desiccated thyroid tags

When the shor­ta­ges hit the Uni­ted Sta­tes for natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2009, we all had to figure out which way to turn, since the 110-year-old natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been a far, far bet­ter treat­ment for our hypothy­roid state than levothy­ro­xine T4-only such as Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc.

Addi­tio­nally, Armour thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted in early 2009, and patients world­wide repor­ted a return of symp­toms as well a stress on their adre­nals.  So patients star­ted an exo­dus away from Armour.

Luc­kily, the FDA loo­se­ned res­tric­tions and allo­wed us to order the Cana­dian brand by Erfa Canada Inc, called simply “Thy­roid”.   Erfa’s Thy­roid pro­ved to be an exce­llent desic­ca­ted thy­roid for most, espe­cially if they rai­sed high enough once again to rid them of symp­toms.  And since it con­tains suc­rose, patients have been able to do it sublin­gually – a method which is not neces­sary for bene­fits, but is pre­fe­rred by many.

I gathe­red a list of known Cana­dian online phar­ma­cies, which you can view on the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment page.

And just recently, I sought opi­nions from patients about the phar­ma­cies they have used:

Uni­ver­sal Drugs­tore aka Cana­dian Phar­macy Online: This phar­macy recei­ved the grea­test kudos from US patients and with the best prices.

• Awe­some — good pri­ces and fast, friendly ser­vice. Will call your drug store and get your Armour script transferred.
• Faxed my presc­rip­tion and it was mai­led the next day. I believe it took a week and a few days to arrive to Florida.
• Great cus­to­mer ser­vice, easy orde­ring, and was chea­per than paying the co-pay with my insu­rance. It takes about 10 to 14 busi­ness days to get your presc­rip­tion, accor­ding to the com­pany, but mine came soo­ner than that and it was the holi­day mail rush season!
• Rapid ser­vice, exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, email remin­ders to refill, coupons
• They had the best price and were very pro­fes­sio­nal and effi­cient.  My order arri­ved within ten days.
• I paid $43.25 for 200 60 mg pills
• Online forms were easy. I faxed my presc­rip­tions and recei­ved my Thy­roid in twelve days for $7 shipping

Phar­ma­cies Online:

• Easy to regis­ter and the cus­to­mer ser­vice was exce­llent. I faxed my presc­rip­tion. A phar­ma­cist called me to see if I had any ques­tions. I paid $45.63 inc­lu­ding ship­ping for 100 60mg pills

Cross Bor­der Phar­macy:

• Exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, great pri­ces, two week arri­val from date of order, wish phar­ma­cies here were this good.

Canada Drugs Online:

• Good expe­rience, prompt (7 – 10) days ser­vice get­ting my Erfa thyroid

See more recom­men­da­tions in the Com­ments sec­tion for this post. And I’m going to hope that no phar­macy “uses” this to adver­tise their phar­macy. This is FOR PATIENT COMMENTS ONLY.

What has been your expe­rience with online Cana­dian Phar­ma­cies? Do I need to remove any from the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment for any rea­son? Do I need to add any?

ARE YOU A CANADIAN PATIENT ON DESICCATED THYROID? Use the Con­tact Me form if you’d like to be inter­vie­wed by a well-known Cana­dian repor­ter about desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Canada. I’ll need your name and email address. You need to con­tact me before Mon­day, January 25.

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Recent blog posts worth reading:

Read a guy’s email to me about his expe­rience with doc­tors being afraid of HC, which patients know is safe and WORKS!

Will the FDA be more trans­pa­rent for thy­roid patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid with their new initiative?

Lis­ten to the second inter­view, Epi­sode 9, I had with Dr. John C. Lowe. What a bri­lliant man!

Seve­ral years ago, a large per­cen­tage of thy­roid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figu­ring out that they had adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, from years of adre­nals wor­king over­time due to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Not only does low cor­ti­sol keep desic­ca­ted thy­roid from wor­king well, it also cau­ses all sorts of angst with para­noia, depres­sion, anxiety, easy anger, sen­si­ti­vity to light and/or sounds, rec­lu­si­ve­ness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients dis­co­ve­red the impor­tance of using the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test rather than blood or urine. When low cor­ti­sol was con­fir­med, the treat­ment was using cor­ti­sol, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, to give them­sel­ves back what their adre­nals were not, to allow thy­roid hor­mo­nes to reach the cells, and to give the poo­ped out adre­nals a rest.

