endocrinologist tags

Ans­wer: Most are duds.

On Mon­day, I had an enjo­ya­ble expe­rience with an excep­tion to the lemon cliche:  I was a guest on Dr. Ste­ven F. Hotze’s radio pro­gram Health and Well­ness Solu­tions, broad­cast live from Hous­ton, Texas.  You can lis­ten to a recor­ding of our con­ver­sa­tion here on the lower right under the hea­ding Dr. Hotze Radio in orange.

The com­mer­cials were like flies, zeroing in often and irri­ta­tingly. But we mana­ged to briefly men­tion both Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness as well as the Hotze Health & Well­ness Cen­ter.

And two things struck me about our friendly chat: first, Hotze men­tio­ned that he star­ted presc­ri­bing natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the 1990’s, far ahead of most doc­tors even today!  If only we knew.  And second, he made a quick men­tion of how disap­poin­ting most doc­tors are for patients, refe­rring to the STTM page called Give Me A Break. If you haven’t seen it, or it’s been awhile, you will find it both hila­rious and com­ple­tely sad.

And it all made me pon­der how in 2010, eight years after I per­so­nally found the life chan­ging desic­ca­ted thy­roid,  there are still so many family prac­ti­tio­ners and Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists kee­ping thy­roid patients sick all over the world, even if they mean well, even if they are good peo­ple, even if they do other diag­no­ses and treat­ments correctly.

So on one hand, it’s rea­lity that pro­gress is slow. But on the other hand, the thy­roid treat­ment wall of igno­rance is slowly tum­bling down about bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment thanks to patients who read about it and carry that infor­ma­tion into their doc­tors offices.

So perhaps over time, the lemons who prac­tice bad thy­roid treat­ment will become less and less pro­mi­nent in the name of enligh­ten­ment, wis­dom and LISTENING to patients.

P.S. And by way, if you are lucky enough to have found one of those docs who presc­ribe desic­ca­ted thy­roid, remem­ber that NO doc­tor is all-knowing. YOU live in your own body, and can have your OWN wis­dom and know­ledge. So expect the rela­tionship be a part­nership. And if you can’t get that part­nership, find a bet­ter doc­tor.

Want to read more about natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Go here.   To read my own story, go here.

It appears that the report seve­ral days ago by the Cana­dian Broad­cas­ting Cor­po­ra­tion about natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid was a disap­point­ment to one who was inter­vie­wed. See the blog post below.

So I am glad to announce that Ste­ven F. Hotze, M.D. and I will be doing a good pro­gram that does NOT need a totally misin­for­med Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist for the sake of “balance”!

I will be a guest on “Health & Well­ness Solu­tions” radio pro­gram of Dr. Hotze on April 12^th (NEXT MONDAY) to talk about hypothy­roi­dism. The radio show airs Mon-Fri from 12-1pm CST on 700 AM KSEV-Houston, Texas and on the inter­net through www.DrHotze.com. Our part will start at 10:15 am Paci­fic, 11:15 am Moun­tain, 12:15 pm Cen­tral, and 1:15 pm Eastern.

You can also read his Press Release about this upco­ming show.  Dr. Hotze runs the Hotze Health & Well­ness Cen­ter in Hous­ton, Texas – a prac­tice which belie­ves the pri­mary cri­te­rion for diag­no­sis, and for eva­lua­ting the effects of treat­ment, is how a patient feels. 

So mark your calen­ders, set your cell phone alarms.  IF CANADA BROADCASTING CAN’T GET IT RIGHT, JANIE BOWTHORPE WILL!!!

If you read my recent blog post about it (click on link below or just scroll down on the STTM blog), or if you saw NBC’s Today Show, you’ll know that Dr. Kent Hol­torf correctly diag­no­sed a clearly-hypothyroid woman, Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner Eola Force, by not going just by the TSH, and chan­ged her life. He was cri­ti­ci­zed by an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist as having “no real scien­ti­fic basis”  for what he does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.  (chuckle)

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2010/01/28/endocrinologists-tsh-lab-test/

Well, it’s time to hear what Dr. Hol­torf has to say!

