hypothyroidism tags

Just when you think we’re full of great infor­ma­tion for bet­ter thy­roid care, there’s still more to learn and find out.  Below is infor­ma­tion that you might find inte­res­ting on STTM.

ADRENALS: For those who dis­co­ve­red via the 24 adre­nal saliva test that they nee­ded cor­ti­sol sup­port, we have come to rea­lize that some can’t do the ram­ping up sche­dule from a small amount to a lar­ger amount without having pro­blems from the feed­back loop.

Ins­tead, many simply need to “start” on the higher amount, which would range from 20 – 30 mg. You can read about that on the How to Treat page, and you’ll note that not one mor­ning amount goes higher than 10 mgs.  With the excep­tion of men, higher than 10 mg seems to sup­press the ACTH and adre­nals too much.

A NEW LOOK: To make the STTM home page more unders­tan­da­ble to new­co­mers, the home page has bro­ken down the infor­ma­tion bet­ter into sepa­rate pages, and also has a new inte­res­ting way of using it.

LISTEN TO THIS INFORMATION: STTM has short audio clips you can lis­ten to, or send someone else to, to help unders­tand what this is all about.

STORIES OF OTHERS: Indi­vi­dual real-life sto­ries con­ti­nue to come in, pro­ving over and over that this revo­lu­tion for far bet­ter care really does work.

FEEDBACK and MORE FEEDBACK: I get emails daily about lives chan­ged thanks to this patient revo­lu­tion. It’s won­der­ful to see peo­ple fin­ding out WHY they have depres­sion, less sta­mina than others, rising cho­les­te­rol and blood pres­sure, hair loss plus other lin­ge­ring symp­toms of  hypothy­roi­dism left untrea­ted because of the lousy TSH, or under­trea­ted because of the equally-lousy T4-only treat­ment like Synth­roid. I can’t begin to post them all, but STTM does con­tain a sam­pling of this feed­back.

DESICCATED THYROID BRANDS: Wow, the list is gro­wing for desic­ca­ted thy­roid brands around the world! We now have lis­tings for Den­mark, Ger­many, Italy and New Zea­land, as well as more detai­led infor­ma­tion on com­poun­ded thy­roid in Aus­tra­lia. Thanks to all who contributed.

KEEPING UP WITH ADDITIONS TO STTM: In case you didn’t know, there’s a page meant to inform you of what’s added to STTM. I may neglect to list a few addi­tions occa­sio­nally, but think I’m pretty close to get­ting most of them up there.

MEDICAL RESEARCH TO PROVE WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW: Did you know that STTM has a page which com­pi­les research and stu­dies which prove what we as patients already know? It’s not loa­ded with research yet, but it’s gro­wing. And if you have found more to con­tri­bute to that page, use the Con­tact Me form.

SITE MAP: And bot­tom line, you can always go to the Site Map, or review the infor­ma­tion more com­pactly in the book, which patients are taking into their doc­tors offices.

*Want to be infor­med of these blog posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links.

*Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness T-shirts are now 50% off! I like sales, don’t you? And by wea­ring these shirts, you’ll never know what seed you put in the mind of someone wal­king past you who’s still on Synth­roid or any other T4 meds, and doesn’t know WHY they have depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, easy weight gain, the need for naps, etc. You”ll also find humo­rous bum­per stic­kers which defi­ni­tely spread the word.

Louis Nei­pris, M.D., a staff wri­ter who has writ­ten many fine artic­les for myOptumHealth.com, recently wrote one article tit­led Adre­nal Fati­gue: Is it for real? It appea­red on Upper Michi­gan News, TV 6 web­site on July 16^th and is making the rounds on other sites. His ans­wer to his own ques­tion?  “Not really”. He adds  “it’s not an accep­ted medi­cal diagnosis.”

Oops.

Dr. Nei­pris, thy­roid patients all over the world beg to dif­fer, as do a gro­wing body of collea­gues in your pro­fes­sion. Adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, has been dis­co­ve­red on the back of a huge body of thy­roid patients, wea­ring them down with  irri­ta­bi­lity, anxiety, sha­ki­ness, fee­ling dizzy or lighthea­ded­ness, sleep issues, swea­ting, salt cra­ving, nau­sea in the face of stress, and a host of other symp­toms uni­que to each indi­vi­dual with adre­nal fati­gue. My per­so­nal obser­va­tion, as a thy­roid patient acti­vist, is that up to 50% of millions of thy­roid patients all over the world, may have adre­nal fati­gue, or at the very least, a slug­gish feed­back loop.

