hypothyroid tags

As a hypothy­roid patient, think you are fine drin­king that purely fine mine­ral water from a plas­tic bottle? Think that fluo­ride and chlo­rine are the only subs­tan­ces we need to worry about when it comes to our thy­roid health?? Think again.

Thy­roid patient Amy McMu­llen, who has con­tri­bu­ted before on STTM’s blog as a GUEST POSTER (Con­fes­sions of a Under­co­ver Thy­roid Advo­cate) and has a pas­sion about human rights, has writ­ten another impor­tant article below which should be of keen inte­rest to all of you.

BPA — A POWERFUL ENDOCRINE DISRUPTER THAT AFFECTS YOUR THYROID

Perhaps you have read recently about how the che­mi­cal Bisphe­nol A (BPA) is found to be pre­va­lent in our food and water. As a hypothy­roid patient, I was sur­pri­sed to see that not all artic­les about this harm­ful subs­tance ade­qua­tely desc­ribe the con­nec­tion bet­ween thy­roid func­tion and BPA. This is an over­sight that should be addres­sed since hypothy­roi­dism is esti­ma­ted to affect over ten million peo­ple in the US and this num­ber is gro­wing. It makes per­fect sense to look to envi­ron­men­tal toxins as a likely cul­prit in this serious health epidemic.

BPA is a synthe­tic estro­gen and an endoc­rine dis­rup­ter that cau­ses mul­ti­ple health pro­blems. There are over 200 stu­dies lin­king it to breast can­cer, obe­sity, atten­tion defi­cit disor­der, early puberty in girls, geni­tal abnor­ma­li­ties in boys and girls alike, polycys­tic ovary disease and infer­ti­lity in women and pros­tate can­cer in men. Stu­dies indi­cate that up to 92% of Ame­ri­cans have BPA in their urine. Also BPA doesn’t leave the body quickly; fas­ting adults still had BPA levels in their bodies after 24 hours.

BPA comes from many plas­tic sour­ces. It’s used as a har­de­ner in plas­tic manu­fac­tu­ring. Many tin cans have plas­tic linings that con­tain BPA inc­lu­ding soup and toma­toes, and it’s also in plas­tic water bott­les, some infant for­mu­las and can­ned jui­ces. BPA is also found in PVC water supply piping.

How does BPA relate to thy­roid disease? Accor­ding to a seve­ral good stu­dies, BPA is a thy­roid recep­tor anta­go­nist. This means that BPA will inter­fere with the bin­ding of the thy­roid hor­mone T3 with cell recep­tor sites. This will cause hypothy­roi­dism, not only with peo­ple with under-functioning thy­roids but also for those who are currently taking medi­ca­tions for hypothy­roi­dism or even those who have nor­mally func­tio­ning thy­roids. BPA was found to accu­mu­late in many organs when injec­ted into rats inc­lu­ding the lung, kid­neys, thy­roid, sto­mach, heart, spleen, tes­tes, liver, and brain. In this way, BPA has the poten­tial to inter­fere with thy­roid hor­mo­nes in each organ that has accu­mu­la­ted the subs­tance. A study also indi­ca­tes that the levels of BPA that are con­si­de­red safe (upper limit of emis­sion is set to 2.5 ppm [µg/liter], which is more than 90 µM) are high enough to inhi­bit thy­roid hor­mone recep­tors. Yet another study shows that BPA appears to accu­mu­late in rat fetu­ses in sig­ni­fi­cantly high levels and dis­rupts thy­roid func­tion in baby rats.

There’s also evi­dence that BPA may influence the meta­bo­lism of endo­ge­nous ste­roids, which may be a fac­tor in adre­nal fati­gue and its treat­ment, as well as and its treat­ment, as well as dysau­to­no­mia stem­ming from adre­nal pro­blems. Many with hypothy­roi­dism also suf­fer from co-morbid adre­nal fati­gue and BPA may be a con­tri­bu­ting fac­tor in this.

What this means for ever­yone, but espe­cially for thy­roid patients, is every effort should be made to remove BPA from food and water sup­plies. For those who are not able to get pro­perly opti­mi­zed on their thy­roid meds or who are fin­ding they are suf­fe­ring from hypothy­roid symp­toms des­pite nor­mal levels of TSH, free T3 and free T4, con­si­der BPA as a pos­si­ble source of the problem.

