naturethroid tags

A press release just came out sta­ting that the U.S. Food and Drug Admi­nis­tra­tion (FDA) has “unvei­led the first phase of its Trans­pa­rency Ini­tia­tive which is desig­ned to explain agency ope­ra­tions, how it makes decisions, and the drug appro­val process.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean thy­roid patients can stop what seems like an inane deci­sion to require makers of desic­ca­ted thy­roid to “prove” , via expen­sive cli­ni­cal trials, that it’s a safe and effec­tive medi­ca­tion. RLC Labs, for exam­ple, the makers of Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid, will be affec­ted.  Over 110 years of patient use, with 70 years by RLC, cer­tainly reveal it’s a safe and effec­tive treat­ment. But at least this trans­pa­rency ini­tia­tive will “poten­tially”  give us bet­ter infor­ma­tion about the pro­cess. We’ll see.

About the upco­ming Part 2 with Dr. Lowe (see the blog post right below this): Some folks were boo­ted off last Thurs­day and had to quickly get back on. The pro­blem is when you get back on, you may lose your abi­lity to chat.  i.e. the sys­tem stops the chat abi­lity once there are 300 indi­vi­duals already on the chat.  You can lis­ten, but you can’t chat after 300 are on.

So there are three things you can do to pre­vent being boo­ted off and having to get back on:  first, make sure you have clo­sed anything else on your com­pu­ter – i.e only Talkshoe should be up. Second, make sure no other pro­grams are run­ning in the back­ground, or will come on, like your anti-virus, and 3) ahead of time, down­load Live Pro from Talkshoe and use that. It’s more stable.

I, in turn, will be doing a stra­tegy to strengthen this call from boots.  Addi­tio­nally, if neces­sary, some who aren’t chat­ting out of the first 300 will have their option chan­ged to no-chat to allow those who came in lat­ter to do it.  It’s not per­so­nal because I don’t know who a lot of you are. It’s just sprea­ding the abi­lity into the call.

Do you take regu­lar aspi­rin? Just as we warn about swa­llo­wing your meds when you have just eaten anything with cal­cium, iron or estro­gen (they bind the thy­roid hor­mo­nes), you need to be aware that aspi­rin can have a nega­tive affect on your thy­roid levels, as well.  i.e. though it may help lower high thy­roid levels, it’s not good for your thy­roid treat­ment if you regu­larly take it.

How did we get to where we are with the FDA’s actions towards desic­ca­ted thy­roid today? Go here.

The year of 2009 will long be remem­be­red for two night­ma­res straight out of Twi­light Zone for thy­roid patients: 1) Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted with patients glo­bally repor­ted a return of symp­toms and new frus­tra­ting ones, and 2) shor­ta­ges of all US-made natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid occu­rred, as well as no more gene­rics thanks to the FDA.

Addi­tio­nally, as I write this, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid by RLC Labs are still hard to get – making too slow a return on phar­macy shel­ves which may not improve until 2010. You can read details and a good sum­mary about this on about.com.

But there’s been a sil­ver lining to this situa­tion: Canada’s “Thy­roid” by Erfa.

Many patients made a switch to this desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­duct, using online phar­macy web­si­tes and their presc­rip­tions from their doc­tors. And ove­rall, the expe­rience of patients with Erfa’s Thy­roid has been extre­mely positive.

I had a won­der­ful chat this week with Dr. Henri Knafo, the Direc­tor of Medi­cal Affairs at Erfa Canada Inc.  My first and most impor­tant ques­tion: Is there enough Thy­roid for all your patient cus­to­mers?? And I got an une­qui­vo­cal “Yes” from Dr. Knafo.  He explai­ned there are no con­cerns with run­ning out and they have plenty in stock, now and in the future. He sta­ted that if their stock gets low from sud­den demand, they can easily get more and quickly.

I also asked: Is ship­ping timely? Defi­ni­tely yes, Dr. Knafo sta­ted. But he also qua­li­fied that Erfa is over­loa­ded with orders. And though they are kee­ping up, your presc­rip­tion order can take time to pro­cess. But, he sta­ted “Be Patient. It will arrive!”

What is going on with the FDA and Erfa? He unders­co­red that the FDA is coo­pe­ra­ting com­ple­tely, and they see a good future with the FDA.  They are com­ple­tely tole­rant, said Dr. Knafo, because they seem to unders­tand the shor­ta­ges. Erfa’s Thy­roid is also com­ple­tely appro­ved and regu­la­ted by Health Canada. As far as the future and the FDA, Dr. Knafo strongly feels that once the FDA is reas­su­red about desic­ca­ted thy­roid, things will only get bet­ter for US patients with brands and avai­la­bi­lity. He feels that issues with the FDA are far more posi­tive than many thy­roid patients and lea­ders seem to get or want to see.

