levothyroxine tags

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.

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• 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.

(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…

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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/

When the shor­ta­ges hit the Uni­ted Sta­tes for natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2009, we all had to figure out which way to turn, since the 110-year-old natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been a far, far bet­ter treat­ment for our hypothy­roid state than levothy­ro­xine T4-only such as Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc.

Addi­tio­nally, Armour thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted in early 2009, and patients world­wide repor­ted a return of symp­toms as well a stress on their adre­nals.  So patients star­ted an exo­dus away from Armour.

Luc­kily, the FDA loo­se­ned res­tric­tions and allo­wed us to order the Cana­dian brand by Erfa Canada Inc, called simply “Thy­roid”.   Erfa’s Thy­roid pro­ved to be an exce­llent desic­ca­ted thy­roid for most, espe­cially if they rai­sed high enough once again to rid them of symp­toms.  And since it con­tains suc­rose, patients have been able to do it sublin­gually – a method which is not neces­sary for bene­fits, but is pre­fe­rred by many.

I gathe­red a list of known Cana­dian online phar­ma­cies, which you can view on the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment page.

And just recently, I sought opi­nions from patients about the phar­ma­cies they have used:

Uni­ver­sal Drugs­tore aka Cana­dian Phar­macy Online: This phar­macy recei­ved the grea­test kudos from US patients and with the best prices.

• Awe­some — good pri­ces and fast, friendly ser­vice. Will call your drug store and get your Armour script transferred.
• Faxed my presc­rip­tion and it was mai­led the next day. I believe it took a week and a few days to arrive to Florida.
• Great cus­to­mer ser­vice, easy orde­ring, and was chea­per than paying the co-pay with my insu­rance. It takes about 10 to 14 busi­ness days to get your presc­rip­tion, accor­ding to the com­pany, but mine came soo­ner than that and it was the holi­day mail rush season!
• Rapid ser­vice, exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, email remin­ders to refill, coupons
• They had the best price and were very pro­fes­sio­nal and effi­cient.  My order arri­ved within ten days.
• I paid $43.25 for 200 60 mg pills
• Online forms were easy. I faxed my presc­rip­tions and recei­ved my Thy­roid in twelve days for $7 shipping

Phar­ma­cies Online:

• Easy to regis­ter and the cus­to­mer ser­vice was exce­llent. I faxed my presc­rip­tion. A phar­ma­cist called me to see if I had any ques­tions. I paid $45.63 inc­lu­ding ship­ping for 100 60mg pills

Cross Bor­der Phar­macy:

• Exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, great pri­ces, two week arri­val from date of order, wish phar­ma­cies here were this good.

Canada Drugs Online:

• Good expe­rience, prompt (7 – 10) days ser­vice get­ting my Erfa thyroid

See more recom­men­da­tions in the Com­ments sec­tion for this post. And I’m going to hope that no phar­macy “uses” this to adver­tise their phar­macy. This is FOR PATIENT COMMENTS ONLY.

What has been your expe­rience with online Cana­dian Phar­ma­cies? Do I need to remove any from the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment for any rea­son? Do I need to add any?

ARE YOU A CANADIAN PATIENT ON DESICCATED THYROID? Use the Con­tact Me form if you’d like to be inter­vie­wed by a well-known Cana­dian repor­ter about desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Canada. I’ll need your name and email address. You need to con­tact me before Mon­day, January 25.

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Recent blog posts worth reading:

Read a guy’s email to me about his expe­rience with doc­tors being afraid of HC, which patients know is safe and WORKS!

Will the FDA be more trans­pa­rent for thy­roid patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid with their new initiative?

Lis­ten to the second inter­view, Epi­sode 9, I had with Dr. John C. Lowe. What a bri­lliant man!

Seve­ral years ago, a large per­cen­tage of thy­roid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figu­ring out that they had adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, from years of adre­nals wor­king over­time due to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Not only does low cor­ti­sol keep desic­ca­ted thy­roid from wor­king well, it also cau­ses all sorts of angst with para­noia, depres­sion, anxiety, easy anger, sen­si­ti­vity to light and/or sounds, rec­lu­si­ve­ness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients dis­co­ve­red the impor­tance of using the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test rather than blood or urine. When low cor­ti­sol was con­fir­med, the treat­ment was using cor­ti­sol, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, to give them­sel­ves back what their adre­nals were not, to allow thy­roid hor­mo­nes to reach the cells, and to give the poo­ped out adre­nals a rest.

And suc­cess was achie­ved! When all other issues were dis­co­ve­red and trea­ted, patients were finally able to heal their adre­nals with cor­ti­sol use, wean off, and be suc­cess­ful in their con­ti­nued treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid! That suc­cess con­ti­nues today!

Yet in spite of clear suc­cess in the treat­ment of low cor­ti­sol with sup­ple­men­tal cor­ti­sol in the correct amount for each indi­vi­dual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg gene­rally – men often need the higher end), as well as exce­llent books on the sub­ject by Wil­son, Peat­field, Jef­fries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encoun­ter doc­tors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I dis­co­ve­red your web­site which are both great. They are a superb source of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for thy­roid and adre­nal fati­gue suf­fe­rers. Thank you so much!

