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment page.

And just recently, I sought opi­nions from patients about the phar­ma­cies they have used:

Uni­ver­sal Drugs­tore aka Cana­dian Phar­macy Online: This phar­macy recei­ved the grea­test kudos from US patients and with the best prices.

• Awe­some — good pri­ces and fast, friendly ser­vice. Will call your drug store and get your Armour script transferred.
• Faxed my presc­rip­tion and it was mai­led the next day. I believe it took a week and a few days to arrive to Florida.
• Great cus­to­mer ser­vice, easy orde­ring, and was chea­per than paying the co-pay with my insu­rance. It takes about 10 to 14 busi­ness days to get your presc­rip­tion, accor­ding to the com­pany, but mine came soo­ner than that and it was the holi­day mail rush season!
• Rapid ser­vice, exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, email remin­ders to refill, coupons
• They had the best price and were very pro­fes­sio­nal and effi­cient.  My order arri­ved within ten days.
• I paid $43.25 for 200 60 mg pills
• Online forms were easy. I faxed my presc­rip­tions and recei­ved my Thy­roid in twelve days for $7 shipping

Phar­ma­cies Online:

• Easy to regis­ter and the cus­to­mer ser­vice was exce­llent. I faxed my presc­rip­tion. A phar­ma­cist called me to see if I had any ques­tions. I paid $45.63 inc­lu­ding ship­ping for 100 60mg pills

Cross Bor­der Phar­macy:

• Exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, great pri­ces, two week arri­val from date of order, wish phar­ma­cies here were this good.

Canada Drugs Online:

• Good expe­rience, prompt (7 – 10) days ser­vice get­ting my Erfa thyroid

See more recom­men­da­tions in the Com­ments sec­tion for this post. And I’m going to hope that no phar­macy “uses” this to adver­tise their phar­macy. This is FOR PATIENT COMMENTS ONLY.

What has been your expe­rience with online Cana­dian Phar­ma­cies? Do I need to remove any from the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment for any rea­son? Do I need to add any?

ARE YOU A CANADIAN PATIENT ON DESICCATED THYROID? Use the Con­tact Me form if you’d like to be inter­vie­wed by a well-known Cana­dian repor­ter about desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Canada. I’ll need your name and email address. You need to con­tact me before Mon­day, January 25.

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Recent blog posts worth reading:

Read a guy’s email to me about his expe­rience with doc­tors being afraid of HC, which patients know is safe and WORKS!

Will the FDA be more trans­pa­rent for thy­roid patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid with their new initiative?

Lis­ten to the second inter­view, Epi­sode 9, I had with Dr. John C. Lowe. What a bri­lliant man!

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.

There was a time when I thought being hypo without a thy­roid was really no dif­fe­rent than being hypo with one.  Hypo is hypo.

But I was wrong. There really is a dif­fe­rence in our jour­neys – even if we both end up with hypothy­roi­dism — and four strong ones:

1. It’s no pic­nic to lose one’s thy­roid. Sur­gi­cal remo­val, called a thy­roi­dec­tomy,  can come with neck sore­ness, loss of one’s voice, and other com­pli­ca­tions. inc­lu­ding the loss of parathy­roids.  Treat­ment with RAI, or Iodine 1 – 131 to kill the thy­roid, has it’s own life­long side effects, inc­lu­ding gas­troin­tes­ti­nal issues, paro­tid sali­vary gland pro­blems, and more.  A good web­site about the con­tro­versy of RAI is atomicwomen.org.
2. The stress of sur­gery and/or RAI can do a num­ber on one’s adre­nals. I sus­pect that there is a high per­cen­tage of those who had sur­gery and/or RAI who also have adre­nal fati­gue with it’s night­ma­rish side effects, whether simply from the phy­si­cal stress of remo­val and/or treat­ment, or having a Synth­roid, T4-only obses­sed doc­tor.  Being on T4 is the num­ber one pre­dic­tor of adre­nal fatigue.
3. Some have a uni­que anguish about their vul­ne­ra­bi­lity. No one can live without a thy­roid.  And that thought with the abso­lute life­long depen­dency on thy­roid meds is not a com­for­ta­ble state.
4. Life long regret can be huge. Many patients came to rea­lize, after remo­val, that they may not have nee­ded the remo­val at all if they had known about the fallacy of the TSH lab test, or the idiocy of T4-only meds, or poten­tial bene­fits of iodine, or natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, com­poun­ded, or Erfa Thyroid.

Read the latest per­so­nal and gut-wrenching blog post by thy­roid can­cer Stepha­nie Buist, who is thy­roid­less after treat­ment for thy­roid can­cer nearly 10 years ago.  Also see the Talk to Others link below to find the Thy­roid­less yahoo group.