And suc­cess was achie­ved! When all other issues were dis­co­ve­red and trea­ted, patients were finally able to heal their adre­nals with cor­ti­sol use, wean off, and be suc­cess­ful in their con­ti­nued treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid! That suc­cess con­ti­nues today!

Yet in spite of clear suc­cess in the treat­ment of low cor­ti­sol with sup­ple­men­tal cor­ti­sol in the correct amount for each indi­vi­dual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg gene­rally – men often need the higher end), as well as exce­llent books on the sub­ject by Wil­son, Peat­field, Jef­fries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encoun­ter doc­tors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I dis­co­ve­red your web­site which are both great. They are a superb source of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for thy­roid and adre­nal fati­gue suf­fe­rers. Thank you so much!

Per­so­nally I got adre­nal fati­gue by a sus­tai­ned lack of sleep for seve­ral years (crying babies).  I found a doc­tor who presc­ri­bed Hydro­cor­ti­sone (17.5 mg/day, 5 – 5-5 – 2.5), Flu­dro­cor­ti­sone, DHEA and Tes­tos­te­rone. Symp­toms disap­pea­red in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symp­toms reap­pear very quickly, so I retur­ned to the ori­gi­nal dose.

It is very stress­ful that many esta­blished doc­tors (our family doc­tor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are sca­ring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am des­tro­ying my body and I will never suc­ceed in wea­ning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symp­toms. She also has been sca­red about des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and HC. Rea­ding your book I was howe­ver con­vin­ced she could bene­fit a lot from a bet­ter treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfor­tu­na­tely, it’s true. Thy­roid and adre­nal patients are left in the dark by many doc­tors about a variety of issues rela­ted to bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, adre­nal issues, low ferri­tin, and more.  So here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this impor­tant infor­ma­tion into your doc­tors offices:

• All about the pro­blem of adre­nal fatigue
• How to treat
• Symp­toms of having an adre­nal problem
• The STTM book, which not only has more detail, but can be taken right into the doctor’s office
• Talk to other patients, inc­lu­ding a group tar­ge­ted for adre­nal fatigue

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If you mis­sed the exce­llent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thurs­day eve­nings, you can lis­ten to the recor­ding, as well as sign up to be a Follo­wer of the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call, here.

This coming Thurs­day, January 7^th, Dr. John C. Lowe DC, PLLC will be joi­ning me for the Talkshoe THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL and it’s one you don’t want to miss.

Dr. Lowe has been highly res­pec­ted by thy­roid patients for years for the exce­llent infor­ma­tion he has dis­se­mi­na­ted about bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment on his web­site drlowe.com.  In fact, he’s one of a hand­ful of doc­tors that I men­tion with gra­ti­tude in the Ack­now­led­ge­ments of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.  His web­site and wise unders­tan­ding pla­yed an empo­we­ring and self-educating role in the early move­ment by patients for bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and bet­ter labs.  You can read his own writ­ten bio­graphy here.

Mark your calen­der and set your cell phone alarm: the Com­mu­nity Call starts at 9 pm Eas­tern, 8 pm Cen­tral, 7 pm Moun­tain and 6 pm Paci­fic.  You can log on any­time within 15 minu­tes before the call starts and par­ti­ci­pate in the Chat box. That same box will be right there during the entire call.

The entire live audio chat with Janie and Dr. Lowe will come right on your com­pu­ter, so remem­ber to turn your audio up.

Addi­tio­nally, those who log in can also choose to call in and ask Dr. Lowe direct ques­tion. Don’t miss this great opportunity!

The Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness Talkshoe page: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

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See the blog post below for a very insight­ful Guest Blog Post by Amy about her role as an Under­co­ver Thy­roid Advo­cate. Below that, you can read how I was wrong about what it was like to be thy­roid­less, and seve­ral great comments.