Join us as I chat with him about this inci­dent next WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17^th at 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral, and 9 pm Eas­tern, right on your computer’s audio on STTM’s Talkshoe Call web­page (below). Call in to ask ques­tions, too. MARK YOUR CALENDER! SET YOUR CELL PHONE ALARM! This is one intro­duc­tion that I’m going to have fun with, don’t ya think??

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

***Note that we moved it to Wed­nes­day nights. That should help with any drop­ped calls that were hap­pe­ning on busy Thursdays.

By the way,  Dr. Hol­torf recently launched his new web­site, called The Non-Profit Natio­nal Aca­demy of Hypothy­roi­dism in an attempt to reach doc­tors about appro­priate diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, which patients know does NOT inc­lude just the lousy TSH lab test.  Will doc­tors, and espe­cially Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, ever figure out this clear and easy truth?  Don’t we hope so.

Have something to say? Use the Com­ment func­tion at the bot­tom of this blog post. If you are rea­ding this via an email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to take you directly to the actual blog post.

“It is far bet­ter to grasp the Uni­verse as it really is than to per­sist in delu­sion, howe­ver satisf­ying and reas­su­ring.” –Dr. Carl Sagan

You may have seen the seg­ment on NBC’s Today Show this mor­ning, January 29^th, 2010, or you may have heard about it on the inter­net. But in case you didn’t, the Today Show had a rare short piece about hypothy­roi­dism and diag­no­sis which pre­sen­ted a Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner, Eola Force, with clear symp­toms of hypo, inc­lu­ding extreme tired­ness, fee­ling like she’s dying, huge weight gain, depres­sion, and brain fog, to name a few.

Yet, she had a so-called “nor­mal  “TSH” lab test. The expla­na­tion for her symp­toms?? She’s FAT, HORMONAL and FEMALE, of course!

And because she is under the care of a wise and know­led­gea­ble doc­tor named Dr. Kent Hol­torf and his cli­nic, which uses addi­tio­nal tests besi­des the TSH, he diag­no­sed her clearly, put her on thy­roid hor­mo­nes, and chan­ged her life.

And the res­ponse by Dr. Sin­ger, an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist? There is “no real scien­ti­fic basis” for what Hol­torf does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.

Well my dear Dr. Sin­ger sir, if hun­dreds of millions of patients all over the world wai­ted on “science” to prove what they know by deca­des of mise­ra­ble expe­rience because of the TSH, we’d all still be sick as dogs. The mutually accep­ted delu­sion by the Endoc­ri­no­logy field about the TSH lab test has left millions of thy­roid patients undiag­no­sed and under­trea­ted for nearly 40 years of its exis­tence.

Other than to poten­tially diag­nose a pitui­tary pro­blem, no, the TSH lab test is NOT the gold stan­dard for thy­roid scree­ning any­more than rea­ding tea lea­ves tells me what kind of day I’m going to have.

Read more about the TSH lab test here, or find even more detail in Chap­ter 3 in the book called TSH: THYROID STIMULATING HOOEY.

See much bet­ter lab­work than simply the TSH here.  Find what your results mean here. And here’s how to find a much bet­ter doctor.

P.S. Thy­roid patient Lynn Dun­ning emai­led me about tal­king about the cra­zi­ness of current thy­roid treat­ment at her work, and one of her collea­gues put this up on the work web­site:
http://www.spunout.ie/health/Healthy-body/Thyroid-madness Good for Lynn and the Spu­nOut website!

The year of 2009 will long be remem­be­red for two night­ma­res straight out of Twi­light Zone for thy­roid patients: 1) Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted with patients glo­bally repor­ted a return of symp­toms and new frus­tra­ting ones, and 2) shor­ta­ges of all US-made natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid occu­rred, as well as no more gene­rics thanks to the FDA.

