eltroxin tags

As Susan Boyle of the UK had a dream which came true, I too wish from the dee­pest place in my heart that some­day soon, SOMEONE from the mass media will FINALLY get smart and do a wide-reaching story for the hun­dreds of millions who are still on T4 meds like Syth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oroxine…and who have depres­sion or a myriad of other lin­ge­ring symp­toms of a sucky, laugha­ble and sha­me­ful treat­ment.  This video ins­pi­res me today just as it did a few weeks ago.  Enjoy and dream with me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzS0wgwyW4&annotation_id=annotation_179773&feature=iv

Janie

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*See below on how being on T4 meds can affect your liver. And below that – why I’m han­ding my pro­mise ring back to Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

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.

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See below about my disap­point­ment in Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Before my thy­roid disease of hypothy­roi­dism was dis­co­ve­red, I had horri­fic and debi­li­ta­ting con­se­quen­ces from exer­cise or any acti­vity.  You can read about it all here or even more detail in the Intro­duc­tion of the patients-to-patients Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

When my so-called “bor­der­line hypothy­roid” was dis­co­ve­red by age 30, I thought whoo-hooo, I’ll finally get rid of this strange night­mare whe­ne­ver I tried to do ANYTHING.  I was put on Synth­roid and my anti­ci­pa­tion for a bet­ter life was profound.

But my hope was dashed. Not only did my body con­ti­nue to ove­rreact to acti­vity, it got worse over time.  Horribly worse.  Nearly twenty years after I had star­ted on a T4-only medi­ca­tion, and was told by one doc­tor after another that my pro­blem was not my thy­roid, I was going to apply for social secu­rity disability.

But they were all dead wrong. Sure, turns out I have a form of Dysau­to­no­mia, a mal­func­tion and ove­rreac­tion of my auto­no­mic ner­vous sys­tem, cau­sing my body to far ove­rreact to stress. But remai­ning hypothy­roid, as we all do on the sucky t4-only medi­ca­tions, had made it far worse. And I pro­ved it. When I switched to Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2002 and rai­sed it accor­ding to what patients have lear­ned, a miracle occu­rred.  My severe auto­no­mic reac­tions made an almost com­plete tur­na­round.

And my expe­rience of change or impro­ve­ment when it comes to other disea­ses or con­di­tions has been sha­red by others.

Last week, I recei­ved an email from a man whose brother has MS – Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis.  And though Armour has not taken his MS away, it allo­wed him to move from this wheelchair to a wal­ker! That is impressive.

So I am left won­de­ring:  what other con­di­tions or disea­ses, which are uni­que in them­sel­ves, are wor­se­ned being undiag­no­sed thanks to the lousy TSH lab test or the ina­de­quate treat­ment of Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin and all other T4-only medi­ca­tions? It’s awful to think about it.

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When I  was ten years old, my mother had elec­tric shock treatment.

The memory stands out in my mind like a bea­con. And when my Dad brought her home, he took me aside and explai­ned that my mama was not going to remem­ber where things are for awhile, and we’d have to help her. That was espe­cially true with the 4-legged sewing basket.

She even­tually regai­ned her memory. But she was never again the same bright and quick wit­ted mother I used to have when I was younger.

Why was shock treat­ment done?  To coun­ter her mys­te­rious ongoing and disa­bling depres­sion.  And this was her last option.

It didn’t work.

She lived on anti-depressants, spe­ci­fi­cally a high dose of Ela­vil, the rest of her com­pro­mi­sed life.

And more than 40 years later, about a year after her death, a change in my own life with Armour hel­ped me rea­lize why she had to be depen­dent on an anti-depressant for so many years:  Synth­roid.  My mother was on Synth­roid almost her entire adult life — a medi­ca­tion, along with Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Unith­roid, Eltro­xin, Leva­xin, Nor­ton, Eutro­sig  and Oro­xine, which lea­ves nearly all patients with lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms, inc­lu­ding one of the most com­mon one:  chro­nic on-going depression.

And a large body of doc­tors all around the world just don’t get it.

What brought this memory of my mother up in my mind? Because two days ago, I chat­ted with a gal on Synth­roid.   By all appea­ran­ces, she see­med to be doing well, as some will make you think.  She said she had enough energy, wasn’t losing her hair, and felt okay. But when I pro­bed dee­per, she admit­ted that her blood pres­sure was going too high (as hap­pe­ned to my mother on a T4-only med) and she had a pro­blem with depres­sion and was on Well­bu­trin.  Bingo.

See http://biopsychiatry.com/hypothyroidism.htm which is also here: http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/10/1142

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Just two months ago on January 15^th, I wrote an article tit­led Ten Rea­sons You May Still Feel Bad.  Nearly every hypothy­roid patient can have some of those ten pro­blems, and if so, they need to be dis­co­ve­red and corrected.

And one of those issues was low B12. B12 is a vita­min which has a key role in cell meta­bo­lism of your entire body, giving you energy, sharp­ness in your brain, and healthy ner­vous sys­tem functioning.

And unfor­tu­na­tely, a cer­tain per­cen­tage of hypothy­roid patients have low levels of this impor­tant vita­min, lar­gely due to diges­tive issues com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism– either undiag­no­sed due to the lousy TSH lab test, or under­trea­ted on T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Symp­toms of low B12 can vary from per­son to per­son, but can inc­lude numb­ness and tin­gling in your hands or feet,  tre­mors, poor refle­xes, ton­gue sore­ness, leg pain, or dif­fi­culty wal­king with balance.   Psycho­lo­gi­cally, you may have memory issues, con­fu­sion, or depres­sion. Young women may have dif­fi­culty get­ting preg­nant due to low B12.

When doing lab work, you want a result in the upper end of the range.  To correct ina­de­quate levels of B12, you’ll want to use high oral B12 (methyl­co­ba­la­min is the recom­men­ded form of B12), B12 cream, or injec­tions by your doc­tor (espe­cially if you have per­ni­cious ane­mia) .  It’s also recom­men­ded to inc­rease your con­sump­tion of meat and dairy pro­ducts, which can be rich in B12.

March 27, 2009 is the kick-off date to begin an awa­re­ness cam­paign of B12 health, with Sep­tem­ber 23^rd being “Vita­min B12 Awa­re­ness Day”. And I highly recom­mend the book Could It Be B12? An Epi­de­mic of Mis­diag­no­ses by Sally Pacho­lok, R.N. and Jef­frey Stuart, D.O., who are spearhea­ding this awareness.

Have you found your­self with low B12? Tell us your symp­toms, how you trea­ted it, and how long it took to stop the symptoms.

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