doctor tags

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.

With the recent blog post by health wri­ter Mary Sho­mon con­cer­ning Dr. Sid­ney Wolfe’s new 4-year term with the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Mana­ge­ment Advi­sory Com­mit­tee, there has been much brooha and fear-mongering on thy­roid patient groups.

Why? Well look at it this way. This is a man of sta­ture. He is an MD, an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Medi­cine, the direc­tor of Public Citizen’s health research group which pro­mo­tes drug safety and public health, and edi­tor of the news­let­ter Worst Pills, Best Pills, and since August of  ’08, a mem­ber of the Drug Safety Com­mit­tee.  He also has a resume a mile long.

Yet in spite of his see­mingly caring acti­vism for our health and well-being, and his immense expe­rience and edu­ca­tion, he is clearly and com­ple­tely off-base about Armour and other desic­ca­ted thy­roid presc­rip­tion drugs.

For exam­ple, as as edi­tor of the Worst Pills, Best Pills news­let­ter,  Wolfe dec­la­red Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid as a “Do Not Use” pro­duct because it is not ade­qua­tely gua­ran­teed to pro­vide appro­priate blood levels of thy­roid hor­mone and relia­ble alter­na­ti­ves are avai­la­ble”. (Gee, funny how our expe­rien­ces are com­ple­tely other­wise.…)

Then in the May 2003 issue (of which you have to have a paid presc­rip­tion to read), he wrote an article tit­led  “Do Not Use! Natu­ral or Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid (ARMOUR THYROID) For Thy­roid Hor­mone Repla­ce­ment The­rapy.” In that article, the clue­less Wolfe sta­ted that he sup­por­ted The Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Association’s sta­te­ment “There is no evi­dence that desic­ca­ted thy­roid, a bio­lo­gi­cal pre­pa­ra­tion, has any advan­tage over synthe­tic thy­ro­xine.” (I guess millions of us and our impro­ved hear­trate, sta­mina, cho­les­te­rol, depres­sion and more…aren’t evi­dence?)

He then pro­po­ses that Armour is mostly presc­ri­bed for weight loss, is a niche mar­ket for the unsc­ru­pu­lous, and conc­lu­des with “if you are offe­red natu­ral thy­roid hor­mone repla­ce­ment treat­ment for any rea­son, this is a red flag and you should get a second opi­nion.” In a let­ter to con­su­mers, Wolfe and Public Citi­zen state that that T3 is only nee­ded from con­ver­sion and is pre­dic­tably found from con­ver­sion, that the T2 and T1 also found in desic­ca­ted thy­roid has essen­tially no acti­vity, that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is an unpre­dic­ta­ble mix­ture, that is has no pre­dic­ta­ble bio­lo­gi­cal acti­vity…plus so many more com­plete and total inac­cu­ra­cies based on “inte­llec­tual head chat­ter” not on obser­va­tion and experience.

Thud.

Mary Sho­mon, in 2003, did a bang-up job trying to com­mu­ni­cate with Wolfe, Worst Pills, Best Pills, and Public Citi­zen about the inac­cu­ra­cies of their beliefs and statements…basically to no avail. The TRUTH is here, and in more detail in Chap­ters 1 and 2 in the STTM book which are enligh­te­ning those rea­ding it all!

So we are left won­de­ring, six years later, what his four-year appoint­ment to this com­mit­tee will mean. But let’s make a few things quite clear to con­trast some of the fears going on and expres­sed on thy­roid groups:

1) Armour is not being ban­ned.
2) Wolfe is one of a current 9 mem­bers of this com­mit­tee. Wolfe is not “the com­mit­tee”.
3) Wolfe and seven others currently have voting rights. He is the only “Con­su­mer Repre­sen­ta­tive”.
4) There are still six more vacan­cies.
5) The com­mit­tee is NOT the power. They simply make recom­men­da­tions. And his­to­ri­cally, the FDA can be slow to act on their recom­men­da­tions, or doesn’t follow them at all (which is a GOOD thing when it comes to a SAFE and EFFECTIVE medi­ca­tion like desic­ca­ted thyroid).

So what can you do? I cha­llenge you to follow and act on the below, which puts our ener­gies into com­mu­ni­ca­tion, not fee­ding the ego and power of a mis­gui­ded man with our overtly expres­sed fears as if they have actually come to pass :

1) Remem­ber 1 – 5 above. Armour is fully avai­la­ble. Keep the facts straight, and fear-mongering down.

