eltroxin tags

The recent press release by the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians about the new gui­de­li­nes on the diag­no­sis and mana­ge­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism hit the web with a resoun­ding, stiff-necked thud.

And I have writ­ten about it in the news media here:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Royal-College-of-Physi-by-Janie-Bowthorpe-090210 – 698.html

p.s.  In the 1600’s, Gali­leo was the first most pro­li­fic voice to proc­laim that the earth revol­ved around the sun (Armour), in con­trast to the firmly held posi­tion that the sun revol­ved around the earth (Thy­ro­xine).  He was denoun­ced as being dan­ge­rous and here­ti­cal. But over time, the truth won out.

Are you from the UK? Tell us what you think.

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Recently, after we watched a semi-scary movie about being suc­ke­red, a friend brought up my blog post of last July where I desc­ri­bed a terrifyingly-real horror movie.

The plot: stun­ningly con­vince hun­dreds of millions of indi­vi­duals world­wide that what is obvious, isn’t. i.e. it’s all in your head, you are ade­qua­tely trea­ted on Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Nor­ton, et al,  and not only that, we’ll ban­daid your con­ti­nuing pro­blems with more medi­ca­tions.

A second plot: also com­ple­tely hood­wink those with top notch higher medi­cal edu­ca­tions and expe­rience by chur­ning out the the exact same poppy­cock, and reward their stu­pi­dity with gifts.

The cen­tral villian: Big Pharma, follo­wed by the doc­tors who bought the lie

Exactly a year ago this month, Science Daily came out with an article, citing two York Uni­ver­sity researchers who esti­ma­ted that the U.S. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry spends almost twice as much on pro­mo­tion as it does on research and deve­lop­ment, con­trary to the industry’s claim. In other words, the researchers esti­ma­ted that $57.5 billion in US dollars was spent on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­mo­tion in 2004 – the year they were stud­ying. Yes, I said BILLION.

Brea­king that down, Big Pharma spent appro­xi­ma­tely $61,000 per phy­si­cian in pro­mo­tion of their pro­ducts.  And they conc­lu­ded that both figu­res were UNDE­Res­ti­ma­tes.  In other words, they conc­lu­ded that the US phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry is marketing-driven rather than “life-saving”.

And adding fuel to the fire: most doc­tors believe every thrust of that mar­ke­ting. I recently par­ti­ci­pa­ted in com­ments with other won­der­ful patients in res­ponse to a DO/Endocrinologist, Dr. Tho­mas Repas, who has clearly bought the Big Pharma mar­ke­ting when it comes to levothy­ro­xine. You can read his posts and our com­ments here, here, and here.   Dr. Repas is exactly the kind of doc­tor who has  sta­rred in our horror movie, and the kind of doc­tor that patients have lamen­ted about for years.  Read the  Give Me a Break list of com­ments made by doc­tors, as well as further com­ments on the January 1^st blog.

But Dr. Repas is in good com­pany. Doc­tors have belie­ved the Big Pharma lie about T4-only medi­ca­tions, and against desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, etc. for 50 years.  In the patient-to-patient  Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, you can read about the first table­ting of Synth­roid in 1955 and the stra­te­gic and suc­cess­ful pro­mo­tion of T4-only, in spite of the fact that T4 was known to be uns­ta­ble for decades.

And today, more than 50 years later, very few of us have been untouched by the Big Pharma push for levothy­ro­xine T4-only treat­ment.  My own mother was suc­ke­red, and I was suc­ke­red.  And until patients star­ted to make a huge push for desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment the last few years, nearly every sin­gle doc­tor around the world had been suckered.

We still have a way to go. But we’ll get there, bit by bit.

Today, I came across a short sum­mary on recent study fin­dings pre­sen­ted at the 79^th Annual Mee­ting of the Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion in Novem­ber, 2008.

It sta­tes that in a study with thy­roid patients 65 and older, there was no impro­ve­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion when a patient is opti­mally trea­ted on thy­ro­xine, aka Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, et al.

Gee golly.  What brea­king and cutting-edge news!

NOT.

Too bad it takes the results of a research study to reveal what has been bla­tantly obvious in patients of all ages for 50 years: thy­ro­xine ove­rall does not work and lea­ves patients with a variety of NON-improvements, as well as wor­se­ning symp­toms of lin­ge­ring hypothy­roi­dism as they age.  Duhhhh.

My mouth just fell open last night.

Appa­rently, in Decem­ber of 2002, an Aus­tra­lian doc­tor named JP Walsh (Depart­ment of Endoc­ri­no­logy and Dia­be­tes of Sir Char­les Gaird­ner Hos­pi­tal, Ned­lands, Wes­tern Aus­tra­lia), and an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist to boot, wrote an most inte­res­ting article in the jour­nal Current Opi­nion in Phar­ma­co­logy.

