ferritin tags

Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use Noti­fi­xious to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )

Today I baked a cho­co­late cake for my son’s birth­day. It was exce­llent. Why? Because it was the result of seve­ral impor­tant ingre­dients. Lea­ving any of them out would have resul­ted in a cake less than great. 

And your health and feel-goods as a thyroid/adrenal patient, inc­lu­ding your abi­lity to suc­cess­fully get off HC,  is like my son’s cake: a com­bi­na­tion of ingre­dients that you have to get right. Below are ten “ingre­dients” to inves­ti­gate and find out which may not be right in you for good health and feel-goods.

1) The right amount of cor­ti­sol: Too little cor­ti­sol or too much cor­ti­sol has its con­se­quen­ces. Too little results in thy­roid hor­mone still poo­ling, con­ti­nued hypo symp­toms, plus hyper in some. Too much can mean easy brui­sing, rising blood pres­sure, fluid reten­tion, a round face, etc.  And both can inc­rease anxiety, fee­ling poorly, etc.  Watch for symp­toms and com­pare your daily ave­ra­ged tem­pe­ra­tu­res. Also, have you chec­ked your aldos­te­rone?

2) The right amount of desic­ca­ted thy­roid: I have a friend who was stuck on 3 grains Armour out of habit. But she con­ti­nued to have hypothy­roid symp­toms out of habit. I finally con­vin­ced her to talk to her doc­tor. Labs sho­wed her free T3 was just a few points over mid-range, and having a free T3 towards the top seems to work bet­ter for most. So she did raise, and it finally did the trick.

3) Opti­mal B12 levels: Since hypothy­roid patients can have digestive/absorption issues, B12 levels can be lower than opti­mal. Symp­toms inc­lude fati­gue, weak­ness, fee­ling faint, breath­less, brui­sing, heart palps or others. Don’t take a chance. Get a B12 test. You want the result to be at the top of the range.

4) Plenty of Ferri­tin (sto­rage iron): Low ferri­tin means you have no iron in sto­rage to draw upon. And it also means you are pro­bably ane­mic.  Addi­tio­nally, low ferri­tin adver­sely affects the con­ver­sion of T4 to T3. Symp­toms inc­lude fati­gue, depres­sion, weak­ness, achi­ness, breath­less­ness or others.  Have a ferri­tin test.  Opti­mal is 70 – 90.

5) Good diges­tion: Hypothy­roid patients can have low hydroch­lo­ric (HCL) sto­mach acid levels. That not only con­tri­bu­tes to acid reflux because of the over­growth of bad bac­te­ria, it means you don’t absorb nutrients well (inc­lu­ding low B12 men­tio­ned above). As a result, it’s cru­cial to give that acid back to your­self.  A tables­poon of Apple Cider Vine­gar mixed in water and taken twice day helps many. Or try taking Betaine, which is HCL in pill form, or any other qua­lity HCL or diges­tive product.

6) Recog­ni­tion and treat­ment of Glu­ten into­le­rance: Some thy­roid patients lack a par­ti­cu­lar diges­tive enzyme, intes­ti­nal glu­ta­mi­nase, that helps digest glu­ten in various food pro­ducts. As a result, they don’t absorb nutrients well. Symp­toms inc­lude bloa­ting & gas, aches, stiff­ness, fati­gue, bur­ning or numb­ness in arms or legs, rashs or hives, wor­se­ned aller­gies & others. Your chance of have a glu­ten pro­blem is higher if you have Hashi­mo­tos disease. If you sus­pect a pos­si­ble pro­blem, eli­mi­nate all glu­ten from your diet. Also con­si­der having your doc­tor run a Celiac anti­bo­dies blood test.

7) Con­tro­lled EBV: At least 90% of adults have the Eps­tein Barr Virus (EBV) sit­ting dor­mant in their bodies. EBV is what cau­ses mono­nuc­leo­sis, but you don’t have to have had mono to carry the virus.  Because hypothy­roi­dism lowers your immune sys­tem, it’s not uncom­mon for thy­roid patients to have acti­va­ted EBV. I did, and my symp­toms inc­lu­ded extreme easy fati­gue, rin­ging in my ears, achi­ness and some swe­lling of my lymph glands. Some may have a sore throat return and other symp­toms.  Ask your doc­tor to test EBV. You’ll then need to ask about treat­ment options, which inc­lude bee­fing up your immune system.

