blood pressure tags

And again, on the heels of my post below about Sheila Tur­ner of the UK’s TPA (be sure and read it – good com­ments, too) comes a blog post by Dr. Richard B. Gut­ler of Cali­for­nia, an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist (why are we not sur­pri­sed).  And his message?

1) That the NHS is correct to ban Armour

2) That Armour is a “second drug” that cau­ses harm.

3) That it’s only “fringe” patients who don’t do well on T4

4) That none of the above patients are hypothyroid

5) That they don’t feel well on T4 because of other reasons

6) The­rapy is not nee­ded if the TSH is below 10

You know what patients have a fan­tasy about, Dr. Gut­ler?? That folks like YOU become hypothy­roid and are put on T4. You’ll then have to eat dirt as you see your blood pres­sure rising, or your cho­les­te­rol doing the same, or depres­sion and fati­gue set­ting in, or your adre­nals over­wor­king, or weight gain and a host of other con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roid while on T4. OH WAIT. Those are all due to something else. Gee, let’s put you on anti-depressants, sta­tins, blood pres­sure meds, pain meds, anti-anxiety meds since those “other” rea­sons never seem to be fixed.  OH WAIT. They DO get fixed when these same patients are switched to Armour or any other desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and have addres­sed their low cor­ti­sol or low ferri­tin thanks to years of undiag­no­sis or under­treat­ment with T4.

SHAME ON YOU.

p.s. It’s because of opi­nions like yours that the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book has been sent to patients in over 16 coun­tries, so far. Peo­ple want to find out the TRUTH.

Update: you can read Sheila’s and UK-TPA’s res­ponse here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/uk-tpas-response-to-the-rcp/

See more from Sheila that gives UK patients hope: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/relationship-between-the-RCP-and-MHRA/

Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion method to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )

Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use Noti­fi­xious to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )

Today I baked a cho­co­late cake for my son’s birth­day. It was exce­llent. Why? Because it was the result of seve­ral impor­tant ingre­dients. Lea­ving any of them out would have resul­ted in a cake less than great.

And your health and feel-goods as a thyroid/adrenal patient, inc­lu­ding your abi­lity to suc­cess­fully get off HC,  is like my son’s cake: a com­bi­na­tion of ingre­dients that you have to get right. Below are ten “ingre­dients” to inves­ti­gate and find out which may not be right in you for good health and feel-goods.

1) The right amount of cor­ti­sol: Too little cor­ti­sol or too much cor­ti­sol has its con­se­quen­ces. Too little results in thy­roid hor­mone still poo­ling, con­ti­nued hypo symp­toms, plus hyper in some. Too much can mean easy brui­sing, rising blood pres­sure, fluid reten­tion, a round face, etc.  And both can inc­rease anxiety, fee­ling poorly, etc.  Watch for symp­toms and com­pare your daily ave­ra­ged tem­pe­ra­tu­res. Also, have you chec­ked your aldos­te­rone?

2) The right amount of desic­ca­ted thy­roid: I have a friend who was stuck on 3 grains Armour out of habit. But she con­ti­nued to have hypothy­roid symp­toms out of habit. I finally con­vin­ced her to talk to her doc­tor. Labs sho­wed her free T3 was just a few points over mid-range, and having a free T3 towards the top seems to work bet­ter for most. So she did raise, and it finally did the trick.

3) Opti­mal B12 levels: Since hypothy­roid patients can have digestive/absorption issues, B12 levels can be lower than opti­mal. Symp­toms inc­lude fati­gue, weak­ness, fee­ling faint, breath­less, brui­sing, heart palps or others. Don’t take a chance. Get a B12 test. You want the result to be at the top of the range.

4) Plenty of Ferri­tin (sto­rage iron): Low ferri­tin means you have no iron in sto­rage to draw upon. And it also means you are pro­bably ane­mic.  Addi­tio­nally, low ferri­tin adver­sely affects the con­ver­sion of T4 to T3. Symp­toms inc­lude fati­gue, depres­sion, weak­ness, achi­ness, breath­less­ness or others.  Have a ferri­tin test.  Opti­mal is 70 – 90.