Do you see chan­ges towards opi­nion of desic­ca­ted thy­roid?  Defi­ni­tely, yes. Dr. Knafo recently atten­ded a Euro­pean medi­cal con­fe­rence with over 50 spe­cia­lists and he saw many doc­tors not satis­fied with Synth­roid and noti­cing the bet­ter treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid. “It’s boo­ming in Europe”, he unders­co­red about Erfa and desic­ca­ted thy­roid  “Even Endo’s are noti­cing”.  He also said that Bel­gium was expe­rien­cing a huge medi­cal trend away from T4 and towards desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Why has the cost of Erfa’s Thy­roid gone up even more than 50%?? His expla­na­tion was three-fold:  it was first a finan­cial deci­sion, since they have never made much of a pro­fit on desic­ca­ted thy­roid. Second, Health Canada requi­res a lot of expen­sive tes­ting from Erfa on pro­ducts. And third, since they buy their pow­de­red desic­ca­ted thy­roid from Europe, an inc­rease in Euros meant they nee­ded to inc­rease the price.

Any final com­ments? Dr. Knafo cla­ri­fied: Erfa has been making Thy­roid for 30 years and not only will that con­ti­nue, they will not change the for­mula. He thinks the sugar in Thy­roid is what makes absorp­tion so good, and that will con­ti­nue as an ingre­dient just as it is.  Nothing will change! To see ingre­dients of Erfa’s Thy­roid and other brands, go here.

You can read more about Erfa from my Sep­tem­ber 2^nd post.   Thank you to Dr. Knafo for being so can­did and informative!

See my post below about my mother, who lived her entire adult life under­trea­ted on T4 with depres­sion and elec­tric shock treat­ment and had no inter­net to com­pare notes. If you have a rela­tive from the past with a simi­lar story, add the story to the Comments.

*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!

The news this mor­ning about Oprah made me pause.

Yes, it’s being announ­ced today that there will be no more Oprah Win­frey Show on CBS after Fall of next year.  She’s saying goodbye. And the rumor is that she will move her talk show to The Oprah Win­frey Net­work, which repla­ces the Dis­co­very Health Chan­nel. We’ll see when she for­mally announ­ces it today on her show.

But the change sure does shine a bright spot­light on a colos­sal and com­plete fai­lure by Oprah and The Oprah Win­frey Show for hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients. Though she had her own bout with thy­roid disease (and may still be dea­ling with it when you con­si­der her weight issues), we all win­ced a year ago when she sta­ted that a month long Hawaiian vaca­tion and eating fresh foods with soy milk (a goi­tro­gen) were a great way to treat her thy­roid con­di­tion. Yikes.   We equally squir­med in our seats when Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup made the com­ment that our thy­roid pro­blems were due to an “energy bloc­kage in the throat region, the result of a life­time of ’swa­llo­wing’ words one is aching to say.” Dou­ble yikes.

And since then, we have watched nothing, zilch, zero from Oprah and The Opray Win­frey Show about a horren­dous 55-year medi­cal scan­dal of thy­roid treat­ment that has nega­ti­vely affec­ted the lives of hun­dreds of millions of thy­roid patients world­wide. T4-only meds like Synth­roid, the dar­ling medi­ca­tion of the medi­cal com­mu­nity for hypothy­roi­dism treat­ment, has left hun­dreds of millions sick.  The TSH lab test has equally sent us to hell.  Because we have been for­ced to live with con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, we’ve endu­red much more tes­ting and have been put on many other medi­ca­tions to ban­daid our con­ti­nuing symp­toms. And a majo­rity of us have had to deal with the addi­tio­nal bur­den of adre­nal fati­gue thanks to all the above.

It’s been hell, Oprah. But you never lis­te­ned.  So for me per­so­nally, I could care less what you do now. You’ve let millions of us down.

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On a far bet­ter note:  Last night’s Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call on Talkshoe was exce­llent. From thyroid/adrenal patient Vale­rie Tay­lor, who is abso­lu­tely one of the most know­led­gea­ble patients in the world about adre­nals and RT3, we gai­ned good infor­ma­tion how it rai­ses its ugly head when you have high or low cor­ti­sol, low B12, low ferri­tin and other untrea­ted issues, and how to treat it. You can go back to Talkshoe and lis­ten to the broad­cast, which was Epi­sode 7.  See my blog post right below this. As far as future Talkshoe Com­mu­nity Calls: they will always be announ­ced here first.