8 ) Sex hor­mone balance: When your thy­roid or adre­nals get out of balance, your sex hor­mo­nes can follow suit, from estro­gen domi­nance to low tes­tos­te­rone.  When estro­gen domi­nance occurs, you can feel depres­sion, fati­gue, and sore breasts.  Low tes­tos­te­rone can equal lower energy and mood. Ask your doc­tor to test all your sex hormones.

9) Taking plenty of sup­ple­ments: There are a variety of good sup­ple­ments ever­yone with thy­roid or adre­nal issues should take for good health. They inc­lude high potency B-vitamins, Vit. C (1000 – 3000 mg. or to tole­rance), Sele­nium (around 200 mcg), mine­rals inc­lu­ding mag­ne­sium, pro­bio­tics, Vita­min D (1000 iu), iodine, and others.  In addi­tion to these, I also take CoQ10 (for heart and blood pres­sure health), and my favo­rite: a green pow­der which I stir in my orange juice.

10) Exer­cise: If you are a couch potato, you’re going to feel like one. Ins­tead, do what it takes to get moving, which pro­mo­tes all sorts of good health. If you have adre­nal fati­gue, keep it very light and easy.  If you just have hypothy­roi­dism, get out and walk.

P.S. My cho­co­late cake: I think cake mixes are just as good as home­made. I use Devils Food Cake. But the icing is ALWAYS home­made: cream one stick but­ter, add about 4 cups pow­de­red sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa, then cream or half-n-half.  Shake some sea salt in. Add two tsp. vani­lla.  Beat, beat.  Taste. Modify as nee­ded. YUM.

(Want to receive noti­fi­ca­tion of each blog post that comes up here? Just go to the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the left of this page below the links and sign in with Notifixious).

Well, here we go again. 

As this first week of Oprah’s “Best Life Week” series ends, we all know that Oprah has announ­ced she is going on a weight loss and exer­cise plan once again (hams­ter wheel tur­ning, tur­ning…).   Oh…and did I men­tion that she said her hypothy­roid was cured?

(Wait. Do I hear a collec­tive and world­wide SIGHHHHHHH among thy­roid patients??)

Thy­roid patient Mary Sho­mon now sha­res my own long-held con­cerns in an exce­llent sum­mary per­tai­ning to Oprah’s thy­roid and weight saga.  Oprah has been remar­kably unin­for­ma­tive about her diag­no­sis and details, and leads those unin­for­med to believe they can stop taking their medi­ca­tion and be cured.  And Oprah appears to have igno­red a slew of emails over the years from all camps of thy­roid advocacy!

Just as bad is a visit in the pages of O Maga­zine. On page 151 of the January issue, and right next to the article about Oprah’s weight gain, is a side article tit­led The Truth About the Thy­roid.  And the lon­gest para­graph is about the use of the TSH lab test and its so-called nor­mal range – one of the worst tests ever crea­ted to diag­nose and treat hypothy­roi­dism. Addi­tio­nally, the article ends with the men­tion of a presc­rip­tion of synthe­tic thy­ro­xine–a medi­ca­tion which lea­ves nearly ever­yone with linge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms.

But the disap­point­ment in Oprah has to go farther than a gene­ral call to be edu­ca­ted about thy­roid disease. There is a need to be spe­ci­fi­cally edu­ca­ted about the scan­dal of thy­ro­xine treat­ment, about the fallacy of the TSH lab test which lea­ves patients undiag­no­sed for years or under­trea­ted when on meds, about the ram­pant pro­blem with adre­nal fati­gue in thy­roid patients on thy­ro­xine or those left undiag­no­sed (and where Oprah may be hea­ded), and about a far bet­ter treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, and opti­mi­zing other areas, inc­lu­ding ferri­tin, B12, and our ove­rall health.

Let’s not give up. 