5) Good diges­tion: Hypothy­roid patients can have low hydroch­lo­ric (HCL) sto­mach acid levels. That not only con­tri­bu­tes to acid reflux because of the over­growth of bad bac­te­ria, it means you don’t absorb nutrients well (inc­lu­ding low B12 men­tio­ned above). As a result, it’s cru­cial to give that acid back to your­self.  A tables­poon of Apple Cider Vine­gar mixed in water and taken twice day helps many. Or try taking Betaine, which is HCL in pill form, or any other qua­lity HCL or diges­tive product.

6) Recog­ni­tion and treat­ment of Glu­ten into­le­rance: Some thy­roid patients lack a par­ti­cu­lar diges­tive enzyme, intes­ti­nal glu­ta­mi­nase, that helps digest glu­ten in various food pro­ducts. As a result, they don’t absorb nutrients well. Symp­toms inc­lude bloa­ting & gas, aches, stiff­ness, fati­gue, bur­ning or numb­ness in arms or legs, rashs or hives, wor­se­ned aller­gies & others. Your chance of have a glu­ten pro­blem is higher if you have Hashi­mo­tos disease. If you sus­pect a pos­si­ble pro­blem, eli­mi­nate all glu­ten from your diet. Also con­si­der having your doc­tor run a Celiac anti­bo­dies blood test.

7) Con­tro­lled EBV: At least 90% of adults have the Eps­tein Barr Virus (EBV) sit­ting dor­mant in their bodies. EBV is what cau­ses mono­nuc­leo­sis, but you don’t have to have had mono to carry the virus.  Because hypothy­roi­dism lowers your immune sys­tem, it’s not uncom­mon for thy­roid patients to have acti­va­ted EBV. I did, and my symp­toms inc­lu­ded extreme easy fati­gue, rin­ging in my ears, achi­ness and some swe­lling of my lymph glands. Some may have a sore throat return and other symp­toms.  Ask your doc­tor to test EBV. You’ll then need to ask about treat­ment options, which inc­lude bee­fing up your immune system.

8 ) Sex hor­mone balance: When your thy­roid or adre­nals get out of balance, your sex hor­mo­nes can follow suit, from estro­gen domi­nance to low tes­tos­te­rone.  When estro­gen domi­nance occurs, you can feel depres­sion, fati­gue, and sore breasts.  Low tes­tos­te­rone can equal lower energy and mood. Ask your doc­tor to test all your sex hormones.

9) Taking plenty of sup­ple­ments: There are a variety of good sup­ple­ments ever­yone with thy­roid or adre­nal issues should take for good health. They inc­lude high potency B-vitamins, Vit. C (1000 – 3000 mg. or to tole­rance), Sele­nium (around 200 mcg), mine­rals inc­lu­ding mag­ne­sium, pro­bio­tics, Vita­min D (1000 iu), iodine, and others.  In addi­tion to these, I also take CoQ10 (for heart and blood pres­sure health), and my favo­rite: a green pow­der which I stir in my orange juice.

10) Exer­cise: If you are a couch potato, you’re going to feel like one. Ins­tead, do what it takes to get moving, which pro­mo­tes all sorts of good health. If you have adre­nal fati­gue, keep it very light and easy.  If you just have hypothy­roi­dism, get out and walk.

P.S. My cho­co­late cake: I think cake mixes are just as good as home­made. I use Devils Food Cake. But the icing is ALWAYS home­made: cream one stick but­ter, add about 4 cups pow­de­red sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa, then cream or half-n-half.  Shake some sea salt in. Add two tsp. vani­lla.  Beat, beat.  Taste. Modify as nee­ded. YUM.

With recent news of Oprah’s con­ti­nuous weight gain (currently par­tially due to her fai­lure to pro­perly treat her hypothy­roi­dism and pro­bably Hashi­mo­tos (see post below this), it can make us all shud­der as we deal with the holi­days and all that great food!