Below that, you’ll read how cellu­lose as a filler just may be a huge pro­blem in natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds. But we are also dis­co­ve­ring that a good desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, even with its cellu­lose, can seem even worse if we have undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted issues like low B12, low Vit. A, low ferri­tin, low Vit. D and other con­di­tions com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism.  Make sure you have tes­ted for these.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

Yes, we’ve all heard about T4 (the thy­roid sto­rage hor­mone) and T3 (the active thy­roid hor­mone which rids us of hypothy­roid symp­toms). We’ve lear­ned that the body not only con­verts T4 to T3, it also pro­vi­des some of  T3 directly. The lat­ter fact is why patients have found natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Natu­reth­roid, Erfa’s Thy­roid, etc. to be a far bet­ter treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism, besi­des the T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin you’ll also find in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just like your own thy­roid would be making.

But in every indi­vi­dual, a thy­roid also con­verts T4 to the inac­tive RT3 (reverse T3) as a way to clear out excess T4 that the body doesn’t need.  It’s natu­ral and neces­sary. It will espe­cially hap­pen if you go through sur­gery or a diet.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, many thy­roid patients make far too much RT3, and patients have been making cut­ting edge dis­co­ve­ries about this fact and how to treat it with their doc­tors.  High levels of RT3 can be found if you have high cor­ti­sol, low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, low B12 and other undis­co­ve­red and untrea­ted underl­ying issues that can go hand-in-hand with being hypothyroid.

Why is a high level of RT3 is pro­blem? That excess RT3 is making itself lazily com­for­ta­ble on your cell recep­tors, pre­ven­ting T3 from gai­ning access to your body.  It beco­mes like a clog­ged up drain to your body. So you stay hypo and symp­to­ma­tic, in spite of see­mingly nor­mal labwork.

This coming THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19^th (tomo­rrow as I write this) on the TALKSHOE THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL, we’re going to talk about the Reverse T3 pro­blem with thy­roid patient advo­cate Vale­rie Tay­lor. She not only owns the NTH Adre­nals group (and is con­si­de­red the most know­led­gea­ble patient on adre­nal fati­gue in the world), she also crea­ted the RT3/T3  group on Yahoo, which you will find on the Talk To Others page.

We’ll talk about excess RT3, symp­toms that can go along with it, how to do lab­work to deter­mine if you have this pro­blem, how to treat it with T3-only, and more. There’s a Chat Box you can par­ti­ci­pate in while the show is going on. Audio will come directly out of your com­pu­ter, and you can call in and ask Vale­rie or Janie a ques­tion. Times are 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral and 9 pm Eastern.

Want to read more? Thy­roid patient Nick Foot, who also mode­ra­tes the RT3/T3 group, has crea­ted an exce­llent Ques­tion and Ans­wer RT3 web­site. This will make you even more infor­med before this Talkshoe event. Note that the web­site is still work-in-progress, so expect to see more as he works on it.

For those with the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book, there is also more good detail in Chap­ter 12 called T3 is the Star of the Show, page 155. This is all good infor­ma­tion to take into your doctor’s office.

Update: cellu­lose in our desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds may be much more of a pro­blem than we ever ima­gi­ned. See my blog post below.

*HO HO HO! Have a STTM book sent to someone  you care about as a CHRISTMAS or HOLIDAY pre­sent. All the work is done for you!

When Forest Labs refor­mu­la­ted Armour ear­lier this year, they sta­ted they inc­rea­sed the filler Mic­rocrys­ta­lline Cellu­lose, and dec­rea­sed the Suc­rose (sugar). The tablets became impos­si­ble to do sublin­gually, and you have to won­der why they would change a qua­lity that patients prai­sed so hea­vily.  Posi­tive opi­nion among patients for Forest Labs slip­ped seve­ral notches.

But the real cuckoo’s nest for many thy­roid patients, who knew firsthand the life-changing bene­fits of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid, was a mad­de­ning return of serious hypo symp­toms on the new Armour and sub­se­quent new stress on their adre­nals, sooner…or later! You can read seve­ral horror sto­ries in the com­ments of the post below, or go here.

