hypothyroidism tags

It appears that the report seve­ral days ago by the Cana­dian Broad­cas­ting Cor­po­ra­tion about natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid was a disap­point­ment to one who was inter­vie­wed. See the blog post below.

So I am glad to announce that Ste­ven F. Hotze, M.D. and I will be doing a good pro­gram that does NOT need a totally misin­for­med Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist for the sake of “balance”!

I will be a guest on “Health & Well­ness Solu­tions” radio pro­gram of Dr. Hotze on April 12^th (NEXT MONDAY) to talk about hypothy­roi­dism. The radio show airs Mon-Fri from 12-1pm CST on 700 AM KSEV-Houston, Texas and on the inter­net through www.DrHotze.com. Our part will start at 10:15 am Paci­fic, 11:15 am Moun­tain, 12:15 pm Cen­tral, and 1:15 pm Eastern.

You can also read his Press Release about this upco­ming show.  Dr. Hotze runs the Hotze Health & Well­ness Cen­ter in Hous­ton, Texas – a prac­tice which belie­ves the pri­mary cri­te­rion for diag­no­sis, and for eva­lua­ting the effects of treat­ment, is how a patient feels. 

So mark your calen­ders, set your cell phone alarms.  IF CANADA BROADCASTING CAN’T GET IT RIGHT, JANIE BOWTHORPE WILL!!!

(Side note: I feel so stu­pid. If you have sig­ned up to receive noti­fi­ca­tion of STTM’s blog posts (see sig­nup on left below links), I have inad­ver­tently fai­led to check a par­ti­cu­lar box for the emails to go out. I won’t make that mis­take again. See the two posts below, which you weren’t noti­fied about when they came out. )

I recently chat­ted with Sheila Tur­ner, a thy­roid patient advo­cate in the UK who runs the web­site Thy­roid Patient Advo­cacy – Uni­ted Kingdom.

And she has become abso­lu­tely dis­gus­ted at what is hap­pe­ning in the UK – dis­gus­ted enough to stop being polite and to ask direct and poin­ted ques­tions on the home page of her TPA-UK website.

What spu­rred her tough new stand?  Says Sheila, “The RCP (Royal College of Phy­si­cians), BTA (Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion) et al are doing everything they can to boy­cott all T3 con­tai­ning pro­ducts and their latest ‘Sta­te­ment’ on the diag­no­sis and mana­ge­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism is ban­ning gene­ral prac­ti­tio­ners from presc­ri­bing T3 at all.”.

And, explains Sheila, it’s got­ten to the point where most any Gene­ral Prac­ti­tio­ner is com­ple­tely afraid to presc­ribe T3 or any T3-containing pro­duct like natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid for fear of being repor­ted. “The ONLY peo­ple allo­wed to recom­mend that T3 be presc­ri­bed are “acc­re­di­ted endoc­ri­no­lo­gists”, says Sheila. (And how many patients have expe­rien­ced how close min­ded Endo’s can be towards desic­ca­ted thyroid.)

And here are her bri­lliant, in-your-face ques­tions with links, which are per­ti­nent for ALL of us, whether in the UK or not:

