calcitonin tags

Yes, we’ve all heard about T4 (the thy­roid sto­rage hor­mone) and T3 (the active thy­roid hor­mone which rids us of hypothy­roid symp­toms). We’ve lear­ned that the body not only con­verts T4 to T3, it also pro­vi­des some of  T3 directly. The lat­ter fact is why patients have found natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, Erfa’s Thy­roid, etc. to be a far bet­ter treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism, besi­des the T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin you’ll also find in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just like your own thy­roid would be making.

But in every indi­vi­dual, a thy­roid also con­verts T4 to the inac­tive RT3 (reverse T3) as a way to clear out excess T4 that the body doesn’t need.  It’s natu­ral and neces­sary. It will espe­cially hap­pen if you go through sur­gery or a diet.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, many thy­roid patients make far too much RT3, and patients have been making cut­ting edge dis­co­ve­ries about this fact and how to treat it with their doc­tors.  High levels of RT3 can be found if you have high cor­ti­sol, low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, low B12 and other undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted underl­ying issues that can go hand-in-hand with being hypothyroid.

Why is a high level of RT3 is pro­blem? That excess RT3 is making itself lazily com­for­ta­ble on your cell recep­tors, pre­ven­ting T3 from gai­ning access to your body.  It beco­mes like a clog­ged up drain to your body. So you stay hypo and symp­to­ma­tic, in spite of see­mingly nor­mal labwork.

This coming THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19^th (tomo­rrow as I write this) on the TALKSHOE THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL, we’re going to talk about the Reverse T3 pro­blem with thy­roid patient advo­cate Vale­rie Tay­lor. She not only owns the NTH Adre­nals group (and is con­si­de­red the most know­led­gea­ble patient on adre­nal fati­gue in the world), she also crea­ted the RT3/T3  group on Yahoo, which you will find on the Talk To Others page.

We’ll talk about excess RT3, symp­toms that can go along with it, how to do lab­work to deter­mine if you have this pro­blem, how to treat it with T3-only, and more. There’s a Chat Box you can par­ti­ci­pate in while the show is going on. Audio will come directly out of your com­pu­ter, and you can call in and ask Vale­rie or Janie a ques­tion. Times are 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eastern.

Want to read more? Thy­roid patient Nick Foot, who also mode­ra­tes the RT3/T3 group, has crea­ted an exce­llent Ques­tion and Ans­wer RT3 web­site. This will make you even more infor­med before this Talkshoe event. Note that the web­site is still work-in-progress, so expect to see more as he works on it.

For those with the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, there is also more good detail in Chap­ter 12 called T3 is the Star of the Show, page 155. This is all good infor­ma­tion to take into your doctor’s office.

Update: cellu­lose in our desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds may be much more of a pro­blem than we ever ima­gi­ned. See my blog post below.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

Last May, a very inte­res­ting article appea­red in the May 2009 issue of the Jour­nal of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­logy and Meta­bo­lism, tit­led For Some, L-Thyroxine Repla­ce­ment Might Not Be Enough: A Gene­tic Ratio­nale and pre­sen­ted by Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists in Bris­tol in the UK. It’s accom­pa­nied with an edi­to­rial by Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists Brian W. Kim and Anto­nio C. Bianco.

This is the same article refe­rred to by Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist Dr. Gary Pep­per on the last Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe.

Basi­cally, the article sta­tes that a gene­tic varia­tion in the enzyme that con­verts T4 to T3, deio­di­nase D2 (also called Type 2 Deio­di­nase, or 5′-Deiodinase), may be res­pon­si­ble for why so many thy­roid patients don’t do well on Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, etc, and in turn, do so much bet­ter on natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, Erfa’s Thy­roid, or the com­bi­ned synthe­tic T4 and synthe­tic T3 (Cytomel).

In other words, where some may have a strongly func­tio­ning deio­di­nase D2 enzyme which con­verts T4 to the active T3 well, others may have a modi­fied deio­di­nase D2 enzyme, cau­sing less opti­mal conversion.

In the Edi­to­rial, the two Endos Kim and Bianco explain the rea­lity of “polymorphism” – a con­di­tion in nature in which chan­ges or varia­tions occur, and in one patient from another, a change in the DNA.  As rela­ted to con­ver­sion of T4 to T3,  some thy­roid patients have a less effec­tive deio­di­nase D2 enzyme in the con­ver­sion of T4 to T3.  Spe­ci­fi­cally, there is a com­mon variant of the gene, threo­nine (Thr) 92 ala­nine (Ala), and it results in dec­rea­sed D2 enzy­ma­tic activity.

The study pro­po­ses that this alte­ra­tion from poly­morphism occurs in 16% of those stu­died, and conc­lu­des that the majo­rity don’t have this pro­blem, and thus, “most do fine on T4-only medi­ca­tions”. But 16% do have this pro­blem and need the com­bi­ned the­rapy of T4 with T3.

Bris­tol was also men­tio­ning this rea­lity in 2004 here, even if they thought it was as low as 5%.

