ferritin tags

The news this mor­ning about Oprah made me pause.

Yes, it’s being announ­ced today that there will be no more Oprah Win­frey Show on CBS after Fall of next year.  She’s saying goodbye. And the rumor is that she will move her talk show to The Oprah Win­frey Net­work, which repla­ces the Dis­co­very Health Chan­nel. We’ll see when she for­mally announ­ces it today on her show.

But the change sure does shine a bright spot­light on a colos­sal and com­plete fai­lure by Oprah and The Oprah Win­frey Show for hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients. Though she had her own bout with thy­roid disease (and may still be dea­ling with it when you con­si­der her weight issues), we all win­ced a year ago when she sta­ted that a month long Hawaiian vaca­tion and eating fresh foods with soy milk (a goi­tro­gen) were a great way to treat her thy­roid con­di­tion. Yikes.   We equally squir­med in our seats when Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup made the com­ment that our thy­roid pro­blems were due to an “energy bloc­kage in the throat region, the result of a life­time of ’swa­llo­wing’ words one is aching to say.” Dou­ble yikes.

And since then, we have watched nothing, zilch, zero from Oprah and The Opray Win­frey Show about a horren­dous 55-year medi­cal scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment that has nega­ti­vely affec­ted the lives of hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients world­wide. T4-only meds like Synth­roid, the dar­ling medi­ca­tion of the medi­cal com­mu­nity for hypothy­roi­dism treat­ment, has left hun­dreds of millions sick.  The TSH lab test has equally sent us to hell.  Because we have been for­ced to live with con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, we’ve endu­red much more tes­ting and have been put on many other medi­ca­tions to ban­daid our con­ti­nuing symp­toms. And a majo­rity of us have had to deal with the addi­tio­nal bur­den of adre­nal fati­gue thanks to all the above.

It’s been hell, Oprah. But you never lis­te­ned.  So for me per­so­nally, I could care less what you do now. You’ve let millions of us down.

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On a far bet­ter note:  Last night’s Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe was exce­llent. From thyroid/adrenal patient Vale­rie Tay­lor, who is abso­lu­tely one of the most know­led­gea­ble patients in the world about adre­nals and RT3, we gai­ned good infor­ma­tion how it rai­ses its ugly head when you have high or low cor­ti­sol, low B12, low ferri­tin and other untrea­ted issues, and how to treat it. You can go back to Talkshoe and lis­ten to the broad­cast, which was Epi­sode 7.  See my blog post right below this. As far as future Talkshoe Com­mu­nity Calls: they will always be announ­ced here first.

Below that, you’ll read how cellu­lose as a filler just may be a huge pro­blem in natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds. But we are also dis­co­ve­ring that a good desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, even with its cellu­lose, can seem even worse if we have undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted issues like low B12, low Vit. A, low ferri­tin, low Vit. D and other con­di­tions com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism.  Make sure you have tes­ted for these.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

Yes, we’ve all heard about T4 (the thy­roid sto­rage hor­mone) and T3 (the active thy­roid hor­mone which rids us of hypothy­roid symp­toms). We’ve lear­ned that the body not only con­verts T4 to T3, it also pro­vi­des some of  T3 directly. The lat­ter fact is why patients have found natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, Erfa’s Thy­roid, etc. to be a far bet­ter treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism, besi­des the T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin you’ll also find in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just like your own thy­roid would be making.

But in every indi­vi­dual, a thy­roid also con­verts T4 to the inac­tive RT3 (reverse T3) as a way to clear out excess T4 that the body doesn’t need.  It’s natu­ral and neces­sary. It will espe­cially hap­pen if you go through sur­gery or a diet.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, many thy­roid patients make far too much RT3, and patients have been making cut­ting edge dis­co­ve­ries about this fact and how to treat it with their doc­tors.  High levels of RT3 can be found if you have high cor­ti­sol, low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, low B12 and other undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted underl­ying issues that can go hand-in-hand with being hypothyroid.

Why is a high level of RT3 is pro­blem? That excess RT3 is making itself lazily com­for­ta­ble on your cell recep­tors, pre­ven­ting T3 from gai­ning access to your body.  It beco­mes like a clog­ged up drain to your body. So you stay hypo and symp­to­ma­tic, in spite of see­mingly nor­mal labwork.

This coming THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19^th (tomo­rrow as I write this) on the TALKSHOE THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL, we’re going to talk about the Reverse T3 pro­blem with thy­roid patient advo­cate Vale­rie Tay­lor. She not only owns the NTH Adre­nals group (and is con­si­de­red the most know­led­gea­ble patient on adre­nal fati­gue in the world), she also crea­ted the RT3/T3  group on Yahoo, which you will find on the Talk To Others page.

We’ll talk about excess RT3, symp­toms that can go along with it, how to do lab­work to deter­mine if you have this pro­blem, how to treat it with T3-only, and more. There’s a Chat Box you can par­ti­ci­pate in while the show is going on. Audio will come directly out of your com­pu­ter, and you can call in and ask Vale­rie or Janie a ques­tion. Times are 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eastern.

Want to read more? Thy­roid patient Nick Foot, who also mode­ra­tes the RT3/T3 group, has crea­ted an exce­llent Ques­tion and Ans­wer RT3 web­site. This will make you even more infor­med before this Talkshoe event. Note that the web­site is still work-in-progress, so expect to see more as he works on it.

For those with the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, there is also more good detail in Chap­ter 12 called T3 is the Star of the Show, page 155. This is all good infor­ma­tion to take into your doctor’s office.

Update: cellu­lose in our desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds may be much more of a pro­blem than we ever ima­gi­ned. See my blog post below.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

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.