Even worse, the wides­pread occu­rrence of adre­nal fati­gue, espe­cially in thy­roid patients, has cau­sed pro­blems when they try rai­sing a far supe­rior thy­roid medi­ca­tion called desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Because cor­ti­sol is nee­ded to faci­li­tate the move of thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the blood to the cells, the direct T3 in desic­ca­ted thy­roid pools in the blood, cau­sing low-cortisol-induced hyper symp­toms like a poun­ding hear­trate and irri­ta­bi­lity. The first-pass treat­ment then has to start with hydro­cor­ti­sone like presc­rip­tion Cor­tef from their doctors.

Why have such a large body of thy­roid patients found them­sel­ves with adre­nal fati­gue and its low cor­ti­sol? It’s clear. The TSH lab test sucks, giving one a “nor­mal” rea­ding for years in spite of obvious cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion of hypothy­roid symp­toms, and pushing one’s adre­nals into over­drive with high cor­ti­sol and adre­na­line to keep the patient going, and ulti­ma­tely lea­ding to adre­nal fati­gue.  On page 65 of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, you’ll read about a 44 year old woman who went 15 years with a “nor­mal” TSH result, in spite of obvious cli­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tion of hypothy­roi­dism, and which led to her own low cor­ti­sol. This is not uncommon.

Second, the risk of adre­nal fati­gue is high due to the ina­de­quate treat­ment of T4 medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin and other T4-only meds. They all leave patients with their own brand and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring symp­toms of a poor treat­ment, for­cing the adre­nals to kick in too long for many.

Even William Mck. Jef­fries MD., who wrote the medi­cal clas­sic Safe Uses of Cor­ti­sol around 1984, unders­tood the pre­pon­de­rance of adre­nal fati­gue even without the diag­no­sis of Addison’s, and the need for phy­sio­lo­gic doses of cor­ti­sol treat­ment, or the amount nee­ded by each indi­vi­dual.  And he would cer­tainly be ama­zed by the explo­sion of adre­nal fati­gue that has occu­rred since then in thy­roid patients thanks to the lousy TSH and synthe­tic T4-only ‘affaire de coeur’ with doctors.

Adre­nal fati­gue may not be an “accep­ted diag­no­sis” by many.  But medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals and doc­tors who think it’s not real or an accep­ta­ble diag­no­sis will have to face a huge body of patients glo­bally who DO have real live adre­nal fati­gue. And adrenally-fatigued patients can get realllllly hos­tile and angry because of low cor­ti­sol, and be very impa­tient when you deny their rea­lity.  (You’re going to see a lot of com­ments to this post which I highly sug­gest reading.)

P.S. Even desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid and the pre-reformulated Armour are not con­si­de­red to be the stan­dard of prac­tice for trea­ting hypothy­roi­dism, yet thy­roid patients all over the world are having lives CHANGED thanks to it.

***Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions to the left and right below the links.

***Read below why thy­roid patients are not happy with Armour and switching to brand names like Naturethroid.

A thy­roid patient and mother of two just infor­med me that her daughter’s pso­ria­sis on her body com­ple­tely went away thanks to being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and all that’s left is some on her head. And, her son’s pso­ria­sis com­ple­tely went away thanks to desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Con­nec­tion? Pretty obvious, isn’t it.

Pso­ria­sis is an autoim­mune skin disease that appears on the skin chro­ni­cally due to an immune sys­tem going awry. It results in red scaly patches with a white dead-cell buil­dup. You can often see it hand-in-hand with Hashi­mo­tos. And Rosa­cea is another skin pro­blem, though not autoim­mune, that cau­ses a red­ness of the skin, inc­lu­ding the cheeks and nose, or the forehead and chin.

I per­so­nally had rosa­cea on my nose for years — my roman­tic “clown nose”.  But just like the mother’s son and daugh­ter with pso­ria­sis, my rosa­cea even­tually went away, as well, after I had star­ted on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and rai­sed it high enough to remove my hypo symp­toms.

Chro­nic skin disease is just another rea­son to be ade­qua­tely trea­ted with desic­ca­ted thyroid.

*Below, you’ll find a post about T4 and depres­sion–a very com­mon con­nec­tion with poorly trea­ted or undiag­no­sed hypothy­roi­dism, as well. Under that is infor­ma­tion on how to do desic­ca­ted thy­roid sublin­gually. And on June 2^nd, com­ments con­ti­nue to come in about the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour.

*Pre­fer having all this web­site in book form with more info? Many do, and you can decide by going here.

I’ve been peru­sing com­ments in res­ponse to the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians blun­de­ring and dark-age-constructed Diag­no­sis and treat­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism.  And though all com­ments are quite good and worth your read, I was struck by the com­ment tit­led May Rea­lity Intrude? by a man named Char­les.

Char­les explains that in 1999, his 67-year-old wife had RAI (radioac­tive iodine) and was then put on levothy­ro­xine, a T4-only medi­ca­tion (aka Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, levothy­ro­xine, et al).  And not long after, she com­plai­ned of having depression.

