hypothyroidism 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.

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!

(Note: this is a long post, but will be worth every penny if you read it all!)

When STTM first put out its shin­gle in Decem­ber of 2005 (with most of what you see today going up in ’06 and ’07 with con­ti­nual addi­tions),  my goal with this site was sim­ple: to edu­cate thy­roid patients.

And as I saw it, by edu­ca­ting patients on what we had been lear­ning, patients could in turn, take that infor­ma­tion into their doc­tors offi­ces and push for change. And it’s been wor­king, slowly. We now have more doc­tors than ever before who know about desic­ca­ted thy­roid and are willing to presc­ribe it, even if they are the mino­rity. STTM has a page on how to try fin­ding one of those good docs.

But as I wrote about this fact in my pre­vious post, cer­tain patients can still find them­sel­ves frus­tra­ted, angry and sick because of doc­tors. It’s not a pretty pic­ture for some.

I am lucky, as I’ve always mana­ged to have a fair doc­tor to work with, without com­pli­ca­ted issues. But a lot of patients aren’t as lucky.  They either can’t find a doc­tor to treat them correctly after trying repea­tedly, or they simply can’t afford to keep dri­ving to find a good doc (with no pro­mi­ses that they will get the good doc they des­pe­ra­tely need any­way). As a result, many thy­roid patients report being for­ced to self-treat.

Even though STTM was never crea­ted as a self-treatment site, I am aware that some patients use it that way.  And I can never con­demn them. Gran­ted, a few who make their own choice to self-treat can run into pro­blems, most espe­cially from undis­co­ve­red or undiag­no­sed low ferri­tin or low cor­ti­sol. But it’s a choice they seem to make out of desperation.

The follo­wing  post is by  Guest Blog pos­ter and UK’s thy­roid patient advo­cate Sheila Tur­ner of TPA-UK.  These are her cou­ra­geous thoughts con­cer­ning self-treatment, and her angst against anyone who tells patients not to do so.  Ove­rall, UK patients have a very tough situa­tion in the UK with doc­tors, but so do the vast majo­rity of patients around the world, as well as US patients. See what you think…

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

It’s not uncom­mon to be told as a suf­fe­ring and debi­li­ta­ted thy­roid patient to never self-diagnose, never self-treat, never self-monitor.

And in an ideal world, we could take those admo­ni­tions on. But we are not living in an ideal world.

You might as well tell every­body with ill health to put up with wha­te­ver they are suf­fe­ring and leave their health in the safe hands of our ‘won­der­ful’ doc­tors whom we can trust impli­citly.  Sadly, many doc­tors have little (or no) edu­ca­tion in the wor­kings of the thy­roid system.

Or, you might just try tou­ring the country until you find one who will help. Well, if you have the energy and the money to do that, it could take a heck of a long time before fin­ding such a good doc­tor —  indeed, IF you ever find such a doctor.

I run a very suc­cess­ful Inter­net Thy­roid Sup­port group, plus web site for thy­roid disease, and I have seen at first hand (and expe­rien­ced it myself) the night­mare of having to put up with the terri­ble suf­fe­ring cau­sed by Doctors.

In the UK, for exam­ple, it is orga­ni­za­tions such as the Royal College of Phy­si­cians and the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion who have terri­fied NHS doc­tors so much that they now no lon­ger presc­ribe any T3 hor­mone con­tai­ning pro­ducts, neither natu­ral nor synthe­tic, for fear of being repor­ted to the GMC  regu­la­tory body with the threat of losing their career and livelihood.

One com­ment I hear from those who con­demn self-treatment is the pro­blem of over-medicating. In rea­lity, it is the rec­kless prohi­bi­tion of all T3-containing drugs that cau­ses car­diac arrhyth­mia and risk of  sud­den death -  which would amount to at least mans­laugh­ter, and might even cons­ti­tute mur­der if the out­come is strictly fore­seea­ble - which it is. It is NOT patients who should be cri­ti­ci­zed. They have been dri­ven to buying presc­rip­tion medi­ci­nes for thy­roid and adre­nal insuf­fi­ciency. Cri­ti­ci­zing self-treatment is an outra­geous claim and one that the medi­cal regu­la­tors would no doubt be deligh­ted to hear. Seems that not only are doc­tors beco­ming sorely afraid of the Regu­la­tors, those who con­demn self-treatment are also falling into the same trap.

The “basic pre­mise” that under­lies my own pur­pose and advo­cacy is to help those being left to suf­fer because the medi­cal regu­la­tors and govern­ment are refu­sing to give a pro­per diag­no­sis — and for those who do get a diag­no­sis, giving them levothy­ro­xine sodium-only as a thy­roid hor­mone replacement.