Steps you can take to mini­mize you expo­sure include:

• Avoid all can­ned foods with plas­tic liners and avoid bott­led water. Buy your can­ned toma­toes in glass jars, not metal cans or stick to using fresh ingre­dients. Most other can­ned foods use BPA as well, espe­cially green beans (Here is a list of BPA-free can­ned foods).
• Drink water out of glass or stain­less steel con­tai­ners (and make sure there’s no plas­tic liner or lids that have BPA) or BPA-free plas­tic. Low den­sity pol­yethy­lene bike bott­les con­tain BPA.
• Do not mic­ro­wave foods in plas­tics or use plas­tic wraps when mic­ro­wa­ving. Avoid poly­car­bo­nate (“PC” or #7 and #3) plas­tic food con­tai­ners altogether.
• Since most muni­ci­pal water piping is PVC and some hou­ses have it as water supply lines, con­si­der ins­ta­lling a reverse osmo­sis sys­tem for your drin­king water. This will also remove fluo­ride and chlo­rine (other thy­roid dis­rup­ters) and many other harm­ful subs­tan­ces from drin­king water.

Most impor­tantly we need to make our voi­ces heard that BPA is not an accep­ta­ble subs­tance and that its use in our food and water supply must cease. Recently Sena­tor Feins­tein intro­du­ced a ban on BPA to the Food Safety Moder­ni­za­tion Act but this was modi­fied to remove the ban due to pres­sure by industry groups. Sena­tor Feins­tein still has an effort under­way to ban BPA from child drink bott­les and toys and seve­ral sta­tes have enac­ted such bans but this does not go far enough.

Con­tact your repre­sen­ta­ti­ves today and let them know that a natio­nal ban on BPA must be enac­ted. If they don’t lis­ten then I sug­gest you make your­self heard at the ballot box this November.

************************************************

• Have you cut down on your expo­sure to Fluo­ride? Buy non-fluoridated tooth­paste as a first step.
• Cut down on more che­mi­cals by using baking soda under your arms rather than commercially-made unde­rarm deo­do­rants. Note that the baking soda may at first cause red­ness, but it will go away within days and is a great way to kill odors.
• Have a poun­ding hear­trate that you can’t explain? You may be making too much RT3.
• Check out typi­cal Ques­tions and Ans­wers about thy­roid treat­ment and rela­ted issues.
• Want to write a GUEST BLOG POST on STTM? Go here.

Tonight was a beau­ti­ful night to do my aero­bic wal­king. It had pou­red this after­noon for 30 minu­tes, so the early eve­ning air was slightly cool and very clean.

And on the last leg of my jour­ney, I stop­ped and said to Car­lin as she was wal­king out of her front door “Where you have been lately? I haven’t seen you out wal­king with your husband.”

Car­lin and her hus­band Clint are pro­bably in their late 70’s – both vibrant indi­vi­duals and fre­quent wal­kers in the same area.

“Well”, she said wist­fully as she glan­ced down the street I had just wal­ked, “I have to go in Mon­day for a Pacemaker.”

Turns out she has fibri­lla­tions and other heart issues, and even wal­king from her bedroom to her living room can exhaust her.  I told her how well my mother-in-law has done with her pace­ma­ker. She told me she’d be in the hos­pi­tal for at least 3 – 4 days for the sur­gery and observation.

And as we were chat­ting over the low white fence, I couldn’t help but notice the scar on her neck – the same scar my own mother had from the remo­val of her thy­roid years ago.  And the rest of Carlin’s story, and the rea­lity of her story, made me want to punch the nea­rest elec­tri­cal pole in disgust.

Carlin’s thy­roid was remo­ved over 40 years ago.  She remem­bers being on “2 grains of something” – clearly it was desic­ca­ted thy­roid. And she says she felt really good. But she wasn’t on it long, as her doc­tor remo­ved it and put her levothy­ro­xine over 30 years ago. You know, that “new and modern” T4-only CRAP which doc­tors fell for like the blind follo­wing the blind begin­ning in the 1960’s until today. (The story behind the intro­duc­tion of T4 onto patients in the early 1960’s is in Chap­ter One of the STTM book)

So I knew. Her heart trou­bles could be one of the many side effects of the infe­rior treat­ment of T4-only medi­ca­tions (which also inc­lude Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oroxine…all of them). My own mother suf­fe­red the same fate while on Synth­roid her entire life. And patients chat about this all the time on thy­roid groups – heart issues while on T4.

I star­ted pro­bing. She has had issues with high blood pres­sure. Another typi­cal side effect of the crap T4-only medi­ca­tion, and which is remo­ved with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. She has had issues with depres­sion – another typi­cal side effect of the crap T4-only medi­ca­tion, and which is remo­ved with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. She tal­ked bit­terly about the slew of medi­ca­tions she’s had to be on for years to coun­ter all her pro­blems, and which had given her bad side effects.

And the next worse thing she told me? She had acid reflux so bad a few years ago that they did sur­gery on her sto­mach. She had sur­gery for a con­di­tion which is VERY com­mon with thy­roid patients who are on T4 meds – low sto­mach acid from a lower meta­bo­lism, which cau­ses acid reflux. i.e. a symp­tom of con­ti­nued hypothy­roi­dism which is CORRECTED when on desic­ca­ted thyroid.