As Dr. Pep­per hin­ted, this study could do won­ders to open the eyes of Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists about the use of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, or at the very least, about com­bi­ned hypothy­roid treat­ment with synthe­tic T3 added to synthe­tic T4.  And I’m glad for that when so many patients have found Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists to be narrow-mindedly stuck on Synth­roid or other T4-only thy­ro­xine products.

Of course, infor­med thy­roid patients know this is only a baby step in the right direc­tion, even if a good one! So we’ll rejoice for this study, and watch for more pro­gress from the medi­cal com­mu­nity and Endoc­ri­no­logy in gene­ral. For exam­ple, saying that “most do fine on T4” simply because they have may a non-variation might be pro­ven wrong as phy­si­cians take the time to really look at those “fine” patients, espe­cially as they age and symp­toms of an infe­rior treat­ment do pop up. And though the com­bi­na­tion of synthe­tic T3 with synthe­tic T4 defi­ni­tely gives bet­ter results, thy­roid patients who then moved to desic­ca­ted thy­roid with it’s T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin report even bet­ter results and cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion!  We’ve also lear­ned that the TSH lab test abso­lu­tely sucks when it comes to diag­no­sis and treat­ment.  Read TSH Why It’s Use­less, or see even more detail in Chap­ter Four of the STTM book, tit­led Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hooey.

And finally: do thy­roid patients really believe that pro­blems with T4-only treat­ment is simply due to a gene­tic abnor­ma­lity or varia­tion? Maybe. But isn’t it funny that a healthy human thy­roid does NOT depend solely on con­ver­sion, but also gives direct T3. hmmmmmm

P.S.  Patients also know that the use of the sup­ple­ment Sele­nium helps with con­ver­sion, by the way, but has never stop­ped our first-hand know­ledge that desic­ca­ted thy­roid rocks!

Thy­roid pro­blems have become rampant.

And it’s not just in the US with indi­vi­duals like Oprah, fit­ness guru Jillian Michaels, Sex and the City’s Kim Cat­trall, George and Bar­bara Bush, Kelly Osbourne and others.  A recent article in the Daily Mail-UK high­lights the saga of  Clare Bal­ding, the BBC TV sports pre­sen­ter in the UK whose thy­roid was gladly remo­ved due to a malig­nant tumor.

Even the gal who wrote the well-written article about Clare, Pippa Jolly, reports having gone through the same remo­val 13 years pre­vious due to an extreme case of Hashi­mo­tos and a nodule pres­sing against her trachea.

But within the infor­ma­tive and hope­ful tone of the article are a few Rod­ney Dan­ger­field thuds of the con­ti­nuing SCANDAL and idiocy of a par­ti­cu­lar thy­roid treat­ment which even the most inno­cent of article wri­ters can be fooled.

Thud #1: The very first sen­tence of the article says: Some good news for Clare Bal­ding, the BBC TV sports pre­sen­ter, is that her recent ope­ra­tion to remove her can­ce­rous thy­roid gland — a thy­roi­dec­tomy — should be the end of the matter.

End of the mat­ter? Only if she had been put on desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, et al. Because it appears she’s on the delight­fully enchan­ting synthe­tic “thy­ro­xine”, the dar­ling of most UK doc­tors and which ser­ves to leave almost ever­yone with their own brand and inten­sity of con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms.  You can lis­ten to my audio here about T4.

Thud #2: Diag­nos­tic rates are on the inc­rease, says Pro­fes­sor Mon­son, as thy­roid tests are now done rou­ti­nely at GP sur­ge­ries. ‘As a result there is a higher detec­tion rate and the disease can be tac­kled ear­lier and if neces­sary follo­wed up by surgery.

Right. Those inc­rea­sing diag­nos­tic rates, some which are based on the lousy TSH lab test, are ove­rri­dingly catching someone’s hypothy­roid state years after it star­ted, which lea­ves a cer­tain per­cen­tage with the misery of adre­nal insuf­fi­ciency and host of other pro­blems from being undiag­no­sed so long.  And if one is trea­ted after sur­gery based on the same holy TSH, you will only con­ti­nue to have your brand of con­ti­nuing symp­toms. You can lis­ten to my audio on the TSH here.

Thud #3: If the thy­roid is remo­ved or not func­tio­ning pro­perly, thy­ro­xine will need to be taken in drug form for life.

You and millions of others have been hood­win­ked into thin­king it’s thy­ro­xine you will need the rest of your life, aka Eltro­xine, Synth­roid, or levothy­ro­xine,  et al.  But those T4 meds force you to depend on con­ver­sion alone, a pro­cess not well done in many, and you miss out on what natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid would be giving you as a much wiser treat­ment–exactly what your own thy­roid gives: direct T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin. Or even at the VERY least, giving your­self synthe­tic T4 with synthe­tic T3.

Thud #4: Now I have to have my hor­mone levels chec­ked every three months and make sure I take my medi­ca­tion, but other­wise I feel fine.