He had an idea why after rea­ding the New England Jour­nal of Medi­cine about T3, and pro­cee­ded to buy her Armour off the inter­net.  Without her kno­wing, he switched medi­ca­tions. Lo and behold, he sta­tes “she promptly retur­ned to her usual sunny dis­po­si­tion”. Her phy­si­cian knew nothing of the switch either, and found nothing to be con­cer­ned about in her.

Char­les then explai­ned how, at age 74 in 2007, she was near death thanks to an ulcer bleed.  And to con­ti­nue trea­ting her hypothy­roi­dism, the hos­pi­tal gave her levothy­ro­xine all over again.  Back came her depres­sion and a fee­ling of wan­ting to go home and die.

So Char­les brought her Armour to the hos­pi­tal, and though her phy­si­cal state was depres­sing enough, her sunny dis­po­si­tion retur­ned.  And that happy spi­rit while still on Armour con­ti­nues today after a full reco­very.

And Char­les pon­de­red. If his wife had been in a NHS (Natio­nal Health Ser­vice) hos­pi­tal under the care of a so-called thy­roid spe­cia­list of the NHS, would she have fai­led to obtain T3 and ins­tead, sent to a psychia­trist as if her depres­sion had nothing to do with her levothy­ro­xine trea­ted hypothy­roi­dism – the very treat­ment that the Royal College of Phy­si­cians has a dog­ma­tic love affair with?

He then conc­lu­des: My wife’s depres­sion was obvious. Since she is equip­ped with much the same assort­ment of body parts and asso­cia­ted phy­sio­logy as others, is it not likely that many levothyroxine-treated patients suf­fer from less-noticeable depression?

Well Char­les, most any thy­roid patient who deci­des to res­pond to this will tell you une­qui­va­cably YES, YES, YES.  Because there’s no research, study or direc­tive that is more pro­found and telling than the actual EXPERIENCE of patients all over the world with T4 treat­ment and depression…besides a slew of other side effects of con­ti­nuing hypothy­roi­dism on T4-only meds.

Did you have depres­sion on a T4 med? Tell us about your expe­rience in the Com­ments sec­tion of this post.

*Want to be infor­med of these blogs? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the lower left of the links.

*Scroll down to the June 2^nd post and report your expe­rience on the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour. It’s not a happy pic­ture.

Jes­sica Terry is an 18 year old stu­dent at Washing­ton State high school in the Bay Area who had years of pro­blems which doc­tors couldn’t figure out: vomi­ting, diarrhea, weight loss and sto­mach pains.  Doc­tors said she had irri­ta­ble bowel syn­drome or coli­tis, and said her intes­ti­nal tis­sue was just fine accor­ding to slides.

Yet, she just knew that wasn’t correct.

So she took some of her own intes­ti­nal tis­sue to her Bio­me­di­cal Pro­blems class, and voila…she diag­no­sed her own pro­blem:  gra­nu­loma, and spe­ci­fi­cally, Crohn’s disease, an inflam­ma­tion of her intestines.

Sound fami­liar??

Yup, thy­roid patients have had to do the exact same thing – self-diagnose– for almost ten years because of con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism which doc­tors have rou­ti­nely dis­mis­sed, pooh-poohed or bla­med on something else.  It’s all been a horri­fic, wide-reaching and dama­ging 50 year medi­cal scan­dal by the medi­cal esta­blish­ment upon thy­roid patients.

And why has this cala­mity occu­rred? Because doc­tors have always been hood­win­ked by their medi­cal school trai­ning, con­ti­nuing edu­ca­tion and Big-Pharma-financed-research in belie­ving that T4-only thy­ro­xine medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, et. al. were from God Almighty, and the TSH lab test was just as holy.

And thanks to thy­roid patients around the world who had the gall to use the inter­net and join patient groups, we figu­red out it’s all because those medi­ca­tions and lab­work have not wor­ked, and what has wor­ked. Addi­tio­nally, it was patients who dis­co­ve­red they had adre­nal fati­gue and/or low ferri­tin and how to treat it, and patients who have suc­cee­ded in begin­ning a wave of change around the world in the treat­ment and diag­no­sis of hypothy­roi­dism (except for the UK, who has gone back­wards to the dark ages).

You can read Jessica’s story first repor­ted in the Sam­ma­mish Repor­ter,  and only recently repor­ted to a wider audience in the Bay Area News news­pa­per. She also spoke to a CNN affiliate.

Thanks to Kem on NTH for infor­ming me of this news.

P.S. Do ya think that any news­pa­pers or major news out­lets like CNN are going to finally get what a huge story thy­roid patients have given them?? We’re still waiting.…..

*Want to be infor­med of Janie’s blog posts? Curious what’s on her mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tion link to the bot­tom left of the links.