Addi­tio­nally, as I write this, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid by RLC Labs are still hard to get – making too slow a return on phar­macy shel­ves which may not improve until 2010. You can read details and a good sum­mary about this on about.com.

But there’s been a sil­ver lining to this situa­tion: Canada’s “Thy­roid” by Erfa.

Many patients made a switch to this desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­duct, using online phar­macy web­si­tes and their presc­rip­tions from their doc­tors. And ove­rall, the expe­rience of patients with Erfa’s Thy­roid has been extre­mely positive.

I had a won­der­ful chat this week with Dr. Henri Knafo, the Direc­tor of Medi­cal Affairs at Erfa Canada Inc.  My first and most impor­tant ques­tion: Is there enough Thy­roid for all your patient cus­to­mers?? And I got an une­qui­vo­cal “Yes” from Dr. Knafo.  He explai­ned there are no con­cerns with run­ning out and they have plenty in stock, now and in the future. He sta­ted that if their stock gets low from sud­den demand, they can easily get more and quickly.

I also asked: Is ship­ping timely? Defi­ni­tely yes, Dr. Knafo sta­ted. But he also qua­li­fied that Erfa is over­loa­ded with orders. And though they are kee­ping up, your presc­rip­tion order can take time to pro­cess. But, he sta­ted “Be Patient. It will arrive!”

What is going on with the FDA and Erfa? He unders­co­red that the FDA is coo­pe­ra­ting com­ple­tely, and they see a good future with the FDA.  They are com­ple­tely tole­rant, said Dr. Knafo, because they seem to unders­tand the shor­ta­ges. Erfa’s Thy­roid is also com­ple­tely appro­ved and regu­la­ted by Health Canada. As far as the future and the FDA, Dr. Knafo strongly feels that once the FDA is reas­su­red about desic­ca­ted thy­roid, things will only get bet­ter for US patients with brands and avai­la­bi­lity. He feels that issues with the FDA are far more posi­tive than many thy­roid patients and lea­ders seem to get or want to see.

Do you see chan­ges towards opi­nion of desic­ca­ted thy­roid?  Defi­ni­tely, yes. Dr. Knafo recently atten­ded a Euro­pean medi­cal con­fe­rence with over 50 spe­cia­lists and he saw many doc­tors not satis­fied with Synth­roid and noti­cing the bet­ter treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. “It’s boo­ming in Europe”, he unders­co­red about Erfa and desic­ca­ted thy­roid  “Even Endo’s are noti­cing”.  He also said that Bel­gium was expe­rien­cing a huge medi­cal trend away from T4 and towards desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Why has the cost of Erfa’s Thy­roid gone up even more than 50%?? His expla­na­tion was three-fold:  it was first a finan­cial deci­sion, since they have never made much of a pro­fit on desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Second, Health Canada requi­res a lot of expen­sive tes­ting from Erfa on pro­ducts. And third, since they buy their pow­de­red desic­ca­ted thy­roid from Europe, an inc­rease in Euros meant they nee­ded to inc­rease the price.

Any final com­ments? Dr. Knafo cla­ri­fied: Erfa has been making Thy­roid for 30 years and not only will that con­ti­nue, they will not change the for­mula. He thinks the sugar in Thy­roid is what makes absorp­tion so good, and that will con­ti­nue as an ingre­dient just as it is.  Nothing will change! To see ingre­dients of Erfa’s Thy­roid and other brands, go here.

You can read more about Erfa from my Sep­tem­ber 2^nd post.   Thank you to Dr. Knafo for being so can­did and informative!

See my post below about my mother, who lived her entire adult life under­trea­ted on T4 with depres­sion and elec­tric shock treat­ment and had no inter­net to com­pare notes. If you have a rela­tive from the past with a simi­lar story, add the story to the Comments.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. A card will be inc­lu­ded, and the book will be in an enve­lope with a red bow!! Save money the more you buy!