I admit it: At Christ­mas­time, I LOVE the easy Gin­ger­bread Boy Coo­kies recipe I used when the boys were little, the Mic­ro­wave Fudge recipe to die for, my world famous Cho­co­late Chip Merin­gue Coo­kies which I color red and green, my mother’s won­der­ful Pra­li­nes which I occa­sio­nally try to make myself,  and Grandma’s Fruit Cake–yeah an actual fruit cake I LOVE, which I order EVERY SINGLE YEAR at this time.

And it’s hard not to gain weight! Is that you, too?? So let’s go over 6 HOLIDAY FACTS about thy­roid treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thyroid:

1) Armour, Natu­rethy­roid, Westh­roid, or any other desic­ca­ted thy­roid medi­ca­tion is not meant to be a Christ­mas weight loss pill. Desic­ca­ted thy­roid medi­ca­tions con­sist of thy­roid hor­mo­nes: T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin. They simply give you back what your own thy­roid is not giving you…the same five hor­mo­nes which give you back a stron­ger immune sys­tem, a nor­mal body tem­pe­ra­ture & impro­ved meta­bo­lism, bet­ter energy, healthier hair and skin, less aches & pains, emo­tio­nal hap­pi­ness, bet­ter lipid pro­fi­les like cho­les­te­rol, stron­ger bones…and on and on.  But even with all that bene­fit, and even though it does improve your meta­bo­lism, desic­ca­ted thy­roid is not meant to be a weight loss pill.

2) Armour et. al. can only do its holi­day job if you have strong adre­nals or ade­quate cor­ti­sol treat­ment. Because cor­ti­sol is nee­ded for thy­roid hor­mo­nes to move from your blood to your cells, you can only bene­fit opti­mally from desic­ca­ted thy­roid during the holi­days if you are lucky enough to have strong adre­nals, or if you are giving your­self back the cor­ti­sol you need based on sta­ble temps, blood pres­sure, and remo­val of most low cor­ti­sol symp­toms.  So don’t for­get that cor­ti­sol right now, and defi­ni­tely con­si­der adding a stress dose of cor­ti­sol if things get rough with the in-laws. (See Chap­ter 6 in the STTM book for even more details about sta­ble temps, blood pres­sure, and stress dosing)

3) Don’t drink that Armour down with Egg Nog! Cal­cium is a known bin­der of thy­roid hor­mo­nes in your sto­mach, kee­ping you from bene­fi­ting from some of those health-giving thy­roid hor­mo­nes.  So if you swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid, get the water.  Or even bet­ter, do it sublin­gually.

4) Don’t expect Armour to keep you from loo­king like Santa Claus: you still gotta exer­cise & watch what you eat! It’s true: the opti­mal use of desic­ca­ted thy­roid does raise your meta­bo­lism and eats those extra calo­ries up like Pac­Man.  But if you’re like me, you can still have a ten­dency to put on those love handle but­ter pounds if you eat your fill of holi­day foods.  ho ho ho. To cur­tail the gain, add exer­cise to your holi­day regime, or inc­rease what you already do. I try to aero­bi­cally walk a LOT during the holi­days. And when I’ve eaten a Christ­mas stoc­king full of goo­dies, my next meal will be nothing but high pro­tein, like  tur­key, chee­ses and nuts. Or, you can also balance your intake by choo­sing one meal a day to be low gly­ce­mic to somewhat balance out the high gly­ce­mics you know you are going to eat later. For exam­ple, I make my break­fasts only eggs and nitrate-free bacon, or plain yogurt with berries, nuts, and Stevia.

5) Buil­ding a holi­day snow­man outside?  Con­si­der an extra 1/4 grain of Armour. It’s a fact that pro­lon­ged expo­sure to cold inc­rea­ses your demand for energy, which in turn can inc­rease your demand for more thy­roid hor­mo­nes. As a result, many patients find that adding an extra 1/4 grain of desic­ca­ted thy­roid to one’s daily amount helps meet the demands of Frosty the Snow­man or that holi­day sprin­kling of lights all over your house in the cold air.  Talk to your doctor.

6) Give a gift of the STTM book to a loved one. There are other good thy­roid books on the mar­ket, but unlike all of them, this is the bible of patient expe­rience on suc­cess­ful thy­roid treat­ment. You’ll find volu­mes of infor­ma­tion that patients all around the world have lear­ned. A true patient-to-patient guide to fee­ling won­der­ful again.  Go here to order.  And the publishing com­pany is exten­ding the time you can order a book to be sent DIRECTLY to your loved one.