1. WHY do the GMC, the RCP, the BTA et al. deli­be­ra­tely choose to ignore the scien­ti­fic evi­dence that has been avai­la­ble for over 40 years ?
2. WHY are medi­cal asso­cia­tions igno­ring the 13% fai­lure rate of T4-only the­rapy for the past 50 years? Why are patient’s com­plaints dis­mis­sed?
3. WHY has there been no correc­tion to the RCP sta­te­ment when there are patients who are coun­te­re­xam­ples to the vali­dity of T4-only therapy?
4. WHY is the con­fu­sion of two defi­ni­tions for ‘hypothy­roi­dism allo­wed to continue?
5. WHY are gui­de­line authorship and con­cise gui­dance to good prac­tice pro­to­cols ignored?
6. WHY are indi­vi­dual symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism sta­ted to be “non-specific” when Bai­sier found groups of these symp­toms may be quite spe­ci­fic?
7. WHAT further inves­ti­ga­tions for non-thyroidal cau­ses are recom­men­ded as rele­vant to the symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism when pitui­tary and thy­roid GLAND func­tion tests are bioche­mi­cally nor­mal –  Levels of fT3, rT3 and adre­nal levels?
8. WHY are the stu­dies by Das (2007) and Lewis (2008), which found that patients could be suc­cess­fully trea­ted with thy­roid extract being ignored?
9. WHY is medi­cine igno­ring false nega­tive test results?
10. WHY do doc­tors refuse to explain and/or jus­tify their deci­sions, the­reby withhol­ding infor­ma­tion neces­sary for valid con­sent to treatment?
11. WHY does the NHS refuse to take steps to pro­tect human rights when suf­fe­rers are put at risk through a dis­re­gard of the demand that patients should be trea­ted with fair­ness, res­pect, equa­lity, dig­nity and autonomy?
12. WHY are labo­ra­tory disc­re­pan­cies in serum tes­ting being ignored?

I appre­ciate the tough stand Sheila is taking. We HAVE to take a strong stand in light of the world­wide igno­rance about 60 years of patient suf­fe­ring on T4 meds like Synth­roid, Eltro­xin et al, about bet­ter treat­ment with natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid and T3 pro­ducts, and about the lousy TSH lab test!

In fact, in light of prac­ti­cally NO mass media atten­tion to this huge world­wide thy­roid treat­ment scan­dal, we have to shout it whe­re­ver we can and hope that some WISE repor­ter or media per­so­na­lity gets this and will shine a media light at the idiocy going on out there towards thy­roid patients. Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness!™

“It is far bet­ter to grasp the Uni­verse as it really is than to per­sist in delu­sion, howe­ver satisf­ying and reas­su­ring.” –Dr. Carl Sagan

You may have seen the seg­ment on NBC’s Today Show this mor­ning, January 29^th, 2010, or you may have heard about it on the inter­net. But in case you didn’t, the Today Show had a rare short piece about hypothy­roi­dism and diag­no­sis which pre­sen­ted a Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner, Eola Force, with clear symp­toms of hypo, inc­lu­ding extreme tired­ness, fee­ling like she’s dying, huge weight gain, depres­sion, and brain fog, to name a few.

Yet, she had a so-called “nor­mal  “TSH” lab test. The expla­na­tion for her symp­toms?? She’s FAT, HORMONAL and FEMALE, of course!

And because she is under the care of a wise and know­led­gea­ble doc­tor named Dr. Kent Hol­torf and his cli­nic, which uses addi­tio­nal tests besi­des the TSH, he diag­no­sed her clearly, put her on thy­roid hor­mo­nes, and chan­ged her life.

And the res­ponse by Dr. Sin­ger, an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist? There is “no real scien­ti­fic basis” for what Hol­torf does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.

Well my dear Dr. Sin­ger sir, if hun­dreds of millions of patients all over the world wai­ted on “science” to prove what they know by deca­des of mise­ra­ble expe­rience because of the TSH, we’d all still be sick as dogs. The mutually accep­ted delu­sion by the Endoc­ri­no­logy field about the TSH lab test has left millions of thy­roid patients undiag­no­sed and under­trea­ted for nearly 40 years of its exis­tence.

Other than to poten­tially diag­nose a pitui­tary pro­blem, no, the TSH lab test is NOT the gold stan­dard for thy­roid scree­ning any­more than rea­ding tea lea­ves tells me what kind of day I’m going to have.

Read more about the TSH lab test here, or find even more detail in Chap­ter 3 in the book called TSH: THYROID STIMULATING HOOEY.

See much bet­ter lab­work than simply the TSH here.  Find what your results mean here. And here’s how to find a much bet­ter doctor.