Whe­ne­ver a new mem­ber comes to TPA, we encou­rage them to read, read and read again and to look at the infor­ma­tion in our FILES sec­tion which is there for all to see. We tell them about the asso­cia­ted con­di­tions that go along with being hypothy­roid such as low adre­nal reserve, sys­te­mic can­di­dia­sis, mer­cury poi­so­ning and ask them to request blood tests from their doc­tor to see if their levels are low in the refe­rence range for ferri­tin, vita­min B12, vita­min D3, mag­ne­sium, folate, cop­per and zinc. We have infor­ma­tion on the rea­sons they need to check these and if any of these are a pro­blem, make sure they are aware of just how essen­tial it is that they eli­mi­nate these con­di­tions, one by one, before star­ting thy­roid hor­mone repla­ce­ment – such con­di­tions are NOT auto­ma­ti­cally chec­ked by NHS doc­tors – and they put their patients at great risk by auto­ma­ti­cally presc­ri­bing levothyroxine.

We all know of the serious rami­fi­ca­tions for those patients who are not being given a correct diag­no­sis or treat­ment. Howe­ver, it is the endoc­ri­no­lo­gists and medi­cal regu­la­tors who are guilty of cau­sing much of the unne­ces­sary suf­fe­ring, not those patients who are dri­ven to self diag­nose, self treat and self moni­tor, as those who cri­ti­cize self-treatment would have us believe.

Mains­tream doc­tors do not appear to be even aware of the many com­mon and often undiag­no­sed symp­toms and dan­ge­rous con­se­quen­ces of low thy­roid. These inc­lude: serious men­tal pro­blems, sei­zu­res, heart disease, dia­be­tes inc­lu­ding mis­diag­no­sis and com­pli­ca­tions, cons­ti­pa­tion resul­ting in colon can­cer, all female pro­blems (due to high amounts of dan­ge­rous forms of oes­tro­gen), inc­lu­ding: tumours, fibroids, ova­rian cysts, PMS, endo­me­trio­sis, breast can­cer, mis­ca­rriage, heavy periods and cramps, blad­der pro­blems lea­ding to infec­tions, anae­mia, ele­va­ted CPK, ele­va­ted crea­ti­nine, ele­va­ted tran­sa­mi­na­ses, hyper­cap­nia, hyper­li­pi­de­mia, hypogly­ce­mia, hypo­na­tre­mia, hypo­xia, leu­ko­pe­nia, res­pi­ra­tory aci­do­sis and others.…

If suf­fe­rers of the symp­toms are NOT get­ting a pro­per diag­no­sis and the thy­roid hor­mone repla­ce­ment that would give them back their life and health through mains­tream doc­tors, how on earth would you recom­mend they do this, apart from scou­ring the country to find a doc­tor elsewhere who would help them, or recom­men­ding they get enough money together to see a pri­vate thy­roid spe­cia­list. Do you REALLY have such com­plete faith in the medi­cal pro­fes­sion to know that we should ALL leave our thy­roid health in their hands, sit back and do nothing – and pro­bably just wait to die? How can you recom­mend that they do NOT buy presc­rip­tion medi­ca­tions and should not self-medicate, self treat or self moni­tor when there is NO other option left open to them.

If those who cri­ti­cize self-treatment have per­so­nally heard from “DOZENS” of peo­ple who have follo­wed the “inc­rease my own dose of natu­ral thy­roid” self medi­ca­tion approach, then yes, something is seriously wrong with the ‘teachings’ or advo­cacy of such groups. Edu­ca­tion should be encou­ra­ged by all, and if mem­bers do not unders­tand the rea­sons why they need to take great care, such expla­na­tions should be given in such a way that they understand.

I rarely hear of mem­bers ending up in Emer­gency Rooms batt­ling poten­tially fatal heart arrhythmia’s, atrial fibri­lla­tion, and/or ending up in worse health than before, inc­lu­ding long-term and per­ma­nent heart damage through self-treatment. I have heard of many NHS patients being admit­ted to A and E, who had been trea­ted (or not) by mains­tream doc­tors who refu­sed them the correct the­rapy their symp­toms needed.

In good cons­cience, I do recom­mend that thy­roid patients self-diagnose, self-medicate and self-treat if they are being left to suf­fer, because orga­ni­za­tions such as the RCP, BTA TSH refe­rence range is so huge that they will never go outside of it. This refe­rence range is 0.5 to 10.0 in the UK – pro­bably the widest in the world. Then, we have to put up with the fact that the only thy­roid func­tion test that will be done is the TSH –  and doc­tors will not test Free T4 in a lot of cases, never mind free T3 level. Also, NHS Patho­logy labs refuse to test free T3 even if the doc­tor has spe­ci­fi­cally reques­ted it. So, many of us will NEVER get a pro­per diag­no­sis – being left to suf­fer their unne­ces­sary symp­toms for years and become wheelchair/bed bound in many cases, having to leave paid employment.