It was hard to con­tain myself. Here was this vibrant, life-loving, inte­lli­gent woman who has been on T4-only for over 30 years and has endu­red health pro­blems, sur­ge­ries, side effects from all sorts of money-grubbing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pills, and now, has to go in Mon­day for a pace­ma­ker. And in all pro­ba­bi­lity, most of what she has gone though could have been pre­ven­ted if some doc­tor had been WISE enough to keep this woman on desic­ca­ted thyroid.

I am livid and sick to my stomach.

****************************

• Are you che­wing up your Armour or Natu­reth­roid? It will make the treat­ment far bet­ter, as it will release the desic­ca­ted thy­roid from the excess cellu­lose.  If you are on com­poun­ded, you need to tell the phar­ma­cist to stop using cellu­lose as a filler. On Erfa? You can do it sublingually.
• If you are rea­ding this right on STTM’s blog, and would like to be noti­fied of each blog post, just sign up to the left and under the links.
• Have you done labs and found your­self with high RT3? Get off Sele­nium for the time being, as it can help con­vert T4 to the RT3 along with the other rea­sons you make too much.
• Want to spread the word about far bet­ter treat­ment? T-shirts and bum­per stic­kers are here.

I have lived in the Uni­ted Sta­tes my entire life.

And there are other coun­tries I have felt were simi­lar to my own as far as being modern, forward-thinking, and inte­lli­gent. The Uni­ted King­dom is one.

But there is one area in the UK that is as close to the Dark Ages as it gets: the treat­ment of all forms and degrees of hypothyroidism.

Because of the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion (BTA) and the Royal College of Phy­si­cians (RCP) ‘gui­dance’ on the Diag­no­sis and Mana­ge­ment of Pri­mary Hypothy­roi­dism, most UK doc­tors refuse to presc­ribe any form of  T3, whether adding synthe­tic T3 to one’s T4, or using natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid, either because they have fallen in line like ducks in a row, or they fear for their job.

Why? Because “overwhel­ming evi­dence sup­ports the use of Thy­ro­xine (T4) alone in the treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, and we do not recom­mend the presc­ri­bing of addi­tio­nal Triio­dothy­ro­nine (T3) in any pre­sently avai­la­ble for­mu­la­tion, inc­lu­ding natu­ral thy­roid extract, as it is incon­sis­tent with nor­mal phy­sio­logy, has not been scien­ti­fi­cally pro­ven to be of any bene­fit to patients, and may be harmful”.

Any­body puking yet??

And, says thy­roid patient advo­cate Sheila Tur­ner of TPA-UK, “never has the RCP, BTA  pro­du­ced any of the ‘overwhel­ming evi­dence’ they claim as sup­por­ting the use of T4-only, even though they have been asked to do so on nume­rous occa­sions. Overwhel­ming evi­dence sup­ports the use of synthe­tic T4/T3 and natu­ral thy­roid extract.”

And don’t think it won’t hap­pen where YOU live. Stu­pi­dity can abound.

What to do about it?? Ans­wer a short ques­tion­naire, crea­ted by Sheila and TPA-UK, which is for those with symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism when trea­ted with T4-only, who then tried a T3 thy­roid hor­mone pro­duct with suc­cess. “The results of this ques­tion­naire will ena­ble us to create the first ‘World-wide Regis­ter of Coun­te­re­xam­ples to Levothy­ro­xine (T4) — only the­rapy’”, unders­co­res Sheila. “The objec­tive is to draw atten­tion to the dire need for an urgent re-examination of the exis­ting pro­to­col for the diag­no­sis and mana­ge­ment of the symp­toms of hypothyroidism.”

Don’t wait until stu­pi­dity and narrow-mindedness comes to where you live, as it also has in the country of Colum­bia, where Cyno­mel (T3) was reti­red more than 10 years now.  Give this a voice NOW to head it off at the pass.

P.S. While you are at it, sign up with Dr. Skinner’s World Thy­roid Regis­ter.

*****************************************

The STTM patient-to-patient web­site needs your help! I had to move the web­site to a far lar­ger ser­ver in order to handle the immense amount of visits this site gets. And a lar­ger ser­ver means higher yearly costs to host it. I can’t do it alone, as my money tree was killed by pine beet­les and my hus­band won’t tell me what his Swiss Bank Account num­ber is. So your dona­tions can help keep Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness up and run­ning for your­self and other patients just like you! If you appre­ciate STTM, please go here to make a dona­tion to the hos­ting fees. I do not get it! The hos­ting com­pany does.

The large size STTM t-shirts are now gone. If you can wear an X-large or XX-large and want to spread the word to others, go here. And the bum­per stic­kers REALLY catch atten­tion!! I am stop­ped in par­king lots because of mine. YOU could change someone’s life!