P.S. Thy­roid patient Lynn Dun­ning emai­led me about tal­king about the cra­zi­ness of current thy­roid treat­ment at her work, and one of her collea­gues put this up on the work web­site:
http://www.spunout.ie/health/Healthy-body/Thyroid-madness Good for Lynn and the Spu­nOut website!

Yes­ter­day, I was mean­de­ring through a small biking/river run­ners store, exchan­ging a vest I got my son for Christ­mas that tur­ned out to be too large, and loo­king intently for a repla­ce­ment gift he’d like.

The only other shop­per left — a tall, dark and hand­some young man. And almost as quickly, he re-entered,  approached me, and asked if that was my car out there.

“My car?” I replied. “Yes, why?”

“I’m curious about the stic­ker you have on your back win­dow,” he sta­ted with a friendly but curious smile.

The stic­ker is of Cal­vin peeing on the word of a par­ti­cu­lar T4-only medi­ca­tion.  I give these away free if someone requests it with their current order of the STTM book.  And this was not the first time I’ve been asked about that attention-getting sticker.

So I pro­cee­ded to tell him that I’m a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist, owner of Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, about the his­tory of T4, how lousy many patients have repor­ted doing on it for nearly 60 years with their own variety and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring hypo symp­toms, and how much bet­ter natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been for patients all over the world.

I then inno­cently asked: “Are you on Synth­roid?” I just knew I had one more vic­tim of this treat­ment who nee­ded enlightenment.

“Nope”,  he said with a con­fi­dent and defiant air.  “I have until recently been a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal rep with Abbott Labs.”

THWACK.   Stan­ding before me stood a mighty well-trained Big Pharma cham­pion for Synth­roid who was going to reveal and defend his pro­pa­ganda like a mas­ter. And that led to the most hea­ted and pier­cing give-and-take I’ve ever expe­rien­ced, right in front of the cha­gri­ned and wide-eyed sales per­son at the chec­kout desk. We were like sumo wrest­lers but­ting our words against each other.

When I explai­ned the slew of con­ti­nuing symp­toms repor­ted by patients world­wide who have been on T4, and no mat­ter how high they rai­sed it…his res­ponse?  “Those symp­toms can be the result of many issues other than hypothy­roi­dism.“

I res­pon­ded: “Well isn’t it odd that those who are hypo and on Synth­roid, and who get on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, find those symp­toms com­ple­tely removed.”

His reply?? “Heroin can do the same thing”.  Groan. I simply had to laugh at him. How many times have we heard the same kind of baloney.

He pro­cee­ded to tell me in great detail with each point he made that:

1. He has wor­ked with many patients and they do well on Synth­roid (A rep has wor­ked with many patients? And what in the world does “well” mean?)
2. Cli­ni­cal trials have pro­ven that Synth­roid works. (Ah! You mean those finan­ced by Abbott Labs and which are con­trary to the repor­ted expe­rience of millions of patients around the world? Those??)
3. The TSH lab test gives proof about the effi­cacy of T4 (Funny how patients all over the world have pro­ven by their con­ti­nuing symp­toms that the TSH lab test for the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism belongs at the bot­tom of a trash heap)
4. There are many dif­fe­ren­ces in the effi­cacy of T4 brands to explain any issues in patients (Funny how not ONE brand of T4 has been exempt from lea­ving con­ti­nuing symp­toms accor­ding to the glo­bal rex­pe­rience of a huge body of patients) 
5. Bla­ming T4 for the amount of adre­nal fati­gue that “sup­po­sedly” some T4-treated patients find them­sel­ves with is silly since there can be other rea­sons for it. (Another laugh on my part.  Clearly, when someone isn’t ade­qua­tely trea­ted on T4, something has to kick in to keep them going, and voila – it’s those trusty dusty adre­nals which even­tually just poop out thanks to T4 and the TSH.)