2) STTM has a power­ful and gro­wing page of tes­ti­mo­nies of those who switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid.  Are you in there? If not, you need to be. This web­site currently has a huge audience. It’s noti­ced by doc­tors all over the world, as is the STTM book, which is YOUR book of YOUR expe­rien­ces,  which is also being orde­red by doc­tors. Use the Con­tact Me form at the bot­tom of that page.

3) Tell your expe­rience with Synth­roid or other thy­ro­xine medi­ca­tions at the follo­wing web­si­tes:  www.rateadrug.com,  www.drugs.com,  www.askapatient.com They don’t inc­lude any of the desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds yet, but you can tell of the nega­tive expe­rien­ces with all the T4-only drugs, inc­lu­ding adre­nal fati­gue if you fell into that, and all your lin­ge­ring thy­roid symp­toms.  The above links will take you to their Synth­roid page – you can search for the other T4 meds.  Remem­ber to men­tion Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds and how they have hel­ped you!! Update: thy­roid patient Gina found the drugs.com Armour page: http://www.drugs.com/comments/thyroid-desiccated/armour-thyroid.html

4) Report your T4-only expe­rience to Med­Watch, the FDA’s  pro­gram for repor­ting pro­blems.  You will see an Online Repor­ting Form to down­load. Don’t fail to men­tion which pro­blems were remo­ved or greatly impro­ved when you switched to Armour, or the fact that you now have to deal with adre­nal fati­gue thanks to the ina­de­quacy of T4-only treat­ment. You can also call 1 – 800-FDA-1088, but remem­ber: your call is not to draw atten­tion to Wolfe’s opi­nions! It’s to draw atten­tion to how lousy a treat­ment T4 is as com­pa­red to how much bet­ter Armour has been.

5) Go to my article tit­led Synth­roid Sucks: the Rall­ying Cry of Thy­roid Patients vs. Clue­less Doc­tors and com­ment on this article, inc­lu­ding men­tio­ning what Armour, Natu­reth­roid or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid did for you. Rate it as well. Both keep this article in the media and in the eyes of others.

6) Go to www.medications.com where patients ask ques­tions and YOU can ans­wer, men­tio­ning YOUR expe­rience and how much bet­ter desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been. Clic­king on that will take you to the Synth­roid patient ques­tions. Ans­wer them. Be care­ful with links – they may not catch them at first, but will remove them if they do.  You can men­tion web­site names, tho, like Stop the Thy­roid Madness.

7) Send peo­ple here to follow all these steps. Power is in numbers!

8 ) Use the follo­wing web­site to email or write your sena­tors and repre­sen­ta­ti­ves: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ THEY DO READ THEM. And they will remem­ber this!  Here’s a tem­plate let­ter you can use:  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/template-letter-to-your-senator-or-representive/

If you have other ideas and pla­ces to write or call, add your com­ment to this post. Remem­ber,  put your power in com­mu­ni­ca­tion! LOTS of communication.

P.S. Did you know that the Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion, in coo­pe­ra­tion with the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, together sup­port January as “Thy­roid Awa­re­ness Month”…which is sup­por­ted through an unres­tric­ted grant from Abbott Labo­ra­to­ries, the makers of Synth­roid?? Major UGH.

Just as I was finishing up the post below about a short sum­mary on the Endoc­ri­no­logy Today web­site, I saw a link at the bot­tom of the page that inte­res­ted me.  It took me to a blog post on the same site from Decem­ber 10^th tit­led “Why can’t it be my thyroid?”.

And a slew of thy­roid patients around the world, as well as a gro­wing body of doc­tors,  would com­ple­tely disa­gree with this post.

Namely, a DO explains the pro­blem of patients arri­ving in doc­tors offi­ces with “innu­me­ra­ble pos­si­ble symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism” inc­lu­ding “fati­gue, cold into­le­rance, dec­rea­sed energy, weight gain, depres­sion, hair loss, low libido, mens­trual irre­gu­la­rity and others.”

Yet, he bemoans, these patients have a “nor­mal TSH” which is “well within the nor­mal labo­ra­tory refe­rence range.” He also refers to their nor­mal free T3 and free T4, and sta­tes there is no his­tory to sug­gest pitui­tary dys­func­tion or that the TSH is unreliable.”

He then pro­ceeds to pat him­self on the back because he 1) will treat some patients with a high-normal TSH and other cli­ni­cal fea­tu­res,  2) he will treat to a low-normal TSH of less than 2.0, but like the good-boy-doctor, “still within the nor­mal labo­ra­tory refe­rence range” and 3) he will not induce iatro­ge­nic hyperthy­roi­dism, even if symp­toms per­sist. (yikes)

“Iatro­ge­nic hyperthy­roi­dism”??  Since “iatro­ge­ne­sis” refers to harm­ful medi­cal pro­ce­du­res, he’s pro­bably refe­rring to a TSH below the range, which in his mind, equa­tes to hyperthyroidism.

