endocrinologist tags

And right on the heels of my post below, I want to inform everyone of a REAL LIFE HORROR STORY that is happening to Sheila Turner of the UK right now. Sheila is a thyroid patient advocate who created the UK Thyroid Patient Advocacy website here.

Sheila will tell anyone who asks that she was very ill while taking levothyroxine (125 mcgs) only therapy, being wracked with back pain so severe she was unable to get out of her armchair, bed or car after sitting/laying down for a while.  She also suffered from debilitating ‘brain fog’ and short term memory, along with the usual lingering hypothyroid symptoms while on thyroxine.

Sheila states: I couldn’t tolerate levothyroxine alone because it was found I was not converting this mainly inactive hormone to the active hormone T3.  As my muscles and tissues were not getting the T3 required, my muscles in my back were going into spasm, causing the severe pain.

She then saw a private hormone specialist who started her on natural thyroid extract (Armour Thyroid, USP) and she regained her full health! It was so profound that she started the TPA-UK in 2004 to campaign for a better diagnostic and treatment protocol within the National Health System (NHS). (UK has socialized medicine.)

Fast foward to 2009.  As I wrote about below in my Feb. 14th blog post,  the UK Royal College of Physicians along with several supporting organizations recently brought out their pathetic and narrrow-minded new guidelines on the diagnosing and treatment of primary hypothyroidism.  And lo and behold, Sheila, along with about 15 other patients on Armour via the same medical consultant,  have had their Armour removed.

Says Sheila:  He and every NHS endocrinologist has been sent a letter from the President of the Royal College of Physicians, telling them they should use thyroxine ONLY as a treatment for primary hypothyroidism and that they should not recommend or prescribe Armour Thyroid and that only accredited endocrinologists should ever recommend T3 as this was rarely indicated.

Sheila has been forced to return to the synthetic treatment of levothyroxine (100 mcgs) and to it has been added 20 mcg liothyronine (T3) split twice a day. But there’s no guarantee she will be able to stay on the T3. Additionally, don’t be fooled into thinking that a combo of synthetic T4 and synthetic T3 is as good as Armour. Patients all around the world who have tried it, then switched to Armour, report far better results with the latter.

Says Sheila in a completely shocked state:  I cannot believe this is happening – I tried to question him as to the reason all the NHS endocrinologists didn’t demand the BTA produce MEDICAL EVIDENCE to show that hypothyroid sufferers ONLY ever needed T4 – he said he knew they should have produced evidence, but it seems because it has come from the RCP, his and everybody else’s’ hands were tied – they have to be seen to be doing what they are told. I got the distinct impression that if anybody rocked the boat, they would be next doctor arraigned before the GMC.

Making this real life horror story even more shocking, her medical consultant explained that the only way to find the truth as to whether Armour was a better medication or not was through clinical trials using Armour versus levothyroxine.  (i.e. patient experience all over the world revealing it works isn’t enough evidence. Give me a break). But when she pressed him into starting this, he said they would need the backing of their thyroid association – yes, the British Thyroid Association (BTA), the very group that has said that a TSH of 10 is borderline hypo. (See my Nov. 7th post)

Sheila continues: I told him they would never agree to this, and he agreed also. I told him that we did NOT NEED the British Thyroid Association to get ethical approval – and surely he could get a group of like-minded practitioners around him and do this themselves – but it would cost a great deal of money – and, again, if you are a member of BTA (and I believe most endocrinologists are) then they daren’t do a thing without their approval.

At the moment, Sheila will tell you with sadness and shock that it all seems rather surreal at the moment. She is scared for every sufferer of this disease to be forced into taking only one thyroid hormone – a synthetic storage hormone. She is  scared for herself, too.

Sheila expounds: I just sincerely hope that I can cope with the change-over to synthetics and that Armour has made my body strong enough to do this. I will make absolutely sure that my adrenals can cope with this. I feel SO VERY sorry for all of those sufferers who are being left in the care of a head in the sand endoprat , who will refuse to even give them the correct thyroid hormone their body needs.  Once again – THE NHS IS KILLING US!