There were much more machine gun stan­ces bet­ween us, but that would make this blog post far too long.

One truth we did agree on? That “some” patients do get bene­fit from using T4. He spe­ci­fi­cally refe­rred to the elderly. And my quick res­ponse? Why accept “some” when patients all over the world report get­ting rid of that “some” with desic­ca­ted thy­roid (and espe­cially for cer­tain ones who also treat their low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, and other issues most likely rela­ted to an infe­rior treatment.)

Clearly, we were each dead­loc­ked in our posi­tions.  And he conc­lu­ded, loo­king at the sales asso­ciate, that neither of us were wrong; we just repre­sen­ted two sides.

And I tur­ned my head, loo­ked him straight in the eye, and said:  Uhhh, no. YOU are com­ple­tely and totally wrong.

P.S. After he left, the sales gal said she was totally in tune with what I was saying, and wrote down the name of this web­site. lol lol

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See the blog post below about favo­red Cana­dian phar­ma­cies, plus many more com­ments by patients.

What the heck is going on with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and current shor­ta­ges? Read about it here.

There was a time when I thought being hypo without a thy­roid was really no dif­fe­rent than being hypo with one.  Hypo is hypo.

But I was wrong. There really is a dif­fe­rence in our jour­neys – even if we both end up with hypothy­roi­dism — and four strong ones:

1. It’s no pic­nic to lose one’s thy­roid. Sur­gi­cal remo­val, called a thy­roi­dec­tomy,  can come with neck sore­ness, loss of one’s voice, and other com­pli­ca­tions. inc­lu­ding the loss of parathy­roids.  Treat­ment with RAI, or Iodine 1 – 131 to kill the thy­roid, has it’s own life­long side effects, inc­lu­ding gas­troin­tes­ti­nal issues, paro­tid sali­vary gland pro­blems, and more.  A good web­site about the con­tro­versy of RAI is atomicwomen.org.
2. The stress of sur­gery and/or RAI can do a num­ber on one’s adre­nals. I sus­pect that there is a high per­cen­tage of those who had sur­gery and/or RAI who also have adre­nal fati­gue with it’s night­ma­rish side effects, whether simply from the phy­si­cal stress of remo­val and/or treat­ment, or having a Synth­roid, T4-only obses­sed doc­tor.  Being on T4 is the num­ber one pre­dic­tor of adre­nal fatigue.
3. Some have a uni­que anguish about their vul­ne­ra­bi­lity. No one can live without a thy­roid.  And that thought with the abso­lute life­long depen­dency on thy­roid meds is not a com­for­ta­ble state.
4. Life long regret can be huge. Many patients came to rea­lize, after remo­val, that they may not have nee­ded the remo­val at all if they had known about the fallacy of the TSH lab test, or the idiocy of T4-only meds, or poten­tial bene­fits of iodine, or natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, com­poun­ded, or Erfa Thyroid.

Read the latest per­so­nal and gut-wrenching blog post by thy­roid can­cer Stepha­nie Buist, who is thy­roid­less after treat­ment for thy­roid can­cer nearly 10 years ago.  Also see the Talk to Others link below to find the Thy­roid­less yahoo group.

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Curious what’s going on with Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid pro­duc­tion and avai­la­bi­lity? RLC Labs has a Patient Infor­ma­tion Line you can always call for the latest infor­ma­tion on Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid avai­la­bi­lity: 877 – 600-4752.

Want to write a post for the STTM blog?? Begin­ning in 2010, I will be revie­wing and accep­ting “thy­roid patient guest posts” on the STTM blog in bet­ween my own. You can read about it here: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/writing-a-guest-blog-post-on-sttm/

Want to honor someone who has hel­ped you?? See the blog post below and thank someone.

NOTE: if you were recei­ving email noti­fi­ca­tions about these posts,  the com­pany doing them is out of busi­ness. Ins­tead, use an RSS Feed.