cholesterol tags

It would make an inc­re­di­ble horror movie. The plot: stun­ningly con­vince at least hun­dreds of millions of indi­vi­duals world­wide that what has always been obvious, isn’t. That lea­ves only look green because of alien fil­ters in your eyes. That ripe apples fall because water pulls them down. That fire doesn’t really burn your skin; it’s just your imagination.

And about hun­dred more schi­zoph­re­nic ying yangs. Because if those in autho­rity say so, it must be so.

But the horror movie is a rea­lity, and I see it EVERY TIME I come into con­tact with peo­ple and the sub­ject of my thy­roid advo­cacy comes up.

Like today. A cou­ple saw my book and struck up a con­ver­sa­tion. She was on Synth­roid; he was on Levoxyl. They had each been on their T4-only treat­ment for 12 and 14 years res­pec­ti­vely, felt their hypo was per­fectly trea­ted, belie­ved their doctors…and were now dea­ling with other pro­blems: his rising cho­les­te­rol, her depres­sion, his fati­gue, and her weight gain. BUT OF COURSE, THOSE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR T4-ONLY TREATED HYPOTHYROID AND SOME OF IT IS THEIR OWN FAULT…leaves aren’t really green, water makes ripe apples fall, and fire doesn’t really burn.

It just struck me. And it’s struck me before. There’s just a LOT of SILENT SUCKERS wal­king around. I was one; my mother was one; and there are obviously millions out there, still wal­king around trying to live with the side effects of a treat­ment that their doc­tors say are NOT cau­sed by their thyroid.

Sad.

(Has your cho­les­te­rol and other lipids impro­ved since you switched to Armour and rai­sed without using the TSH? Your story of suc­cess is wel­come on the blog post below!)

I was lucky.

My cho­les­te­rol hadn’t star­ted to raise yet when I was on Synth­roid and later Levoxy. But it was going to, because nearly ever­yone on a T4-only medi­ca­tion has a clim­bing cho­les­te­rol num­ber, soo­ner or later, along with heart pro­blems and/or ele­va­ted CRP. And what do their doc­tors do next? Put them on sta­tins with all the lovely side effects: muscle aches & pains, memory loss, and periphe­ral neu­ro­pathy. (See the Yahoo Stop­ped My Sta­tins group here.)

My mother is the clas­sic exam­ple. We have abso­lu­tely no heart pro­blems in our family his­tory that I know of. Yet, here was my mother who, in her 60’s, was sud­denly in the hos­pi­tal having a balloon pro­ce­dure on her heart, called an Angio­plasty, done to open up a clog­ged artery to her heart. Huh??

It was only years later, when I become a thy­roid patient advo­cate, that I could look back and see why that hap­pe­ned to her. She had been on a T4 medi­ca­tion for the majo­rity of her adult life!

Today, as patients are switching to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid and others, and as they are allo­wed by their infor­med doc­tors to raise NOT accor­ding to the TSH but by the com­plete eli­mi­na­tion of symptoms…VOILA.… their once-high cholesterol.…FALLS!!

But guess what else falls? Your CRP.

CRP stands for C-Reactive Pro­tein, and it beco­mes ele­va­ted in res­ponse to an inflam­ma­tion. With that ele­va­tion comes the heigh­te­ned risk of heart attacks and stro­kes. And guess what: con­ti­nued hypothy­roid (as found with T4-only treat­ment) results in an inc­rea­sed CRP level.

On an opti­mal amount of Armour, which for me is 4 grains, my CRP is 0.9. Ideal is less than one. Bingo.

***Have a story to share about your impro­ved lipid or CRP levels since you became opti­mal on Armour? Let us know.

YEEHAW! Check out this study done in 2007 – the higher the TSH, the worse your lipids. Iro­ni­cally, even a TSH IN RANGE does this, accor­ding to the expe­rience of MILLIONS of patients!! Thanks Nita for brin­ging this to my attention!

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?

At the heel of Oprah’s reve­la­tion that she has a thy­roid con­di­tion (see my blog post below) comes this article on Sep­tem­ber 13: Sta­tins: Doc­tors ignore patients’ com­plaints of reac­tions to drugs

Boy howdy, doesn’t THAT sound familiar!

Sure, it’s about a non-thyroid drug called a sta­tin, which has an adver­ti­sed pur­pose of lowe­ring your high cho­les­te­rol. But the infor­ma­tion MIRRORS the expe­rience of ALL thy­roid patients!! Namely, the article shows that doc­tors rarely believe that the pill you are on is to blame for your “real — or ima­gi­ned reactions”.

The article out­li­nes a study that invol­ved 650 patients who had com­plai­ned of par­ti­cu­lar reac­tions after taking their sta­tin. And the pro­blems these patients obser­ved are COMMON to being on sta­tins — muscle pro­blems, cog­ni­tive loss, and nerve pain called periphe­ral neu­ro­pathy (and my dear mother-in-law, who is on a sta­tin, has all three). And what they got across the board is that their doc­tors either denied or barely con­si­de­red that the sta­tin could be cau­sing the pro­blems which the patient com­plai­ned about!

And there’s a huge dou­ble whammy irony here. Namely, not only do thy­roid patients have this exact expe­rience when we are on T4-only meds and con­ti­nue to have hypo symp­toms that our doc­tors dis­miss, but WE ARE A CERTAIN BODY OF THOSE ON STATINS because of one of the key con­ti­nuing hypo symp­toms that our doc­tors dis­miss – high cholesterol.

Cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion has gone by the way­side in favor of a lazy worship of the infa­lli­bi­lity of pills.