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Curious what’s going on with Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid pro­duc­tion and avai­la­bi­lity? RLC Labs has a Patient Infor­ma­tion Line you can always call for the latest infor­ma­tion on Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid avai­la­bi­lity: 877 – 600-4752.

Want to write a post for the STTM blog?? Begin­ning in 2010, I will be revie­wing and accep­ting “thy­roid patient guest posts” on the STTM blog in bet­ween my own. You can read about it here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/writing-a-guest-blog-post-on-sttm/

Want to honor someone who has hel­ped you?? See the blog post below and thank someone.

NOTE: if you were recei­ving email noti­fi­ca­tions about these posts,  the com­pany doing them is out of busi­ness. Ins­tead, use an RSS Feed.

You might have already known about her, but it was only a few days ago when I found out that the effer­ves­cent Jane Pau­ley, for­mer host of the The Today Show and Date­line NBC, has had cer­tain medi­cal strug­gles in her life­time. They have inc­lu­ded hives (trea­ted with ste­roids), depres­sion (trea­ted with an anti-depressant), a bip0lar disor­der (trea­ted with lithium), and the autoim­mune thy­roid disease called Hashi­mo­tos (trea­ted with Levoxyl).

Hives are sud­den small rai­sed bumps which can mass into patches, and are often itchy and mise­ra­ble.  Bipo­lar, also called Manic Depres­sive Disor­der, invol­ves swings bet­ween extreme mania (exci­ted, ener­ge­tic) follo­wed by depres­sion (extreme sad­ness or lowe­red res­ponse to life).

And all the above four issues made me pause.  Con­si­der the following:

1. Hives have not only been lin­ked to hashi­mo­tos disease, they have both been suc­cess­fully trea­ted with the most bri­lliant medi­ca­tion for hypothy­roi­dism ever crea­ted: natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid. That hea­ling con­nec­tion was revea­led by the belo­ved Dr. David Derry of Canada here.  Hives is also men­tio­ned as a lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­tom while on T4 meds which went away with desic­ca­ted thyroid.

2) Depres­sion is all too com­mon for those with undiag­no­sed hypothy­roi­dism (thanks to the lousy TSH lab test) or under­trea­ted thy­roid disease (thanks to the lousy T4-only meds like Levoxyl which pro­mo­tes depres­sion and other lin­ge­ring symp­toms). Many patients report a reso­lu­tion of their depres­sion with desic­ca­ted thyroid.

3) Bi-polar can often be a mis­diag­no­sis for Hashi­mo­tos disease, since the lat­ter can cause the same swings. Even without Hashi’s, bipo­lar and other men­tal health issues can be a com­mon mani­fes­ta­tion of low cor­ti­sol aka adre­nal fati­gue, also cau­sed by undiag­no­sed hypo because of the TSH, or under­trea­ted hypothy­roi­dism with T4.  At the very least, bipo­lar can be a com­mon mani­fes­ta­tion of a hypothalamus-pituitary – adre­nals (HPA) axis dys­re­gu­la­tion, again com­mon with those undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypothyroidism.

4) Lithium, iro­ni­cally, is a known cause of hypothy­roi­dism, only making one’s thy­roid situa­tion worse, as well as pro­mo­ting poten­tial adre­nal fati­gue and low cortisol.

Now gran­ted, Jane’s big four of hives, depres­sion, bipo­lar, and thy­roid disease could be coin­ci­den­tal.  But there’s so much con­nec­tion in one way or another bet­ween them that you are left won­de­ring if she’s been a vic­tim of mis­diag­no­sis and under­treat­ment just like hun­dreds of millions of us thanks to labs and medi­ca­tions which do not work. And she may need a good doc­tor to be ree­va­lua­ted, besi­des put on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and dis­co­ver what patients have lear­ned about bet­ter treatment.

And on another note: I fear it’s going to take someone just as power­ful, and as stric­ken with health issues which could be rela­ted,  as Jane Pau­ley is, to FINALLY break open the pro­found and des­truc­tive media silence about this scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment diag­no­sis and treat­ment which has left hun­dreds of millions SICK with pro­found sto­ries,  and is the very rea­son Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness exists. Do we dare hope? We’ll see.

Do you have a simi­lar story of men­tal health issues that ended up being con­nec­ted to your thy­roid and/or adre­nal state? Use the Com­ment form and let’s talk. Who knows – maybe Jane will see this, pon­der, and become far bet­ter edu­ca­ted like we’ve had to become!

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. A card will be inc­lu­ded, and the book will be in an enve­lope with a red bow!! Save money the more you buy!