anti-depressant tags

When I  was ten years old, my mother had elec­tric shock treatment.

The memory stands out in my mind like a bea­con. And when my Dad brought her home, he took me aside and explai­ned that my mama was not going to remem­ber where things are for awhile, and we’d have to help her. That was espe­cially true with the 4-legged sewing basket.

She even­tually regai­ned her memory. But she was never again the same bright and quick wit­ted mother I used to have when I was younger.

Why was shock treat­ment done?  To coun­ter her mys­te­rious ongoing and disa­bling depres­sion.  And this was her last option.

It didn’t work.

She lived on anti-depressants, spe­ci­fi­cally a high dose of Ela­vil, the rest of her com­pro­mi­sed life.

And more than 40 years later, about a year after her death, a change in my own life with Armour hel­ped me rea­lize why she had to be depen­dent on an anti-depressant for so many years:  Synth­roid.  My mother was on Synth­roid almost her entire adult life — a medi­ca­tion, along with Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Unith­roid, Eltro­xin, Leva­xin, Nor­ton, Eutro­sig  and Oro­xine, which lea­ves nearly all patients with lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms, inc­lu­ding one of the most com­mon one:  chro­nic on-going depression.

And a large body of doc­tors all around the world just don’t get it.

What brought this memory of my mother up in my mind? Because two days ago, I chat­ted with a gal on Synth­roid.   By all appea­ran­ces, she see­med to be doing well, as some will make you think.  She said she had enough energy, wasn’t losing her hair, and felt okay. But when I pro­bed dee­per, she admit­ted that her blood pres­sure was going too high (as hap­pe­ned to my mother on a T4-only med) and she had a pro­blem with depres­sion and was on Well­bu­trin.  Bingo.

See http://biopsychiatry.com/hypothyroidism.htm which is also here: http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/10/1142

Want to be infor­med of these blog posts?? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion fea­ture on the bot­tom left of the links. 

Miche­lle, 40-or-50-something, came over to my house today to go over some paper­work. I hadn’t taken my Armour yet, and I said “Excuse me, I need to pop my thy­roid meds under my tongue.”

“Oh, I take thy­roid meds, too.  Synth­roid” she explai­ned as she was wri­ting on the papers with her pencil.

Now when I hear something like that, being who I am, I’m like a bear in a china cabi­net who sud­denly smells honey.  So as not to overwhelm,  I casually say “Oh, I used be on Synth­roid.” And after a long pause while we are going over the paper­work, I say “Did you know there’s a world­wide patient revo­lu­tion going on against medi­ca­tions like Synthroid?”

At the point, she rai­ses her head in curiosity.

I then stick my paw in the honey: “You and I and millions have been put on meds like Synth­roid and then told we are “nor­mal” because the TSH says so. But all of us have con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism.  It’s a lousy medication. ”

And when I laid out what those con­ti­nuing symp­toms were, her eyes got as big as sau­cers and she was sha­king her head up and down in recog­ni­tion. “Depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol and blood pres­sure, easy weight gain, fati­gue, less sta­mina than others, dry hair and skin, fee­ling cold, etc”, I told her.

And the most pro­found aspect of Miche­lle? She lives her life like the Ener­gi­zer Bunny, going and going and going. She told me she often doesn’t get home until 6 pm doing her job, and she clearly has a lot of pro­fes­sio­nal responsibilities.

But does an active Miche­lle mean that Synth­roid works and is just as good a thy­roid treat­ment as desic­ca­ted thy­roid? You know the ans­wer. She revea­led that she’s quite tired when she comes home, wishes she had more energy, and still has issues with her weight, even though she lost some when she got on Synthroid.

And rea­ding bet­ween the lines, it was clear that Miche­lle is pro­bably on an anti-depressant, a sta­tin, and a blood pres­sure medi­ca­tion.  And…she clearly has an adre­nal pro­blem that’s only going to get worse. She has a terri­ble time falling asleep at night (high cor­ti­sol), and is very sen­si­tive to light and noise (high or low cortisol).

Sud­denly it daw­ned on me. I am sit­ting across hun­dreds of millions of women, and some men. I am lis­te­ning to how millions live their lives – making a living, main­tai­ning a home, loving their spou­ses and chil­dren, inte­rac­ting with peo­ple.  But under­neath it all, it’s not a pretty pic­ture. They cope, and they cope again.  And they dish out their money for more medi­ca­tions to treat the very symp­toms cau­sed by an infe­rior medi­ca­tion. And as they age, they’ll pay each of their millions of pri­ces, just as my mother did, and as I was hea­ded.  Ener­gi­zer bun­nies with faulty batteries.

P.S. Barack Obama has a health care reform plan. Will it change the lives of those 50 million with thy­roid disease in the US, or will it only con­ti­nue this T4-only tra­vesty and health care scan­dal?  Are we hea­ded in the same insane direc­tion as the UK when it comes to T4-only?  Express your opinion.

Even 1 1/2 years ago, over 2000 pro­fes­sio­nals from a variety of dis­ci­pli­nes called the US Con­gress to end Fluo­ri­da­tion of water, citing it’s toxi­city and the decep­tion of put­ting it in our water. You can read their call to action here.