Suc­cess is like lot­tery tic­kets: you have to make seve­ral attempts before that magic one makes it. Even­tually, your email can be the one that finally stops her hams­ter wheel of “eat less, be hungry, exer­cise more, it’s not my thy­roid” men­ta­lity.  Tell Oprah about your suc­cess, others suc­cess, the patient-to-patient site www.stopthethyroidmadness, and more.  And don’t hesi­tate to share your email below.

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 10^th 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.

I recei­ved a reply to a post below that I was una­ble to approve because it men­tio­ned someone by name. And the reply was not par­ti­cu­larly friendly, and defi­ni­tely not accu­rate. lol. But the reply brought up some good issues, which I have no pro­blem addres­sing.

Namely, can I agree that there are some peo­ple who do well on T4-only treat­ment such as Synth­roid or Levoxyl?? I can…sorta. I have a friend whose hus­band is one of those see­mingly lucky indi­vi­duals on T4, with no thy­roid, who leads a fairly active and happy life. Con­si­de­ring how lousy I did, he ama­zes me. But I did notice something else about him: he has high and rising cho­les­te­rol and is on sta­tins. That’s a clas­sic symp­tom of a poor treat­ment and con­ti­nuing hypothy­roid, even if he does have much bet­ter energy that I ever did. 

And by obser­ving him, and kno­wing a few others who sub­jec­ti­vely feel they do well on T4, I came to the follo­wing conc­lu­sion: though some may do bet­ter than others on T4, I have yet to find anyone on T4 who doesn’t have some kind of side-effect of a poor treat­ment, whether they are trea­ting it with sta­tins, trea­ting it with anti­de­pres­sants, or not trea­ting it at all & den­ying it. Sure, some may do bet­ter than others, but the proof is in the pud­ding if you look deep enough. And, at the very least, I’m just plain sus­pi­cious that ANYONE on T4, even doing sub­jec­ti­vely well, is going to have symp­toms of a poor treat­ment creep up on them as they age. The body was not desig­ned to live on con­ver­sion alone.

Can I agree that some peo­ple just can­NOT tole­rate desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour and need to be on T4? Ini­tially, that may be. The gal that wrote me sta­ted she felt a lot bet­ter on T4, and that no mat­ter what she did, she couldn’t tole­rate Armour. I believe her. If Armour was that mise­ra­ble, she should be on T4 for the time being, or even bet­ter, a synthe­tic T4/T3 com­bi­na­tion. But I also believe that even if she feels she did everything to a “t” and still couldn’t tole­rate it, there was more for her to learn that she didn’t get the first time around when it came to her adre­nal fati­gue treat­ment. I see it too many times. And perhaps, over time, it will become more clear. 

Do some pro­po­nents of desic­ca­ted thy­roid go over­board in their fer­vor? I don’t doubt it one bit. We’re human. And we hope you are for­gi­ving. But once you get past howe­ver you view are com­mu­ni­ca­tion short­co­ming, do know that our fer­vor is based on the fact that a huge volume of indi­vi­duals are having lives chan­ged due to desic­ca­ted thy­roid (and/or treat­ment of low ferri­tin, and/or treat­ment of adre­nal fati­gue). And it’s too wides­pread and glo­bal not to have fer­vor, besi­des com­mon sense that a treat­ment that gives us back what our own thy­roids would be giving us is just plain remarkable. 

So, do know that if you are on T4, and feel well, I’m behind you. It’s your life, not mine, and I believe you. But neither can I stop my belief and too many obser­va­tions that if you are truly hypothy­roid and need treat­ment, desic­ca­ted thy­roid is a supe­rior choice, now or later, whether you are lucky enough to have esca­ped adre­nal fati­gue, or whether you have a cha­llen­ging case of adre­nal fati­gue that can be ade­qua­tely treated! 

Six years ago, when I got invol­ved in thy­roid patient advo­cacy by star­ting the Natu­ral Thy­roid Hor­mone Users group on Yahoo, I did it because I was ama­zed and shoc­ked what switching to desic­ca­ted natu­ral thy­roid did for me! There I was, on the brink of appl­ying for Social Secu­rity Disa­bi­lity after YEARS of misery & lack of ans­wers, and simply chan­ging to a dif­fe­rent thy­roid treat­ment com­ple­tely tur­ned my life around. I owe some of that change on what I found out on Mary Shomon’s Thy­roid group in early 2002.