This inc­re­dibly stun­ning article was tit­led Dis­sa­tis­fac­tion with thy­ro­xine the­rapy — could the patients be right?

The abs­tract states:

In some patients with hypothy­roi­dism, symp­toms of ill health per­sist des­pite thy­ro­xine treat­ment. It is unc­lear whether this ari­ses from comor­bi­dity or because stan­dard thy­ro­xine repla­ce­ment is in some way ina­de­quate for some indi­vi­duals. Some patients feel bet­ter if they take a slightly exces­sive dose of thy­ro­xine, but this carries a poten­tial risk of adverse car­diac and ske­le­tal effects. There are con­flic­ting data on whether com­bi­ned thyroxine/triiodothyronine treat­ment is pre­fe­ra­ble to thy­ro­xine alone in dis­sa­tis­fied patients

I am una­ble to read the full article, as it is requi­red that you pay a sum I don’t have. But you defi­ni­tely get the impres­sion that this doc­tor was on the cusp of figu­ring out what we have known solidly all along.  Because Dr. Walsh, the patients WERE right, and still are.  Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, levothy­ro­xine and all other T4-only medi­ca­tions suck, and have suc­ked for a long, long time.  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/t4-only-meds-dont-work and  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/long-and-pathetic

I so hope to be able to con­tact Dr. Walsh.  Do you know him?  Because he and I need to have a long talk.

Janie

p.s. Thank you Gerry.

How many doc­tors can I stran­gle with my bare hands?? Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Today, I am once again appa­lled and sad­de­ned by the end­less body of thy­roid patients who con­ti­nue to plum­met into the abyss of adre­nal fati­gue, day after day after day. And it just never needs to hap­pen if doc­tors would simply pay atten­tion and be infor­med.

Belinda is the per­fect exam­ple. She didn’t par­ti­ci­pate in thy­roid patient groups any­more, living her life hap­pily, because she thought her post-RAI thy­roid treat­ment was under con­trol, being on 2 grains of Armour for a year. But sud­denly, she felt the need to return to her groups and seek feed­back. Because she has become more irri­ta­ble and moody, has a hard time falling asleep, and feels fre­quently anxie­tal. Labs are redone, and she finds her­self with a slightly over-range free T3 and a very sup­pres­sed TSH. Her doc­tor deci­des to lower her thy­roid meds, which in turn impro­ves her insom­nia and anxiety, but weight starts piling on. She’s con­fu­sed and won­ders how she can find her balance bet­ween being on too little with unwel­come weight gain and being on too much with uncom­for­ta­ble anxiety and insomnia.

What Belinda didn’t get, and what her doc­tor didn’t get, is that Belinda had now joi­ned the dubious cama­ra­de­rie of those with adre­nal fati­gue, a need­less con­di­tion of over-stressed and under-functioning adre­nals. As a result, T3 in Armour starts to pool in the blood, cau­sing anxiety, insom­nia, and all sorts of low cor­ti­sol symp­toms. Thy­roid patients just like Belinda have to first dis­co­ver what is going on, then face the com­pli­ca­ted balan­cing act of trea­ting adre­nal fati­gue AND hypothy­roi­dism. And it’s a path that never nee­ded to happen.

WHAT IS POTENTIALLY TAKING YOU DOWN THE DIRTY-YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO ADRENAL FATIGUE??

1) Being undiag­no­sed, or being dosed by, the faulty TSH lab test and its dubious “nor­mal” range, which will leave you with lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms. (Belinda’s 2 grains tells me she was being dosed by the TSH)
2) Being trea­ted by T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, et al, which end up tea­sing your adre­nals to work har­der to take up the slack of an ina­de­quate treat­ment.
3) Lowe­ring your expec­ta­tions of what “nor­mal” is. No, it’s not nor­mal to have less sta­mina than others, to be on an anti-depressant to ban­daid your hypo depres­sion, to feel col­der than others, to require fre­quent naps, to feel the need to avoid peo­ple, to be bothe­red by lights or noi­ses, to be told by those you love that you are too defen­sive or over-reactive…and so on.

I hope anyone rea­ding this comes to an unders­tan­ding that you can­NOT enter your doctor’s office as if you are ente­ring the throne of a god. Your doc­tor, no mat­ter how edu­ca­ted or dedi­ca­ted, may not have a strong unders­tan­ding of the role of adre­nal func­tion in rela­tionship to bad treat­ment via T4-only meds or the TSH lab range. You may have to bring this know­ledge to your doc­tor, or find another one who is either lear­ned, or open-minded. Because your chan­ces of having adre­nal fati­gue are huge if you are on T4, if the TSH is worship­ped by your doc­tor whether on T4 or desic­ca­ted thy­roid, or if you keep wal­king into the doctor’s office and hang your own know­ledge on the hook outside his or her door.

(See Deborah’s story about cea­sing to smoke with adre­nal fatigue)