***Then comes the obser­va­tion that has made many thy­roid patients shi­ver, since so many doc­tors have said it: because he feels that adding T3 to T4 has more nega­tive results than posi­tive, he explains to his patients “that there may be cau­ses of their symp­toms besi­des the thyroid.”

THUD.

So here is my 6-point res­ponse to any doc­tor who might share these beliefs:

1) There’s hardly a thy­roid patient around who hasn’t had a so-called “nor­mal” TSH in spite of clear and obvious hypothy­roi­dism.  The TSH lab test fre­quently lags behind what is rea­lity in the body, and has been doing so since it’s crea­tion in the early 1970’s (see Chap­ter 4 in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book for his­tory).

2) Having a “nor­mal” free T3 and free T4 means nothing. It’s “where” the result falls in that range that means something. i.e. patients all around the world are noti­cing that having a free T3 mid-range or lower in the pre­sence of hypothy­roid symp­toms is usually a BINGO lab result poin­ting to hypothyroidism.

3) Exactly because doc­tors tend to dis­miss clear hypothy­roid symp­toms as “something else” thanks to a lousy TSH refe­rence range, a bur­geo­ning num­ber of thy­roid patients are falling into adre­nal fati­gue with its low cor­ti­sol, which ser­ves to mess them up even more.

4) A huge body of thy­roid patients who are on desic­ca­ted thy­roid hor­mo­nes (aka Armour, Natu­reth­roid, etc), and who finally have a com­plete remo­val of symp­toms with a nor­mal tem­pe­ra­ture and hear­trate, also have a sup­pres­sed TSH lab result, and not one iota of “iatro­ge­nic hyperthyroidism.”

5) When it appears that adding T3 to T4 is having nega­tive effects, the pro­blem is most likely adre­nal fati­gue that needs correc­tion, and/or low ferri­tin, NOT deci­ding that the symp­toms must be from another cause or T3 doesn’t work.

6) “Fati­gue, cold into­le­rance, dec­rea­sed energy, weight gain, depres­sion, hair loss, low libido, mens­trual irre­gu­la­rity and others” may be sha­red in other con­di­tions, but you are most likely mis­sing CLEAR symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, both in the undiag­no­sed patient with a so-called nor­mal TSH, or with a patient trea­ted with the lousy thy­ro­xine, which lea­ves most ever­yone with con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid symp­toms.

“I’m sorry. It IS your thy­roid” is exactly what patients need to hear.

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.

I was infor­med today that a very popu­lar and well-liked doc­tor in Texas, who treats many hypothy­roid patients, was dis­ci­pli­ned recently.  And for what?  Under the column tit­led NONTHERAPEUTIC PRESCRIBING, it sta­tes:  The action was based on Dr. Lau­nius’ presc­ri­bing Adi­pex, Adde­ral and Armour Thy­roid to patients when such medi­ca­tions were not indi­ca­ted. www.tmb.state.tx.us/news/press/2008/101608a.php

Adi­pex and Adde­rol are both cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem sti­mu­lants, and I can’t com­ment one way or the other. But the men­tion of Armour thy­roid as “not indi­ca­ted” is poten­tially worri­some, espe­cially with simi­lar dis­ci­pli­nary actions brought upon well-liked and wise doc­tors like Peat­field and Skin­ner of the UK, Derry of Canada, and  Sprin­ger in the US – all who dared to make obvious symp­toms more impor­tant than ink spots on a piece of paper.

Take Kymm, a 45 year old woman.  She has mani­fes­ted hypothy­roid symp­toms for 15 years since the birth of her daugh­ter.  Yet during those entire 15 years, her TSH lab result has been com­ple­tely “normal”…i.e. hypothy­roi­dism has never been “indi­ca­ted” based on the typi­cal and wides­pread gold stan­dard of diag­no­sis: the TSH.  But she has never, ever been nor­mal with 15 years of easy weight gain, chro­nic depres­sion, thin­ning hair, rising cho­les­te­rol, and other clear hypothy­roid symp­toms. And she has in fact star­ted on Armour…and is soaring.

Kymm is not an oddity.  Thy­roid patients on inter­net groups report going years with a nor­mal TSH, no diag­no­sis, yet clear symp­toms which are igno­red by their TSH-obsessed doc­tors.   So their doc­tors may have avoi­ded dis­ci­pli­nary action, but did they truly prac­tise the art and science of healing??