doctor tags

Oh boy! You are invited to a Thyroid Patient Community Call on your computer which will be held each and every Friday night for an hour with myself, Janie, as host.  We had the first one last Friday and it was fun and informative. No, I didn’t announce it here because I wanted to work on any bugs in the system as we learned to use it.

Here’s a chance to ask questions about shortages of desiccated thyroid, options to talk to your doctor about to treat your hypothyroidism during this shortage period, how to find a good doctor, and more.

Times are 7 pm Pacific, 8 pm Mountain, 9 pm Central and 10 pm Eastern. Just go here: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

You can make two choices: just listen to the Audio of the podcast talk show, or call in. Phone number will be right on the bottom.  You can register with Talk Shoe and pick a user name, or come in as a Guest.

You’ll also note a chat box.  The handy and beautiful gals Darla and Diane will usually be there to guide you. If you want to line up to talk in the queue, you’ll be asked the topic of your conversation in the chat box.  As you wait for me to get to you, you’ll be able to hear the talk through your phone, and will need to MUTE your computer sound.

You’ll be seeing guests join us, as well, so watch for each Community Call announcement on the above link. And even without a scheduled guest, you just never know who is going to pop in and chat.

Come join us! And remember: we are all just patients chatting with patients. This is not to replace the relationship with your doctor in your treatment or for treatment advice. Stick with your doctor for that.

*Want to be informed of these blog posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Just use the Notifications on the left below the links.

* STTM t-shirts are half price! I love sales!

Unfortunately, patients who want to switch to desiccated thyroid from T4-only meds like Synthroid et al, or those already on desiccated thyroid who want to fill their next prescription, are going to find it difficult. There are widespread shortages in desiccated thyroid like Armour, Naturethroid and Westhroid. (see my posts below).

But there’s good news, and it comes in the form of “Thyroid”  by Erfa.

Erfa’s “Thyroid”  is an excellent natural desiccated thyroid product according to the experience of patients who use it. It contains:

• Dried Thyroid
• Mag­ne­sium Stearate
• Corns­tarch
• Talc
• Sugar

**Note the “sugar”. Patients also report they are able to do this brand of medication sublingually! That is good news.

The Erfa website states you can obtain their desiccated thyroid medication outside of Canada via a special access program and follow their steps:

For patients outside Canada and the US:

For patients in the US:

1. get a valid prescription of Thyroid from your local doctor
2. your doctor has to fill FDA form 1572 (e-mail us a request at info@ERFA.net
3. Fax or e-mail us the documents at 1-514-931-7330 or info@ERFA.net

Thank you Erfa from Stop the Thyroid Madness and thyroid patients all over the world who KNOW what a superior treatment desiccated thyroid really is!

Word has trickled down to me from a few patients and emails that even Naturethroid is getting harder to come by at pharmacies because of the extreme demand on RLC Labs.

No, they are not ceasing to make desiccated thyroid. They just weren’t prepared for the high demand due to the reformulation of Armour and problems it caused.  And they aren’t keeping up and won’t for several months.

So, if you can’t last with your current prescription for several months, you will probably need to talk to your doc about getting a generic version by Major Pharmacy, or get some over-the-counter like NutriMeds, or even the “Hypo Support Formula” made by RLC Labs, but expect to take much more of either.  Many patients are also mentioning Thyroid-S by Greater Pharma as a backup until RLC catches up.  But it’s by mail order and will take a few weeks to arrive.  Google any of the above. Finally, you can move a slight step backwards and talk to your doc about doing synthetic T4 and synthetic T3.  It’s not going to be quite a good as being on desiccated thyroid, but it’s certainly better than being on T4 alone, don’t you agree?? Keep connected to your doc.  And hang in there. This will pass.

Janie

P.S. I’ll be adding more information to this post tomorrow. Check back.

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

Below is the actual release by RLC Labs:

For any patients experiencing difficulties in attaining either Nature-ThroidTM or WesthroidTM through their pharmacy, RLC Labs, Inc, asks these individuals to have their pharmacy contact us directly at 877-797-7997 to place an order, or have their pharmacy request a drop-shipment through their wholesale supplier.

RLC Labs’ products are only available through wholesalers, pharmacies and or their doctors; thus all confirmations and/or tracking information will only be available through the wholesaler, pharmacy, or doctor’s office that placed the order.

RLC Labs is experiencing a substantial increase in orders for Nature-ThroidTM and WesthroidTM. The recent unexpected influx has inundated our customer service and shipping departments, thus causing delays and depleting our current stock. We are working around the clock to fulfill all current orders; however, we cannot guarantee that
any future orders will be fulfilled until our stock is replenished.

RLC Labs will continue to accept orders from our customers, however as of Friday August 14th, we are backordered on all strengths of Nature-ThroidTM and WesthroidTM. Shipment is expected to resume within 90 days.