This is profoundly sickening and shocking.

If you are so moved,  send this blog post (www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/blog) to anyone and everyone.  Send it to your newspaper, your radio,  talk shows, your friends, relatives, anywhere.   This should NOT go unheard of by others. We need to tell the world about this travesty.  Speak your mind about this by adding a comment.

Update: you can read Sheila’s and UK-TPA’s response here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/uk-tpas-response-to-the-rcp/

More from Sheila that gives UK patients hope: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/relationship-between-the-RCP-and-MHRA/

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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 1st 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.

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 10th 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.

Oh jolly.

Diane, a thyroid and adrenal patient, informed me of a recent visit to a local Endocrinologist.  The doc stated that she was on a committee that is working with the FDA to do away with saliva testing, strongly proposing that it’s not accurate testing and is “harming” people.

Well, let’s see. For a couple of years now, thyroid patients who strongly suspect they have adrenal fatigue by the reactions they have to desiccated thyroid have been using saliva testing…and lo and behold,  the results they receive nearly completely conform with how they feel! i.e. saliva testing, which tests one’s cortisol levels at four key times during a 24 hour period,  has worked beautifully in helping thyroid patients with adrenal fatigue identify their problem, in helping these patients doctors have a better understanding of their problem, and knowing better what might be their best treatment, which can range from using licorice root, to over-the-counter adrenal support, to hydrocortisone (HC).

Harmful?? Give me a break.

Could it be that medical school trained doctors just hate and despise any method which a patient might benefit from WITHOUT going to the doctor and paying big bucks??  hmmmm.  And once again, could it be that a method NOT taught in medical school just MIGHT be a good one (just as desiccated thyroid like Armour, Naturethroid, etc. is far, far better than Synthroid or Levoxyl, which ARE taught in medical school)?

The FDA approved saliva testing for AIDS in 2005. They approved saliva testing for ovulation in 2003. They approved saliva testing to detect if a woman is going into premature labor in 1998. And there’s many more they have approved.  So…perhaps this is all a gasp of a committee who hates to see patients have some control over their health (terrible, awful thing, isn’t it?) or the cry of a committee that only reveals its ignorance.

p.s. Dr. Best of San Antonio recently posted the following excellent article on saliva testing: http://besthealthandwellnessinfo.com/hormone-testing-i-spit-on-your-blood-test/

HO! HO! HO! Laughing Grape Publishing will send the STTM book for you to a loved one or friend for the holidays!

Look at my blog post below and you’ll see the latest duhhh entry–i.e Endocrinologists finally reported that T3 was an effective treatment in place of T4. Finally!! Of course, patients know that desiccated thyroid is an even BETTER treatment, and that has been underscored by those that tried T3 with their T4 (without having a reverse T3 issue), then switched to desiccated thyroid like Armour, and noted they felt much better. But it’s still an announcement in the right direction.

But we now have another duhhh entry: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism has reported that long-term levothyroxine replacement therapy in young adults is associated with cardiovascular abnormalities. Another finally. We as patients have already known that for years! We’ve experienced what Synthroid, Levoxyl and all other T4-only medications have done to our hearts! I watched my own mother have to have an angioplasty because of her long-term use of Synthroid…and we have NO heart disease or problems like this in our family history!

So yes, you will see the announcement that a new page is going to be created here on STTM which will highlight journal entries and medical announcements which only support what patients have been experiencing and trying to tell their doctors for a longgggg time. lol. And your contributions to this new page will be welcomed.

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The new page is here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/medical-research Check this page often, either to send me new research which supports what we already know, or to find meat to give your rigid doctor.

***You can order the STTM book here, which is a complete patient-to-patient book on far better thyroid treatment. It’s YOUR book!