The year of 2009 will long be remem­be­red for two night­ma­res straight out of Twi­light Zone for thy­roid patients: 1) Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted with patients glo­bally repor­ted a return of symp­toms and new frus­tra­ting ones, and 2) shor­ta­ges of all US-made natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid occu­rred, as well as no more gene­rics thanks to the FDA.

Addi­tio­nally, as I write this, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid by RLC Labs are still hard to get – making too slow a return on phar­macy shel­ves which may not improve until 2010. You can read details and a good sum­mary about this on about.com.

But there’s been a sil­ver lining to this situa­tion: Canada’s “Thy­roid” by Erfa.

Many patients made a switch to this desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­duct, using online phar­macy web­si­tes and their presc­rip­tions from their doc­tors. And ove­rall, the expe­rience of patients with Erfa’s Thy­roid has been extre­mely positive.

I had a won­der­ful chat this week with Dr. Henri Knafo, the Direc­tor of Medi­cal Affairs at Erfa Canada Inc.  My first and most impor­tant ques­tion: Is there enough Thy­roid for all your patient cus­to­mers?? And I got an une­qui­vo­cal “Yes” from Dr. Knafo.  He explai­ned there are no con­cerns with run­ning out and they have plenty in stock, now and in the future. He sta­ted that if their stock gets low from sud­den demand, they can easily get more and quickly.

I also asked: Is ship­ping timely? Defi­ni­tely yes, Dr. Knafo sta­ted. But he also qua­li­fied that Erfa is over­loa­ded with orders. And though they are kee­ping up, your presc­rip­tion order can take time to pro­cess. But, he sta­ted “Be Patient. It will arrive!”

What is going on with the FDA and Erfa? He unders­co­red that the FDA is coo­pe­ra­ting com­ple­tely, and they see a good future with the FDA.  They are com­ple­tely tole­rant, said Dr. Knafo, because they seem to unders­tand the shor­ta­ges. Erfa’s Thy­roid is also com­ple­tely appro­ved and regu­la­ted by Health Canada. As far as the future and the FDA, Dr. Knafo strongly feels that once the FDA is reas­su­red about desic­ca­ted thy­roid, things will only get bet­ter for US patients with brands and avai­la­bi­lity. He feels that issues with the FDA are far more posi­tive than many thy­roid patients and lea­ders seem to get or want to see.

Do you see chan­ges towards opi­nion of desic­ca­ted thy­roid?  Defi­ni­tely, yes. Dr. Knafo recently atten­ded a Euro­pean medi­cal con­fe­rence with over 50 spe­cia­lists and he saw many doc­tors not satis­fied with Synth­roid and noti­cing the bet­ter treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. “It’s boo­ming in Europe”, he unders­co­red about Erfa and desic­ca­ted thy­roid  “Even Endo’s are noti­cing”.  He also said that Bel­gium was expe­rien­cing a huge medi­cal trend away from T4 and towards desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Why has the cost of Erfa’s Thy­roid gone up even more than 50%?? His expla­na­tion was three-fold:  it was first a finan­cial deci­sion, since they have never made much of a pro­fit on desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Second, Health Canada requi­res a lot of expen­sive tes­ting from Erfa on pro­ducts. And third, since they buy their pow­de­red desic­ca­ted thy­roid from Europe, an inc­rease in Euros meant they nee­ded to inc­rease the price.

Any final com­ments? Dr. Knafo cla­ri­fied: Erfa has been making Thy­roid for 30 years and not only will that con­ti­nue, they will not change the for­mula. He thinks the sugar in Thy­roid is what makes absorp­tion so good, and that will con­ti­nue as an ingre­dient just as it is.  Nothing will change! To see ingre­dients of Erfa’s Thy­roid and other brands, go here.

You can read more about Erfa from my Sep­tem­ber 2^nd post.   Thank you to Dr. Knafo for being so can­did and informative!