Last week, after hours, I called the office of the Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner I have used as my doc­tor for 5 years. I left my mes­sage – that I have had rising blood pres­sure and was curious what she would recom­mend. (And yes, I like her.)

I men­tio­ned that I was slightly lowe­ring my Armour, just in case the iodine I had been giving myself for a year was now cau­sing my Armour amount to be too much (and con­tri­bu­ting to my BP). I also men­tio­ned that I had found many artic­les on the net about the bene­fit of taking CoQ10 for rising blood pressure…plus the fact that low levels of potas­sium and mag­ne­sium may place a role in at least 50% of those with rising blood pres­sure. I also asked if I could be sent lab papers so I can test my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium levels. I was curious.

Last Mon­day, the office called. It was the nurse under the phy­si­cian that my NP works under, and whom I was FAR less impres­sed by. She explai­ned that I would now be under his care, since blood pres­sure doesn’t fall under her spe­cialty – female hor­mo­nes. (first inner alarm).

Next, she says that the doc feels there is “no strong research” that CoQ10 will help me. (second inner alarm) I replied that there’s “no strong research” that Armour turns the lives around of thy­roid patients, yet it does. Cough.

Finally, she sta­ted that she doubts he will feel “com­for­ta­ble” with let­ting me test my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium (final alarm). Excuse me…HE would not feel com­for­ta­ble for me to know what my levels were? HE would not feel com­for­ta­ble?? WHO’S BODY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?!?

And today…I recei­ved the lab papers I was to use…and all he chec­ked were electrolytes.…and TSH. Thud. Gran­ted, there is a rela­tionship bet­ween elec­troly­tes and blood pressure…but I was appa­lled that he gave no res­pect to my request to know my potas­sium and mag­ne­sium levels.…and wan­ted to test the WORST and most unre­lia­ble “thy­roid” test there is.

I have tos­sed those lab papers…and I am making an appoint­ment with a new doctor…one I have heard about from another patient.…and who has a repu­ta­tion of lis­te­ning, not simply dictating.

p.s. I’m back on my regu­lar amount of Armour. And..my blood pres­sure has fallen to a res­pec­ta­ble level: 125/74 tonite…and 105/69 the other night. What did it? Pro­bably the release of stress from let­ting go of some res­pon­si­bi­li­ties. I’m also making sure I take a full spec­trum of mine­rals, CoQ10, and I’m back to wal­king aero­bi­cally at least 4 times a week. And finally, I’ve been using a tables­poon of apple cider vine­gar (acv) daily with 1/4 tsp baking soda for over two weeks. The acv has done won­ders for my husband’s FORMERLY poor diges­tive issues.…and there’s evi­dence it helps con­trol blood pres­sure in two weeks!! (Remem­ber: these blog posts are ONLY for com­ments. Want to talk to others? See the TALK TO OTHERS link on any STTM page.)

I nor­mally don’t write about me here, but more on thy­roid advo­cacy issues. But this time…it’s going to be ME, because YOU need to be aware of what hap­pe­ned to me…because it can hap­pen to you.

I appear to have adre­nal fatigue.

Now unders­tand this: I didn’t have it when I got on Armour over 4 years ago. I rai­sed my Armour without a hitch, except for low Ferri­tin twice that I had to correct. And for approx. 3 1/2 years, I’ve been opti­mal with Armour with a per­fect mid-afternoon temp of 98.6

So why adre­nal fati­gue now?? It helps to explain it this way: Two years ago, in Dec. of 2004, I ente­red serious peri-menopause. My pro­ges­te­rone fell rock bot­tom while I still had a youth­fully high estro­gen. And I’ve had to deal with the misery of severe estro­gen domi­nance for two years. I’ve used com­poun­ded pro­ges­te­rone cream for those two years, but it was often never enough to stop the symp­toms of estro­gen dominance.

