cortisol tags

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.

Who, as a smo­ker, hasn’t heard how dele­te­rious tobacco smo­king is for your health. Not only will you acquire health pro­blems directly rela­ted to smo­king, but your life is shor­te­ned by 10 – 15 years ave­rage accor­ding to sta­tis­tics. My own father died at age 63 directly rela­ted to his smoking.

But in spite of strong rea­sons to quit, most smo­kers will tell you it’s NOT easy. Why? Because the nico­tine in tobacco is the addic­tive bogey­man. Nico­tine sti­mu­la­tes those plea­sure cen­ters in your brain, besi­des being a subs­tance which “gets you going” by relea­sing both blood sugar and adre­na­line. The Ame­ri­can Heart Asso­cia­tion sta­tes that “Nico­tine addic­tion has his­to­ri­cally been one of the har­dest addic­tions to break.“

But for hypothy­roid patients, tobacco smo­king pre­sents another whammy. Namely, it stres­ses your adre­nals over and over. And with adre­nal fati­gue being a com­mon side effect of trea­ting hypo with T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, et all, as well as being dosed by the lousy TSH, you’ve got a third rea­son to fall into adre­nal fati­gue if you are a smoker.

Addi­tio­nally, another fac­tor in the dif­fi­culty of quit­ting is that cor­ti­sol dec­rea­ses when you try to quit. A 2006 research report found that the lowe­red cor­ti­sol after quit­ting is asso­cia­ted with smo­king relapse and with reports of inc­rea­sed with­dra­wal seve­rity and dis­tress. So, when you already have adre­nal fati­gue, and you quit smo­king – a dou­ble whammy against being successful.

What’s the solu­tion? If you don’t have adre­nal fati­gue and want to quit, it may be wise to have a good adre­nal sup­port on hand, such as Iso­cort or any qua­lity OTC adre­nal pro­duct at your health food store. If you DO have adre­nal fati­gue, sta­ying away from cigs may require adding addi­tio­nal cor­ti­sol to your daily amount. Chap­ters 5 and 6 in the STTM book have good infor­ma­tion to help you with cor­ti­sol support.

Are you a smo­ker with hypo? Don’t hesi­tate to res­pond to this post with your expe­rience. (Please note that replies are not for questions.)

READ DEBORAH’S STORY ABOUT HER ATTEMPT to STOP SMOKING.

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.

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.