depression tags

How many doctors can I strangle with my bare hands?? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Today, I am once again appalled and saddened by the endless body of thyroid patients who continue to plummet into the abyss of adrenal fatigue, day after day after day. And it just never needs to happen if doctors would simply pay attention and be informed.

Belinda is the perfect example. She didn’t participate in thyroid patient groups anymore, living her life happily, because she thought her post-RAI thyroid treatment was under control, being on 2 grains of Armour for a year. But suddenly, she felt the need to return to her groups and seek feedback. Because she has become more irritable and moody, has a hard time falling asleep, and feels frequently anxietal. Labs are redone, and she finds herself with a slightly over-range free T3 and a very suppressed TSH. Her doctor decides to lower her thyroid meds, which in turn improves her insomnia and anxiety, but weight starts piling on. She’s confused and wonders how she can find her balance between being on too little with unwelcome weight gain and being on too much with uncomfortable anxiety and insomnia.

What Belinda didn’t get, and what her doctor didn’t get, is that Belinda had now joined the dubious camaraderie of those with adrenal fatigue, a needless condition of over-stressed and under-functioning adrenals. As a result, T3 in Armour starts to pool in the blood, causing anxiety, insomnia, and all sorts of low cortisol symptoms. Thyroid patients just like Belinda have to first discover what is going on, then face the complicated balancing act of treating adrenal fatigue AND hypothyroidism. And it’s a path that never needed to happen.

WHAT IS POTENTIALLY TAKING YOU DOWN THE DIRTY-YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO ADRENAL FATIGUE??

1) Being undiagnosed, or being dosed by, the faulty TSH lab test and its dubious “normal” range, which will leave you with lingering hypothyroid symptoms. (Belinda’s 2 grains tells me she was being dosed by the TSH)
2) Being treated by T4-only medications like Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, et al, which end up teasing your adrenals to work harder to take up the slack of an inadequate treatment.
3) Lowering your expectations of what “normal” is. No, it’s not normal to have less stamina than others, to be on an anti-depressant to bandaid your hypo depression, to feel colder than others, to require frequent naps, to feel the need to avoid people, to be bothered by lights or noises, to be told by those you love that you are too defensive or over-reactive…and so on.

I hope anyone reading this comes to an understanding that you canNOT enter your doctor’s office as if you are entering the throne of a god. Your doctor, no matter how educated or dedicated, may not have a strong understanding of the role of adrenal function in relationship to bad treatment via T4-only meds or the TSH lab range. You may have to bring this knowledge to your doctor, or find another one who is either learned, or open-minded. Because your chances of having adrenal fatigue are huge if you are on T4, if the TSH is worshipped by your doctor whether on T4 or desiccated thyroid, or if you keep walking into the doctor’s office and hang your own knowledge on the hook outside his or her door.

(See Deborah’s story about ceasing to smoke with adrenal fatigue)

Hardly a person hasn’t heard Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the all-too-confident hare, running their I’ll-prove-to-you-who’s-boss race. The hare was FAST and certain to win the run. But the ever-so-committed tortoise, even if slow, slower and slowest…was steady…and won the race.

Until recently, I thought our thrust and determination to change the Big Pharma, zombie-doctoring medical system in the treatment of hypothyroid would be like the hare. We’d get the attention of the mass media through our great determination, shout the message of a FAR better thyroid treatment, and create huge change.

But I think I was wrong. Change has occurred, but we have been doing it like the tortoise…slow and steady.

Slowly but steadily, we are seeing more and more doctors starting to “get it”, even if they still have a way to go. Slowly but steadily, folks are finding out why they have less stamina than others, or depression, or rising cholesterol, or fibromyalgia, or thinning hair in the face of the dogged “normal” diagnosis…all due to an inadequate medication called T4, aka Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, et. al. and a lousy lab called the TSH.

Slowly but steadily, folks are finding out about desiccated thyroid to treat their hypothyroid, and cortisol to treat their adrenal fatigue.

Even the STTM book has been like the tortoise. Literary agents didn’t get it, nor did huge publishing companies. I finally stopped counting, but I bet I had over 200 rejections. They all thought it was simply “another” thyroid book. So the fruition of the STTM book came out of true sweat and tears, and a lot of cuss words as I squirmed through my frustrations. Yet, the STTM book–a PATIENT-TO-PATIENT book of which I was only the messenger, is not only a steady seller like the tortoise was steady, but sales keep growing every month, reviews are excellent, and lives ARE changing. How can you criticize a message, whether the STTM site or the book, that is based on the positive and critical experience of thousands of patients around the world!!

Change IS happening! Like the tortoise, we’re winning the race and creating change, bit by bit, whether it’s via STTM, various internet thyroid groups, other good books, or just word of mouth. We’re all a part of it. But we can’t be complacent, because it’s truly obvious by blogs and websites I read that there’s still a huge body of hypothyroid patients still suffering on T4 who need to find out what WE have found out. But it will happen, bit by bit.

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?