Per­so­nally I got adre­nal fati­gue by a sus­tai­ned lack of sleep for seve­ral years (crying babies).  I found a doc­tor who presc­ri­bed Hydro­cor­ti­sone (17.5 mg/day, 5 – 5-5 – 2.5), Flu­dro­cor­ti­sone, DHEA and Tes­tos­te­rone. Symp­toms disap­pea­red in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symp­toms reap­pear very quickly, so I retur­ned to the ori­gi­nal dose.

It is very stress­ful that many esta­blished doc­tors (our family doc­tor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are sca­ring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am des­tro­ying my body and I will never suc­ceed in wea­ning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symp­toms. She also has been sca­red about des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and HC. Rea­ding your book I was howe­ver con­vin­ced she could bene­fit a lot from a bet­ter treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfor­tu­na­tely, it’s true. Thy­roid and adre­nal patients are left in the dark by many doc­tors about a variety of issues rela­ted to bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, adre­nal issues, low ferri­tin, and more.  So here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this impor­tant infor­ma­tion into your doc­tors offices:

• All about the pro­blem of adre­nal fatigue
• How to treat
• Symp­toms of having an adre­nal problem
• The STTM book, which not only has more detail, but can be taken right into the doctor’s office
• Talk to other patients, inc­lu­ding a group tar­ge­ted for adre­nal fatigue

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If you mis­sed the exce­llent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thurs­day eve­nings, you can lis­ten to the recor­ding, as well as sign up to be a Follo­wer of the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call, here.

I think back about my mother.

At age twenty-one in 1939, she had most of her thy­roid remo­ved due to Gra­ves disease and hyperthy­roi­dism. Because a small part remai­ned, hyper set in once again by 1960 com­plete with bug­ged eyes. So Radioac­tive Iodine I-131 was the next step to once-and-for-all annihi­late the thy­roid.  Not long after, as her thy­roid hor­mone levels fell, she was one of the early vic­tims of the “new and modern” T4-only medi­ca­tion called Synthroid.

And all hell broke loose. Depres­sion enve­lo­ped her every­day life — one of her worst lin­ge­ring symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism due to the shoddy treat­ment of a T4-only med as well as the TSH lab test.  I remem­ber her moods, her fre­quent anger and lack of patience, and her cons­tant coun­se­ling appointments.

By 1963, and right before Pre­si­dent Ken­nedy was shot, she sub­mit­ted her­self to Elec­tric Shock Treat­ment in a futile effort to con­trol her depres­sion.  What a crock.  She was never again the bright and quick-witted woman I remem­be­red as a youn­ger child. Her brain was fried and she had a new dull flat reac­tion to life. And for the rest of her life, she lived on her antidepressant/anti-anxiety med Ela­vil and had daily cons­tant naps, weight gain, rising cho­les­te­rol, dry hair, heart sur­gery, stiff joints, brain fog and ina­bi­lity to stand on her feet long – her own mani­fes­ta­tion of lin­ge­ring symp­toms while on the lousy thyroxine.

And she did the T4-horror show…all…by…herself. No inter­net,  no patient groups and forums, no Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness web­site, blog or book,  no good doc, no thy­roid Face­book or Twit­ter groups, no other good thy­roid books or web­si­tes. Nada. I came along as a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist too late for my mother, who died in 2003.

It makes me shud­der thin­king of that lonely hell. But then again, it’s not just in the far past: it hap­pe­ned to her only daugh­ter, me, for nearly 20 years. Com­plete lonely hell of my own with intense and disa­bling Dysau­to­no­mia indu­ced by my con­ti­nued hypo state while on Synth­roid and later Levoxyl.

And today, because the mass media or any media per­so­na­lity refu­ses to speak the truth of the 55 year scan­dal of T4-only meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, or the cuckoo’s nest of the TSH lab test and range, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of indi­vi­duals still suf­fer. How stu­pid can they get.  This is a scan­dal that has effec­ted a huge mass of indi­vi­duals glo­bally, past and pre­sent,  inc­lu­ding those today who STILL lin­ger with undiag­no­sed hypothy­roi­dism thanks to the worth­less TSH lab test or lin­ge­ring hypo on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions. And all the above when we, as patients, have lear­ned a far bet­ter way to treat our thy­roid problems

Did you have rela­ti­ves like my own Mom (who died in 2003) who lived the T4-only scan­dal alone?  Use the Com­ment form to tell us about them.  Have YOU suf­fe­red from a T4 med? Report it to the FDA here.

Also below, read about Jane Pau­ley and the health issues that make you won­der, since they can all be con­nec­ted to a thy­roid pro­blem, either undiag­no­sed or untrea­ted.  Below that, you’ll see posts about Oprah, Reverse T3, the pro­blem of cellu­lose in our meds, the desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges, and more.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. A card will be inc­lu­ded, and the book will be in an enve­lope with a red bow!! Save money the more you buy!