Such patients are told they have a ‘func­tio­nal soma­to­form disor­der’ when their TFT’s are nor­mal, when they con­ti­nue to com­plain of symp­toms – or –  those who are lucky enough to get a diag­no­sis, who are trea­ted with levothy­ro­xine only yet still com­plain of debi­li­ta­ting symp­toms are told also “you have a func­tio­nal soma­to­form disor­der” or “your symp­toms are non-specific” .

What mains­tream doc­tors do not recog­nize is that thy­roid func­tion tests ONLY test the amount of thy­roid hor­mone being sec­re­ted by the thy­roid gland.  TFT’s (more correctly should be called Thy­roid GLAND func­tion tests”, do not test to show whether there is periphe­ral resis­tance to the thy­roid hor­mo­nes at the cellu­lar level. This is not due to a lack of thy­roid hor­mo­nes sec­re­ted by the gland. Blood tests do NOT detect Type 2 hypothy­roi­dism. Type 2 is usually inhe­ri­ted. Howe­ver, envi­ron­men­tal toxins may also cause or exa­cer­bate the pro­blem. The per­va­si­ve­ness of Type 2 has yet to be recog­ni­zed by mains­tream medi­cine, but already is in epi­de­mic pro­por­tions. I think many suf­fe­rers of the symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism know very much more than their medi­cal prac­ti­tio­ners. I do know which road I would like to follow – that is to find an exce­llent doc­tor I could trust impli­citly, but sadly, the ONLY road many of us have to follow to get back nor­mal health is the one where we have to self medicate.

Please do NOT blame patients who are dri­ven to self diag­nose and medi­cate as being the rea­son why the US govern­ment, or any other govern­ment for that mat­ter, are now eli­mi­na­ting the avai­la­bi­lity of natu­ral thy­roid and synthe­tic T3. You are being suc­ked into belie­ving what they want you to believe.

Levothy­ro­xine is a synthe­tic medi­ca­tion that can be paten­ted, and has made billions of pounds for the Big Pharma and for the regu­la­tors of hypothy­roid gui­de­li­nes. Natu­ral thy­roid pro­ducts can­not be paten­ted. Should doc­tors presc­ribe either synthe­tic or natu­ral T3, the majo­rity of suf­fe­rers of the symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism would regain their nor­mal health – Big Pharma would suffer.

You should perhaps read the book “Dirty Medi­cine” by Mar­tin J Wal­ker if you have not already read it. Those who cri­ti­cize self-treatment appear to be accu­sing all those suf­fe­ring symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism who have been dri­ven to buying medi­ca­tions without presc­rip­tion and self trea­ting as making it worse for the rest of those suf­fe­ring. It is NOT them who are abu­sing T3. If a T3 hor­mone con­tai­ning pro­duct was pro­perly presc­ri­bed, there would be NO NEED FOR PATIENTS TO BE SELF MEDICATING.

Self medi­ca­ting, wha­te­ver drug we are taking, whether using a T3 hor­mone con­tai­ning pro­duct or not, is always risky and patients must be fully edu­ca­ted in its use. Howe­ver, self medi­ca­ting with any drug runs risks, but I would rather self medi­cate with the chance of get­ting my health back than lea­ving my health in the hands of totally incom­pe­tent doc­tors –  incom­pe­tent because the teachers in our medi­cal schools are incompetent.

For those who are being left to die, without the treat­ment that will make them well, do-it-yourself medi­ca­tion is the only option left open to them. Would you really deny them this?  Lea­ving patients without the thy­roid hor­mone they need is appa­lling and one of the rea­sons TPA is cam­paig­ning to bring about chan­ges in the diag­no­sing and treat­ment of the symp­toms of hypothyroidism.

It can be appre­cia­ted to say to work with the right doc­tor, but what do you recom­mend if patients can­not find the ‘right’ doc­tor?? Perhaps you should all come over here to the UK and help those suf­fe­rers in fin­ding the right solu­tion and offer to help them help to find a “good doctor”.

Sadly, there are never any solu­tions given or alter­na­tive to self diag­no­sing, self-treating or self-monitoring, other than to “find a good doc­tor”. This does not help Inter­net thy­roid sup­port forum members.

Sheila
http://www.tpa-uk.org.uk/