And it daw­ned on me: if desic­ca­ted thy­roid with its T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin did this for ME, what could it do for others?!I  A group was NEEDED with a direct focus on desic­ca­ted natu­ral thyroid.

And over time, as NTH grew and other fine inter­net patient groups evol­ved and grew, other patients were just as ama­zed at what it was doing for them, as well.  This wasn’t coming across at ALL as a treat­ment only for “some”. It was coming across as a treat­ment that might just bene­fit quite a large body on indi­vi­duals! We also lear­ned by the seat of our collec­tive pants about low ferri­tin, low cor­ti­sol, low B-12, Celiac and glu­ten into­le­rance – you name it.

From all the above came the STTM move­ment: a patient-to-patient com­pi­la­tion of all we have lear­ned – and then the book with even more infor­ma­tion.  The STTM move­ment was crea­ted because “inter­net groups” were NOT enough to get the word out about the effi­cacy of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, nor were they enough to change the huge and rigid medi­cal esta­blish­ment. Change had to come from the bot­tom up – in other words, edu­cate patients, who in turn can take the new infor­ma­tion into their doctor’s offices.

But sadly, with the suc­cess of patient infor­ma­tion about the ama­zing results of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment has come vei­led cri­ti­cism and over­blown mis­con­cep­tions within our own ranks. And it’s a sad thing to behold!

Namely, we can now read a Sep­tem­ber 10^th inter­net blog “con­ver­sa­tion” by so-called thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes who imply that it is “dogma and narrow-minded” if anyone dares state there just might be a thy­roid treat­ment which JUST MIGHT BE bet­ter for most all thy­roid patients. IMAGINE the auda­city!! I guess it was just as “dog­ma­tic and narrow-minded” when it was first sug­ges­ted there were bet­ter ways to deal with cer­tain health con­di­tions than blood­let­ting. I can hear it now: “To deny blood­let­ting is just boxing peo­ple in!” “Offe­ring blood­let­ting as a choice is hel­ping peo­ple expand.”

And con­trary to the self-righteous tone, con­des­cen­ding mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions, and vei­led cri­ti­cisms towards cer­tain patient groups, this patient move­ment is not a one size fits all move­ment.  Ins­tead, it’s a “one size JUST MIGHT BE a bet­ter alter­na­tive” than the other avai­la­ble alter­na­ti­ves, and we strongly encou­rage that each patient con­si­der fin­ding a doc­tor to help them give it a try.  And, if something about desic­ca­ted thy­roid isn’t wor­king, we strongly encou­rage patients to look at par­ti­cu­lar rea­sons that can under­lie problems.

If you think T4 is wor­king for you, go for it! The same goes for the use of T3 only, or synthe­tic T4/T3, or cer­tain ratios of T4 and T3.  Choice is a bles­sing we can all res­pect.  Just keep an eye out for depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, less sta­mina than others, adre­nal issues and/or a myriad of other con­ti­nuing hypo symp­toms that just might creep up on you as you age on these treat­ments.  Or, con­si­der that we’ve seen many peo­ple on these treat­ments, who, when they switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, etc, they repor­ted even bet­ter results. (The use of T3-only for high RT3 is a dif­fe­rent issue and is where T3-only may be abso­lu­tely nee­ded and good. We also res­pect those who have ethi­cal issues with ani­mal products.)

Finally, I encou­rage others who con­si­der them­sel­ves thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes to TAKE A BIG BREATH and TAKE THE TIME to be in open-minded dia­lo­gue with all patients, inc­lu­ding me and all of us over here, ins­tead of openly igno­ring our exis­tence or deci­ding what we pro­mote is simply narrow-minded dogma.  You might find that direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion and kind­ness is a far bet­ter method to help thy­roid patients ins­tead of the underhan­ded vei­led bashings and mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions within this recent blog con­ver­sa­tion.