See my post below about my mother, who lived her entire adult life under­trea­ted on T4 with depres­sion and elec­tric shock treat­ment and had no inter­net to com­pare notes. If you have a rela­tive from the past with a simi­lar story, add the story to the Comments.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. A card will be inc­lu­ded, and the book will be in an enve­lope with a red bow!! Save money the more you buy!

You might have already known about her, but it was only a few days ago when I found out that the effer­ves­cent Jane Pau­ley, for­mer host of the The Today Show and Date­line NBC, has had cer­tain medi­cal strug­gles in her life­time. They have inc­lu­ded hives (trea­ted with ste­roids), depres­sion (trea­ted with an anti-depressant), a bip0lar disor­der (trea­ted with lithium), and the autoim­mune thy­roid disease called Hashi­mo­tos (trea­ted with Levoxyl).

Hives are sud­den small rai­sed bumps which can mass into patches, and are often itchy and mise­ra­ble.  Bipo­lar, also called Manic Depres­sive Disor­der, invol­ves swings bet­ween extreme mania (exci­ted, ener­ge­tic) follo­wed by depres­sion (extreme sad­ness or lowe­red res­ponse to life).

And all the above four issues made me pause.  Con­si­der the following:

1. Hives have not only been lin­ked to hashi­mo­tos disease, they have both been suc­cess­fully trea­ted with the most bri­lliant medi­ca­tion for hypothy­roi­dism ever crea­ted: natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid. That hea­ling con­nec­tion was revea­led by the belo­ved Dr. David Derry of Canada here.  Hives is also men­tio­ned as a lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­tom while on T4 meds which went away with desic­ca­ted thyroid.

2) Depres­sion is all too com­mon for those with undiag­no­sed hypothy­roi­dism (thanks to the lousy TSH lab test) or under­trea­ted thy­roid disease (thanks to the lousy T4-only meds like Levoxyl which pro­mo­tes depres­sion and other lin­ge­ring symp­toms). Many patients report a reso­lu­tion of their depres­sion with desic­ca­ted thyroid.

3) Bi-polar can often be a mis­diag­no­sis for Hashi­mo­tos disease, since the lat­ter can cause the same swings. Even without Hashi’s, bipo­lar and other men­tal health issues can be a com­mon mani­fes­ta­tion of low cor­ti­sol aka adre­nal fati­gue, also cau­sed by undiag­no­sed hypo because of the TSH, or under­trea­ted hypothy­roi­dism with T4.  At the very least, bipo­lar can be a com­mon mani­fes­ta­tion of a hypothalamus-pituitary – adre­nals (HPA) axis dys­re­gu­la­tion, again com­mon with those undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypothyroidism.

4) Lithium, iro­ni­cally, is a known cause of hypothy­roi­dism, only making one’s thy­roid situa­tion worse, as well as pro­mo­ting poten­tial adre­nal fati­gue and low cortisol.

Now gran­ted, Jane’s big four of hives, depres­sion, bipo­lar, and thy­roid disease could be coin­ci­den­tal.  But there’s so much con­nec­tion in one way or another bet­ween them that you are left won­de­ring if she’s been a vic­tim of mis­diag­no­sis and under­treat­ment just like hun­dreds of millions of us thanks to labs and medi­ca­tions which do not work. And she may need a good doc­tor to be ree­va­lua­ted, besi­des put on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and dis­co­ver what patients have lear­ned about bet­ter treatment.

And on another note: I fear it’s going to take someone just as power­ful, and as stric­ken with health issues which could be rela­ted,  as Jane Pau­ley is, to FINALLY break open the pro­found and des­truc­tive media silence about this scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment diag­no­sis and treat­ment which has left hun­dreds of millions SICK with pro­found sto­ries,  and is the very rea­son Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness exists. Do we dare hope? We’ll see.

Do you have a simi­lar story of men­tal health issues that ended up being con­nec­ted to your thy­roid and/or adre­nal state? Use the Com­ment form and let’s talk. Who knows – maybe Jane will see this, pon­der, and become far bet­ter edu­ca­ted like we’ve had to become!

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. A card will be inc­lu­ded, and the book will be in an enve­lope with a red bow!! Save money the more you buy!