cortisol 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!

As a thy­roid patient who was pro­foundly har­med by the use of Synth­roid and Levoxyl in the treat­ment of my hypothy­roi­dism, and as an acti­vist who sees this same harm­ful truth with poten­tially millions of other patients, I find this recent news interesting.

But you gotta won­der if they will be wea­ring noise reduc­tion head­sets and ear plugs…or not…when it comes to the scan­dal of synthe­tic T4-only medi­ca­tions.  Will they?

Just today, the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vi­ces and the Food and Drug Admi­nis­tra­tion (FDA) announ­ced the Safe Use Ini­tia­tive, “a pro­gram aimed at redu­cing the like­lihood of pre­ven­ta­ble harm from medi­ca­tion use”.

Sta­te­ments I glea­ned from this ini­tia­tive include:

1. Today, tens of millions of peo­ple in the Uni­ted Sta­tes depend on presc­rip­tion and over‐the‐counter (OTC) medi­ca­tions to sus­tain their health — as many as 3 billion presc­rip­tions are writ­ten annually. Too many peo­ple, howe­ver, suf­fer unne­ces­sary inju­ries, even death, as a result of pre­ven­ta­ble medi­ca­tion errors or misuse.

2. Although FDA and many other sta­kehol­ders have been wor­king to improve how the health­care sys­tem mana­ges medi­ca­tion risks in the Uni­ted Sta­tes, it is widely recog­ni­zed that more needs to be done to pro­tect the public from pre­ven­ta­ble harm from medi­ca­tion use.

3. Medi­ca­tions offer great bene­fit, but they come with risks. Whe­ne­ver medi­ca­tions are not used opti­mally, risks of harm can inc­rease significantly.

4. FDA pro­po­ses to iden­tify, using a trans­pa­rent and colla­bo­ra­tive pro­cess, spe­ci­fic can­di­date cases (e.g., drugs, drug clas­ses, and/or the­ra­peu­tic situa­tions) that are asso­cia­ted with sig­ni­fi­cant amounts of pre­ven­ta­ble harm.

This ini­tia­tive is actually far broa­der than what I glea­ned above, and also invol­ves self-abuse, expo­sure of dan­ge­rous medi­ca­tions to chil­dren, dire side effects, and more. Five areas are also spe­ci­fi­cally tar­ge­ted:  Con­su­mer medi­ca­tion infor­ma­tion (CMI), Medi­ca­tion dosing devi­ces, Ace­ta­mi­nophen toxi­city, Alcohol-based sur­gi­cal preps, and Medi­ca­tions in vials. You can read more in the fact sheet.

But if the FDA is going to do their job with this ini­tia­tive, or do their job ove­rall, you have to won­der if they will lis­ten to and inc­lude the pro­blems asso­cia­ted with being trea­ted with a T4-only medi­ca­tion as expe­rien­ced by millions of patients world­wide. Con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism while on this ina­de­quate treat­ment is wides­pread and dama­ging for many, cau­sing hands reaching deep in poc­kets to pay for nume­rous doc­tors appoint­ments, besi­des anti­de­pres­sants, anti-anxiety meds, blood pres­sure meds, sta­tins, cor­ti­sol meds for adre­nal fati­gue, and other medi­ca­tions which we would have never nee­ded, and would have been pre­ven­ta­ble, if we had been on natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid in the first place.

Many patients on thy­ro­xine, T4-only medi­ca­tions will also report actual hos­pi­tal visits due to the side effects of a poor treatment.

In other words, thy­ro­xine aka levothy­ro­xine aka T4 treat­ment has been an unsafe and harm­ful treat­ment, cau­sing millions to suf­fer unne­ces­sary inju­ries and side effects for over 50 years of its use­less and popu­lar use.  It fits the Safe Use Ini­tia­tive. Or at the very least, it calls for the FDA to lis­ten to patient expe­rience with this lousy choice to treat hypothy­roi­dism.

Lis­ten to us, FDA. Lis­ten and be wise.

P.S. See the blog post below about a gene­tic rea­son why so many do lousy on T4.

Just when you think we’re full of great infor­ma­tion for bet­ter thy­roid care, there’s still more to learn and find out.  Below is infor­ma­tion that you might find inte­res­ting on STTM.

ADRENALS: For those who dis­co­ve­red via the 24 adre­nal saliva test that they nee­ded cor­ti­sol sup­port, we have come to rea­lize that some can’t do the ram­ping up sche­dule from a small amount to a lar­ger amount without having pro­blems from the feed­back loop.

Ins­tead, many simply need to “start” on the higher amount, which would range from 20 – 30 mg. You can read about that on the How to Treat page, and you’ll note that not one mor­ning amount goes higher than 10 mgs.  With the excep­tion of men, higher than 10 mg seems to sup­press the ACTH and adre­nals too much.

A NEW LOOK: To make the STTM home page more unders­tan­da­ble to new­co­mers, the home page has bro­ken down the infor­ma­tion bet­ter into sepa­rate pages, and also has a new inte­res­ting way of using it.

LISTEN TO THIS INFORMATION: STTM has short audio clips you can lis­ten to, or send someone else to, to help unders­tand what this is all about.

STORIES OF OTHERS: Indi­vi­dual real-life sto­ries con­ti­nue to come in, pro­ving over and over that this revo­lu­tion for far bet­ter care really does work.

FEEDBACK and MORE FEEDBACK: I get emails daily about lives chan­ged thanks to this patient revo­lu­tion. It’s won­der­ful to see peo­ple fin­ding out WHY they have depres­sion, less sta­mina than others, rising cho­les­te­rol and blood pres­sure, hair loss plus other lin­ge­ring symp­toms of  hypothy­roi­dism left untrea­ted because of the lousy TSH, or under­trea­ted because of the equally-lousy T4-only treat­ment like Synth­roid. I can’t begin to post them all, but STTM does con­tain a sam­pling of this feed­back.

DESICCATED THYROID BRANDS: Wow, the list is gro­wing for desic­ca­ted thy­roid brands around the world! We now have lis­tings for Den­mark, Ger­many, Italy and New Zea­land, as well as more detai­led infor­ma­tion on com­poun­ded thy­roid in Aus­tra­lia. Thanks to all who contributed.

KEEPING UP WITH ADDITIONS TO STTM: In case you didn’t know, there’s a page meant to inform you of what’s added to STTM. I may neglect to list a few addi­tions occa­sio­nally, but think I’m pretty close to get­ting most of them up there.

MEDICAL RESEARCH TO PROVE WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW: Did you know that STTM has a page which com­pi­les research and stu­dies which prove what we as patients already know? It’s not loa­ded with research yet, but it’s gro­wing. And if you have found more to con­tri­bute to that page, use the Con­tact Me form.

SITE MAP: And bot­tom line, you can always go to the Site Map, or review the infor­ma­tion more com­pactly in the book, which patients are taking into their doc­tors offices.

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

*Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness T-shirts are now 50% off! I like sales, don’t you? And by wea­ring these shirts, you’ll never know what seed you put in the mind of someone wal­king past you who’s still on Synth­roid or any other T4 meds, and doesn’t know WHY they have depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, easy weight gain, the need for naps, etc. You”ll also find humo­rous bum­per stic­kers which defi­ni­tely spread the word.

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.

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.