The Con­tact Me page on STTM hasn’t been wor­king for weeks. And I didn’t know it.  But it’s fixed now.  Remem­ber: it’s not to ask ques­tions about your per­so­nal treat­ment. Those need to go here.

The STTM book helps in your doctor’s office. Have brain fog? Many patients are telling me they take the book right in the office, book­mar­ked. I can’t pro­mise how your doc­tor will res­pond, but it’s been posi­tive for most when a book is refe­rred to right in front of the doc. I hope it helps you, too.  P.S. Only books orde­red directly from the publishing com­pany get a book­mark of upda­ted info. That’s also true if you have a book sent to a rela­tive or friend.

I always know that when I get an email from Dr. John C. Lowe, it’s going to con­tain exce­llent infor­ma­tion. And he didn’t let me down.

Dr. Lowe is Editor-in-Chief of Thy­roid Science, an “open-access jour­nal for truth in thy­roid science and and thy­roid cli­ni­cal prac­tice”.  And in the recent issue, there is a remar­ka­ble and pre­cise TSH (Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hor­mone) hypothe­sis by none other than a bri­lliant UK  elec­tri­cal and elec­tro­nics engi­neer, Mr. Peter War­mingham.  In fact, his hypothe­sis about the TSH lab result when trea­ting one’s hypothy­roi­dism exactly corres­ponds to the suc­cess­ful expe­rience of thy­roid patients all over the world.

To quote Dr. Lowe in his intro­duc­tion about Warmingham’s paper (FYI: “exo­ge­nous” refers to the thy­roid hor­mone you give your­self;  “endo­ge­nous” refers to what hap­pens natu­rally in your body):

Mr. Warmingham’s hypothe­sis is straight­for­ward: When a hypothy­roid patient (whose cir­cu­la­ting pool of thy­roid hor­mone is too low) begins taking exo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone, a nega­tive feed­back sys­tem redu­ces the pitui­tary gland’s out­put of TSH. This dec­rea­ses the thy­roid gland’s out­put of endo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone, and des­pite the patient’s exo­ge­nous thy­roid hormone’s con­tri­bu­tion to his or her total cir­cu­la­ting thy­roid pool, that pool does not inc­rease — not until the TSH is sup­pres­sed and the thy­roid gland is con­tri­bu­ting no more thy­roid hor­mone to the total cir­cu­la­ting pool. At that point, adding more exo­ge­nous thy­roid hor­mone will finally inc­rease the cir­cu­la­ting pool of thy­roid hor­mone. The inc­rease must occur for thy­roid hor­mone the­rapy to be effec­tive. The patient’s sup­pres­sed TSH, then, does not indi­cate that the patient is over-treated with thy­roid hor­mone; ins­tead, it indi­ca­tes that the patient’s low total thy­roid hor­mone pool will finally rise to poten­tially ade­quate levels.

In other words, when your doc­tor says no to an inc­rease in your desic­ca­ted thy­roid simply because your TSH lab result is, or would become, below the so-called nor­mal range (and in the pre­sence of con­ti­nuing symp­toms or a low tem­pe­ra­ture), he will usually end up kee­ping you hypothy­roid! i.e. making an ink spot on a piece of paper more impor­tant than cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion is just one rea­son why the current thy­roid patient revo­lu­tion repre­sen­ted by Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness exists!

You can read Warmington’s entire paper here on Dr. Lowe’s site. For further infor­ma­tion on the fallacy of the TSH lab test, go here or read Chap­ter 4, aka Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hooey, in your copy of the STTM book for more detail.

P.S. Dr. Lowe is pro­bably right on when he says he expects cri­ti­cism to flow for the fact that War­ming­ton is not an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist and “how in the world can any­body but an Endo make a logi­cal hypothe­sis about the TSH lab test”. Read more on Lowe’s thoughts about this here.   But enligh­te­ned thy­roid patients around the world are collec­ti­vely shou­ting “GOD BLESS AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER!”

I had a fun inter­view by the viva­cious and inte­res­ting Jimmy Moore of the Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show. If you haven’t yet heard it, you can lis­ten to Jimmy and I by clic­king right here.

Jimmy Moore is a living suc­cess story about the bene­fits of a low carb diet – losing 180+ pounds in 2004 and regai­ning his health and vita­lity.  As I do about far bet­ter thy­roid treatment,  Jimmy has been on a one-man mis­sion to tell the whole world what livin’ la vida low-carb can do for them.

Eating low carb can be a very impor­tant stra­tegy for those with hypothy­roi­dism, espe­cially while on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and see­king to reverse the damage of being on T4 meds like Synth­roid, et al.

And for those of you with adre­nal fati­gue, follo­wing Jimmy’s low carb life style can be very bene­fi­cial when you need to be on cor­ti­sol, which can cause weight gain for some, but is an impor­tant treat­ment for your low cor­ti­sol situation.

Have a great day!