We regret to inform you of this situation; however, we can assure you that we are working diligently to replenish our stock and will resume shipping as soon as possible. Please accept our sincerest apology for any inconvenience.

We do understand how much of an impact this has as most of us employed @ RLC Labs, are hypothyroid and take our own product. Thus, we know and understand how important it is to get product back into the market place. We are grateful for your continued patience, patronage and support!

Feel free to contact our customer service department with any questions concerning this matter @ 877-797-7997.

Thank you from all of us @ RLC Labs, Inc.

I recently discovered a very humorous and appropo medical blog on the net, written by a United Kingdom General Practitioner who wisely stays incognito. His blog is called The Jobbing Doctor.

And his most recent and humorously brilliant post is titled Hairy legs are better than blood tests! He describes his occasional confusion when blood tests don’t agree with the patients symptoms.

Says the UK doc: “The textbooks teach that the level of circulating thyroid hormones (which are called T3 and T4) are inversely related to the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH). If your T3 and T4 are low, your TSH will be high: this suggests an underactive thyroid gland. If the T3 and T4 are high and the TSH is low, then you have an overactive thyroid gland. That’s easy, huh!”

But his confusion sprang forth when a patient’s labs showed “a highish TSH, T4, and a normal T3.” Yet apparently her symptoms didn’t imply there was any problem, so he chose to do nothing as far as changing her treatment.

A month later at her next appointment, this patient expressed her approval that he didn’t change anything…because her leg hair and eyebrows were coming back.

And his conclusion?  “Pah! Who needs blood tests!”

Jobbing Doctor, you are discovering what thyroid patients have been learning over and over for years: it’s SYMPTOMS (or lack up) which need to pull the cart, NOT labwork. Sure, we love our labwork. They can give clues to areas where our bodies are screaming for help.  But they definitely do NOT tell the whole story.

Look at the ignoramus TSH lab test. Countless patients have walked into their doctors offices with clear and obvious hypothyroid symptoms–and desperate for a diagnosis–yet the ink spot on the office piece of paper called the TSH lab result proclaims they are “normal”. And that dubious “normal” diagnosis can go on for years before it rises high enough to reveal what was already there by SYMPTOMS.

Or, while on thyroid medication, patients will have a lamebrain “normal” TSH lab result, yet will continue to have their own brand and degree of continuing hypothyroid symptoms which the clueless doctor dismisses as an hysteric female interpretation, motherhood, stress, a need for psychological help….or just “something else”. Uh huh.

In fact, Jobber Doctor, patients have learned that when they are optimal (on desiccated thyroid), along with optimal ferritin and cortisol), they will generally have a free T3 in the upper part of the range, and a SUPPRESSED TSH, with no symptoms of hyperthyroidism.  That is general, and there can be some exceptions, but overall, it has spoken volumes to patients on how inadequate thyroid lab tests can be.  i.e. being in the “normal” range—anywhere in the normal range–can be mean squat.

Thanks for a great post,  UK Jobber Doc. And P.S.  Desiccated thyroid is an even better treatment than thyroxine.

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

I’ve been noticing several articles coming out the past week about a strong association between hypothyroidism and a twice the risk of liver disease and liver cancer, especially in females. And then it dawned on me: another strong reason to play basketball with your trashcan using your lousy Synthroid, Levoxyl, Levothroxine or Eltroxin bottles while being replaced with desiccated thyroid.

In other words, continued hypothyroidism (being on the lousy T4 meds) and undiagnosed hypothyroidism (because of the inadequacy of the TSH lab test) can potentially promote the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a more severe Fatty Liver disease. The next progression is liver cancer, aka hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Even worse, the study revealed that women who had been hypothyroid for more than 10 years had a threefold higher risk of liver cancer compared to women without a history of thyroid disorders. This will make you pause when you consider how many reports there are of patients having hypothyroid symptoms for YEARS with a normal TSH…and a clueless, TSH-worshipping doctor.

And if reading this bores you, understand that your liver is a HIGHLY important gland that you can’t live without. It plays a key role in detoxifying the toxins you ingest and breath in daily (including smoking), besides being a major fat burner.  Make the liver diseased, and you become a breeding ground for toxins, the rise of other diseases…then death.

The solution? Run from TSH-kissing doctors, get on desiccated thyroid like Naturethroid et. al.  and avoid the most common mistakes of dosing while ceasing to smoke, curtailing the alcohol, and eating healthy (except for the daily dose of chocolate I gotta have. haha).

P.S. The original report came out in the May journal issue of Hepatology (published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases).  Similar results were also reported in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2005.

Want to be informed about my blog posts? Curious what I’m ranting about? Just use the Notifications on the left at the bottom of the links.

See below about my disappointment in Forest Pharmaceuticals.