The impor­tance of this call lies in each of us with thy­roid disease, since fluo­ride is a KNOWN inhi­bi­tor of our thy­roid function.

As of Feb. 9^th, 2009, the Cou­rier Post Online of South Jer­sey has an exce­llent article on the pro­blem of our extreme expo­sure to fluo­ride.  This article cites the follo­wing facts:

1) 53 US cities rejec­ted fluo­ri­da­tion during our last Novem­ber elec­tion
2) Inges­ted fluo­ride can damage kid­ney patients, bones, the thy­roid gland, high water drin­kers, and children’s teeth
3) Stu­dies lin­king fluo­ride to can­cer and lowe­red IQ are plau­si­ble.
4) In 2007, the Bri­tish Medi­cal Jour­nal indi­ca­ted that fluo­ri­da­tion never was pro­ven safe or effec­tive and may be unethi­cal.
5) Health Canada says the govern­ment should cut the recom­men­ded amount in drin­king water, encou­rage the use of low-fluoride tooth­paste by chil­dren and have makers of infant for­mula reduce levels.

I per­so­nally made a point to stop using any tooth­paste with Fluo­ride a few years ago.  I also sup­ple­ment with iodine, since fluo­ride dis­pla­ces iodine levels. Sadly, I still love iced tea, which con­tains fluo­ride.  But YOU can avoid more fluo­ride expo­sure by fin­ding a way to get off anti-depressants and osteo­po­ro­sis medi­ca­tions which con­tain fluo­ride, and that is espe­cially pos­si­ble when you are opti­mal with Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in pre­sence of strong adre­nals or opti­mal cor­ti­sol supplementation.

I use those phra­ses often. I can’t help it. Because it’s exactly what doc­tors are when it comes to thy­roid treat­ment. It’s APPALLING.

Yes­ter­day, I had the first of two book sig­nings. It was announ­ced in the paper, and I wasn’t sure what the tur­nout would be. I shouldn’t have won­de­red. It was a great tur­nout. Peo­ple are GETTING IT that there is SOMETHING WRONG with their treat­ment. Around me stood seve­ral women, all still on T4 (Synth­roid, Levoxyl, et al), and ALL suf­fe­ring. All but one woman had weight pro­blems. Seve­ral had rising cho­les­te­rol. Some admit­ted to being on anti-depressants. Some obviously had adre­nal fati­gue. And ALL were being told by their doc­tors that their thy­roid treat­ment was now “nor­mal”. Where can I go beat my head against the wall?????? They were eager to get the book and the know­ledge it con­tai­ned to change their lives!

So far, the book has been sent to Nor­way, Ice­land, Bel­gium, UK, Aus­tria, Swe­den, Swi­tzer­land, Ire­land, Aus­tra­lia and Canada, besi­des all over the US. The STTM web­site star­ted the wheel to turn, and the book can only move it fas­ter. And add it to other thy­roid books which had begun to men­tion the truth (Broda Bar­nes being the first) as well as other groups and web­si­tes — we’ll even­tually knock some SENSE and SIGHT in doc­tors, don’t you think?

The Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, the bible of correct thy­roid and adre­nal treat­ment, by patients for patients, can be orde­red here.

P.S. I live near one town which ser­ves a popu­la­tion of nearly 35,000 peo­ple, and near another of over 4000 peo­ple, and there are plenty of doc­tors around here. Yet, there is not ONE doc­tor in this area that “gets it”. I sym­pathize with YOU if you are in the same boat. 

I have a 40-something rela­tive who I’ve been get­ting to know bet­ter lately. When she found out I had writ­ten the STTM book, she got a copy and read it. Her eyes were appa­rently wide as to what she was rea­ding, espe­cially the Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hooey chap­ter. Turns out she has had fati­gue pro­blems for at least 14 years, right after her daugh­ter was born. And it shows in her eyes and demea­nor. But that’s not all. She’s con­ti­nually gai­ned weight all these years, even though she eats like a bird, and enough depres­sion to warrant an anti-depressant. She was also get­ting worried about her cho­les­te­rol. Typi­cal hypothy­roid symptoms.

And worse (any­body iden­tify with this?), she’s been told she is NORMAL for 14 years!!! Why? Because the TSH lab result said so. Tal­king about it brings her to tears. 

I sent her to a MUCH bet­ter and hope­ful doctor. 

In 2006, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion defi­ned health as a state of com­plete phy­si­cal, men­tal and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infir­mity. So…if you stuck “nor­mal” in front of that defi­ni­tion of health, as igno­rant doc­tors so rou­ti­nely tell us we are, it means that we have the symp­toms expec­ted of one who is in com­plete phy­si­cal, men­tal and social well-being. THEN WHY DON’T WE FEEL THAT WAY?????

Yes­si­rree, somewhere along the medi­cal pers­pec­tive time­line, the abi­lity to pay atten­tion to CLINICAL PRESENTATION ran right down the sewer. And with that loss has come HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of patients world­wide with the schi­zoph­re­nic diag­no­sis of “nor­mal” with raging symp­toms thanks to ink spots on a piece of paper called the erro­neous TSH range. Exactly why this web­site is neces­sary, as is the book and YOUR demands for bet­ter treatment. 

I was schi­zoph­re­ni­cally nor­mal for over 17 years. My rela­tive has been for 14. How about YOU?