Doctors tags

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.

It would make an inc­re­di­ble horror movie. The plot: stun­ningly con­vince at least hun­dreds of millions of indi­vi­duals world­wide that what has always been obvious, isn’t. That lea­ves only look green because of alien fil­ters in your eyes. That ripe apples fall because water pulls them down. That fire doesn’t really burn your skin; it’s just your imagination.

And about hun­dred more schi­zoph­re­nic ying yangs. Because if those in autho­rity say so, it must be so.

But the horror movie is a rea­lity, and I see it EVERY TIME I come into con­tact with peo­ple and the sub­ject of my thy­roid advo­cacy comes up.

Like today. A cou­ple saw my book and struck up a con­ver­sa­tion. She was on Synth­roid; he was on Levoxyl. They had each been on their T4-only treat­ment for 12 and 14 years res­pec­ti­vely, felt their hypo was per­fectly trea­ted, belie­ved their doctors…and were now dea­ling with other pro­blems: his rising cho­les­te­rol, her depres­sion, his fati­gue, and her weight gain. BUT OF COURSE, THOSE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR T4-ONLY TREATED HYPOTHYROID AND SOME OF IT IS THEIR OWN FAULT…leaves aren’t really green, water makes ripe apples fall, and fire doesn’t really burn.

It just struck me. And it’s struck me before. There’s just a LOT of SILENT SUCKERS wal­king around. I was one; my mother was one; and there are obviously millions out there, still wal­king around trying to live with the side effects of a treat­ment that their doc­tors say are NOT cau­sed by their thyroid.

Sad.

(Has your cho­les­te­rol and other lipids impro­ved since you switched to Armour and rai­sed without using the TSH? Your story of suc­cess is wel­come on the blog post below!)

I was lucky.

My cho­les­te­rol hadn’t star­ted to raise yet when I was on Synth­roid and later Levoxy. But it was going to, because nearly ever­yone on a T4-only medi­ca­tion has a clim­bing cho­les­te­rol num­ber, soo­ner or later, along with heart pro­blems and/or ele­va­ted CRP. And what do their doc­tors do next? Put them on sta­tins with all the lovely side effects: muscle aches & pains, memory loss, and periphe­ral neu­ro­pathy. (See the Yahoo Stop­ped My Sta­tins group here.)

My mother is the clas­sic exam­ple. We have abso­lu­tely no heart pro­blems in our family his­tory that I know of. Yet, here was my mother who, in her 60’s, was sud­denly in the hos­pi­tal having a balloon pro­ce­dure on her heart, called an Angio­plasty, done to open up a clog­ged artery to her heart. Huh??

It was only years later, when I become a thy­roid patient advo­cate, that I could look back and see why that hap­pe­ned to her. She had been on a T4 medi­ca­tion for the majo­rity of her adult life!

Today, as patients are switching to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid and others, and as they are allo­wed by their infor­med doc­tors to raise NOT accor­ding to the TSH but by the com­plete eli­mi­na­tion of symptoms…VOILA.… their once-high cholesterol.…FALLS!!

But guess what else falls? Your CRP.

CRP stands for C-Reactive Pro­tein, and it beco­mes ele­va­ted in res­ponse to an inflam­ma­tion. With that ele­va­tion comes the heigh­te­ned risk of heart attacks and stro­kes. And guess what: con­ti­nued hypothy­roid (as found with T4-only treat­ment) results in an inc­rea­sed CRP level.

On an opti­mal amount of Armour, which for me is 4 grains, my CRP is 0.9. Ideal is less than one. Bingo.

***Have a story to share about your impro­ved lipid or CRP levels since you became opti­mal on Armour? Let us know.

YEEHAW! Check out this study done in 2007 – the higher the TSH, the worse your lipids. Iro­ni­cally, even a TSH IN RANGE does this, accor­ding to the expe­rience of MILLIONS of patients!! Thanks Nita for brin­ging this to my attention!

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.

Some­ti­mes I pon­der: the current move­ment away from Synth­roid & Levoxyl and all other T4-only meds to desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour (as well as the unders­tan­ding of the high pre­va­lence of adre­nal fati­gue with thy­roid patients), has been going on for ALL of the 21^st cen­tury. In other words, patients were star­ting to talk about desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour by the year 1999, and Yahoo’s Natu­ral Thy­roid Hor­mo­nes group was star­ted in 2002. Other patient groups sprung up around the same time. The lat­ter group is also where the know­ledge about adre­nal fati­gue in thy­roid patients grew, which was further added to on STTM. So.…has there there been any chan­ges in the way thy­roid patients are trea­ted for their hypothy­roid and rela­ted conditions?

The YES

Some­ti­mes I can say a resoun­ding yes! There are many doc­tors around the world who are loo­king at Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness (STTM) and lis­te­ning to what is says. STTM is about the real life chan­ging expe­rience of patients! Some doc­tors tell me outright, either via the Con­tact Me form or by res­pon­ding to my blog posts here, that they are rea­ding it and appro­ving the infor­ma­tion. Or, I find out about other doc­tors second hand by patients who tell me their doc­tor TOLD THE PATIENT to read STTM. The lat­ter defi­ni­tely makes me chuc­kle when so many doc­tors tell patients that infor­ma­tion on the inter­net is DANGEROUS!

I can also say yes when I read the com­ments of patients on various thy­roid patient groups on the inter­net. Because of the infor­ma­tion patients have lear­ned from STTM, which is in turn pas­sed into the groups, patients all over the world are making demands in their doctor’s offi­ces, and some pro­gress is being made all over the world.

And a final yes can be utte­red by me when I see a few but gro­wing num­ber of web­si­tes pro­mote desic­ca­ted thyroid.

The NO

But there are so many situa­tions where I have to say no. 1) When doc­tors on inter­net forums TO THIS DAY con­ti­nue to give lousy advice to thy­roid patients, it’s dishear­te­ning. 2) When patients on thy­roid patient groups TO THIS DAY con­ti­nue to have doc­tors state each and every ridi­cu­lous give me a break com­ment, it’s sad. 3) When a famous female talk show host con­ti­nues to ignore each and every email sent to her for years about the deplo­ra­ble situa­tion across the world with thy­roid patients, as well as seem to misun­ders­tand her OWN thy­roid and poten­tial adre­nal pro­blem, it’s mad­de­ning. 4) And when I can run into patients DAILY when I go to the gro­cery store, or to the gas sta­tion, or to any public place, who are still on Synth­roid or Levoxyl and coping with innu­me­ra­ble symp­toms of a poor treat­ment, not exc­lu­ding adre­nal fati­gue, it’s scandalous.

So the com­plete ans­wer? Yes and no. The ball has defi­ni­tely been rolling for bet­ter treat­ment. Some doc­tors out there are truly lis­te­ning. Many patients out there are lear­ning and deman­ding change. It’s hap­pe­ning. But baby, we have a LONG WAY TO GO. And the power will be in the hand of patients who ques­tion their treat­ment, find ans­wers via STTM and other web­si­tes and patient forums, and con­ti­nue to demand change from their doc­tors and the entire medi­cal esta­blish­ment. I just hope to see more change soo­ner than later, don’t you?!

p.s. Want to spread the word?? Go HERE to order a t-shirt or bum­per stic­kers. You CAN make a difference!