I com­ple­tely believe Pippa when she says she feels fine. But I want to warn her:  some CAN feel fine on a T4-only medi­ca­tion, but even­tually and espe­cially as she ages,  she’s going to have to watch out for those pesky little demons of being on an infe­rior, ina­de­quate medi­ca­tion, which can inc­lude rising cho­les­te­rol, chro­nic low-grade depres­sion, rising high blood pres­sure, or a host of other symp­toms which are indi­vi­dual to each per­son on thyroxine.

Here’s hoping Clare and Pippa join the gro­wing body of patients all over the world whose lives are being chan­ged thanks to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thyroid.

*Want to be infor­med of these blog posts? Curious what I’m ran­ting about now? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the lower left of the links.

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.

Six years ago, when I got invol­ved in thy­roid patient advo­cacy by star­ting the Natu­ral Thy­roid Hor­mone Users group on Yahoo, I did it because I was ama­zed and shoc­ked what switching to desic­ca­ted natu­ral thy­roid did for me! There I was, on the brink of appl­ying for Social Secu­rity Disa­bi­lity after YEARS of misery & lack of ans­wers, and simply chan­ging to a dif­fe­rent thy­roid treat­ment com­ple­tely tur­ned my life around. I owe some of that change on what I found out on Mary Shomon’s Thy­roid group in early 2002.

And it daw­ned on me: if desic­ca­ted thy­roid with its T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin did this for ME, what could it do for others?!I  A group was NEEDED with a direct focus on desic­ca­ted natu­ral thyroid.

And over time, as NTH grew and other fine inter­net patient groups evol­ved and grew, other patients were just as ama­zed at what it was doing for them, as well.  This wasn’t coming across at ALL as a treat­ment only for “some”. It was coming across as a treat­ment that might just bene­fit quite a large body on indi­vi­duals! We also lear­ned by the seat of our collec­tive pants about low ferri­tin, low cor­ti­sol, low B-12, Celiac and glu­ten into­le­rance – you name it.

From all the above came the STTM move­ment: a patient-to-patient com­pi­la­tion of all we have lear­ned – and then the book with even more infor­ma­tion.  The STTM move­ment was crea­ted because “inter­net groups” were NOT enough to get the word out about the effi­cacy of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, nor were they enough to change the huge and rigid medi­cal esta­blish­ment. Change had to come from the bot­tom up – in other words, edu­cate patients, who in turn can take the new infor­ma­tion into their doctor’s offices.

But sadly, with the suc­cess of patient infor­ma­tion about the ama­zing results of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment has come vei­led cri­ti­cism and over­blown mis­con­cep­tions within our own ranks. And it’s a sad thing to behold!

Namely, we can now read a Sep­tem­ber 10^th inter­net blog “con­ver­sa­tion” by so-called thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes who imply that it is “dogma and narrow-minded” if anyone dares state there just might be a thy­roid treat­ment which JUST MIGHT BE bet­ter for most all thy­roid patients. IMAGINE the auda­city!! I guess it was just as “dog­ma­tic and narrow-minded” when it was first sug­ges­ted there were bet­ter ways to deal with cer­tain health con­di­tions than blood­let­ting. I can hear it now: “To deny blood­let­ting is just boxing peo­ple in!” “Offe­ring blood­let­ting as a choice is hel­ping peo­ple expand.”

And con­trary to the self-righteous tone, con­des­cen­ding mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions, and vei­led cri­ti­cisms towards cer­tain patient groups, this patient move­ment is not a one size fits all move­ment.  Ins­tead, it’s a “one size JUST MIGHT BE a bet­ter alter­na­tive” than the other avai­la­ble alter­na­ti­ves, and we strongly encou­rage that each patient con­si­der fin­ding a doc­tor to help them give it a try.  And, if something about desic­ca­ted thy­roid isn’t wor­king, we strongly encou­rage patients to look at par­ti­cu­lar rea­sons that can under­lie problems.

If you think T4 is wor­king for you, go for it! The same goes for the use of T3 only, or synthe­tic T4/T3, or cer­tain ratios of T4 and T3.  Choice is a bles­sing we can all res­pect.  Just keep an eye out for depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, less sta­mina than others, adre­nal issues and/or a myriad of other con­ti­nuing hypo symp­toms that just might creep up on you as you age on these treat­ments.  Or, con­si­der that we’ve seen many peo­ple on these treat­ments, who, when they switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, etc, they repor­ted even bet­ter results. (The use of T3-only for high RT3 is a dif­fe­rent issue and is where T3-only may be abso­lu­tely nee­ded and good. We also res­pect those who have ethi­cal issues with ani­mal products.)

Finally, I encou­rage others who con­si­der them­sel­ves thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes to TAKE A BIG BREATH and TAKE THE TIME to be in open-minded dia­lo­gue with all patients, inc­lu­ding me and all of us over here, ins­tead of openly igno­ring our exis­tence or deci­ding what we pro­mote is simply narrow-minded dogma.  You might find that direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion and kind­ness is a far bet­ter method to help thy­roid patients ins­tead of the underhan­ded vei­led bashings and mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions within this recent blog con­ver­sa­tion.