Also, Dr. Lam sta­tes the follo­wing and it explains me to a T: In early sta­ges of adre­nal fati­gue, cor­ti­sol out­put is high as the body attempts to neu­tra­lize the stress by pro­du­cing more of it. Howe­ver, when too much cor­ti­sol is pro­du­ced, it will have mul­ti­ple unde­si­ra­ble effects. For exam­ple, cor­ti­sol blocks pro­ges­te­rone recep­tors, making them less res­pon­sive to pro­ges­te­rone. Pro­ges­te­rone nor­mally pro­du­ced by the adre­nals comes to a halt in favor of cor­ti­sol. Insuf­fi­cient pro­ges­te­rone pro­duc­tion leads to an imba­lance of estro­gen to progesterone…(aka estro­gen domi­nance). And voila – I did have high cor­ti­sol in the mor­ning and noon. I had done the saliva adre­nal test just a month after my pro­ges­te­rone had dropped.

Finally, this past Octo­ber, I noti­ced the estro­gen domi­nance FINALLY stop­ped, as did my periods. A huge vic­tory. But in early Decem­ber, after a par­ti­cu­larly busy day on a Satur­day, I majorly crashed.….….and haven’t reco­ve­red since.

And ALL my symp­toms point to adre­nal fati­gue. First, my temps fell. And they were all over the place. My highest would only be 98.3, and one night, I was 97.1. That was VERY wrong for me.

Next, I star­ted waking up EVERY night bet­ween 3 – 5 am. A typi­cal adre­nal symp­tom. Also, if I felt emo­tio­nal about something, my body would get VERY hot. At first I thought it was a hot flash…but it was different.

And I was achy for 1 1/2 weeks. That stop­ped when I rai­sed my Armour and got my temps back up. But even without the achi­ness, I have felt fati­gued all over, and just bad.

Also, I fail the blood pres­sure test in the mor­nings. The other day, my supine blood pres­sure was 135/84. Stan­ding, it was 115/84. A good sign of adre­nal fati­gue. I also have a fas­ter and a poun­ding heartrate.

I have sent off my saliva samples…but have no doubt what the results are going to be. So.…I am going to start the very adre­nal sup­port that I have writ­ten about in so much detail here on STTM. Because there is simply too much stress in my life to think that prac­ti­cing all the other adre­nal sup­port methods are going to help my adre­nals reco­ver, or even help me feel better.

And by the way, for the past year and more, I have always given myself 5000 mgs of Vit. C and high dose B-vitamins, plus E. I have exer­ci­sed regu­larly by wal­king. But it wasn’t enough to stop what a huge female hor­mo­nal change has done to me. I now am using Lico­rice Root daily (which stops some of the break­down of cor­ti­sol in your liver) and 1/2 tsp sea salt, sti­rred in orange juice and my mor­ning yogurt. And I’ll have to start on cortisol.

What can you do to not find your­self in my shoes? For one, if you enter peri-meno, even without the pre­sence of adre­nal fati­gue, I would start on some mild OTC adre­nal sup­port now, which I was never on. Also, do wha­te­ver you can to coun­ter exces­sive emo­tio­nal stress in your life during this time by fin­ding times to laugh and doing what you enjoy. I have been stuck with a job that wore me down, and family issues that stres­sed me terribly, and I’m sure that pla­yed a part.

COMMENTS TO THIS POST ARE WELCOME (I could use pats on the back because this makes me SICK), but if you have ques­tions, this is not the place for them. Go to our forums here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/community And by the way, I will update this par­ti­cu­lar blog post when I get my adre­nal saliva test results back…and as I pro­gress in my treat­ment. My fin­gers are cros­sed.

Click here to see the con­ti­nua­tion of my com­ments on my own Adre­nal Fatigue.

UPDATE as of Feb. 2009: for those still rea­ding all the way down here, I became fully meno by 2008 and remar­kably, require no pro­ges­te­rone or estro­gen to feel good.  I did start having cons­tant night­time waking up and pro­bably could use a little pro­ges­te­rone at bed­time. I do use tes­tos­te­rone gel to keep my musc­les healthy and stron­ger.  And my adre­nals are still fine.  I’m on 4 grains Armour plus a slew of good supplements.