So patients tur­ned to other alter­na­ti­ves: Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid by RLC Labs…then when the desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges hit in the Fall of 2009, Erfa’s Thy­roid, Com­poun­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid, and others. And there have been pro­blems for some patients on most everything they switched to.  The LEAST pro­ble­ma­tic has been Erfa’s Thy­roid, and the most pro­ble­ma­tic was Compounded.

So what has been the com­mon thread in the most pro­ble­ma­tic desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts? CELLULOSE, a plant fiber, and more com­monly known by the trade name Avi­cel. And what does fiber do in your sto­mach? Inhi­bits absorp­tion. Armour’s cellu­lose was rai­sed, and bamm…problems.  Com­poun­ded desic­ca­ted thy­roid, with cellu­lose as a filler, has been pro­ble­ma­tic for many patients with a return of hypo symp­toms,  espe­cially if  it was Methyl Cellu­lose, a lar­ger par­ticle size pro­duct. But some have even had pro­blems with com­poun­ded con­tai­ning Mic­rocrys­ta­lline Cellu­lose, the sma­ller cellu­lar pro­duct. And a cer­tain body of patients even had pro­blems with Natu­reth­roid before it became scarce. And Natu­reth­roid uses cellu­lose as a filler.

Is this pro­blem true with T3-only pro­ducts? Yup. Patients have noted that gene­ric T3 is far less effec­tive than the brand name Cyto­mel (both Liothy­ro­nine Sodium)  And what filler it up to 70% in the gene­ric T3?  CELLULOSE.  See the per­cen­ta­ges here for Paddock’s gene­ric T3.

Why have less pro­blems been repor­ted with Erfa’s Thy­roid? Perhaps because it has no cellu­lose as a filler! See this list of ingre­dients, which STTM has been wor­king on lovingly for a few years.

What does lite­ra­ture say about the use of Cellu­lose as a filler in medi­ca­tions? Plenty. Cellu­lose is from wood. Wood is fiber. And fiber in your gut affects absorp­tion. From http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/fiber-000303.htm we get this:

* Die­tary fiber has been repor­ted to lower the blood levels and effec­ti­ve­ness of tricyc­lic anti­de­pres­sant medications…Reduced die­tary fiber intake inc­rea­sed the blood levels and impro­ved symp­toms in these patients.

* While fiber sup­ple­ments may help to regu­late blood sugar levels, they may also inter­fere with the absorp­tion of anti-diabetic medications.…Therefore, fiber sup­ple­ments should not be taken at the same time as these medications.

* Taking solu­ble fiber such as psy­llium with car­ba­ma­ze­pine (Tegre­tol), a medi­ca­tion used to treat sei­zure disor­ders, may dec­rease the absorp­tion and effec­ti­ve­ness of carbamazepine.

* Fiber in the form of pec­tin (from fruit) and oat bran repor­tedly redu­ces the body’s abi­lity to absorb cholesterol-lowering medi­ca­tions known as “sta­tins,”… and could lead to dec­rea­sed effec­ti­ve­ness of these medications.

* Fiber sup­ple­ments may reduce the body’s abi­lity to absorb digo­xin (Lano­xin), a medi­ca­tion used to regu­late heart function.

* Cli­ni­cal reports sug­gest that psy­llium or other solu­ble fibers may lower lithium levels in the blood, redu­cing the effec­ti­ve­ness of this medication.

* In one cli­ni­cal study, the fiber sup­ple­ment guar gum redu­ced blood levels of penicillin.

Cellu­lose can clearly be a pro­blem, espe­cially when it’s ratio is too high as com­pa­red to the desic­ca­ted thy­roid. So what can you do?

If you are using a com­poun­ded medi­ca­tion, strongly request pow­de­red aci­dophi­les, also spe­lled aci­dophi­lus, as your filler.  One gal sta­tes her com­poun­ding phar­macy uses pow­de­red Gin­ger (but beware of too much Gin­ger if you have Mitral Valve Pro­lapse. It can cause palps if you take too much – my expe­rience).  See what other fillers your com­poun­der can offer.

Another pos­si­bi­lity is Cellu­lase, an enzyme which helps the split­ting and break­down of cellu­lose, and which was pro­po­sed to me by Natu­ro­pathic stu­dent Stepha­nie Buist. Goo­gle “cellu­lase” and find sup­ple­ments that con­tain it.  If it looks pro­mi­sing to you, I’ll be curious to read your expe­rience with swa­llo­wing a cellu­lase sup­ple­ment, then swa­llo­wing your pro­ble­ma­tic desic­ca­ted thyroid.

And lea­ning towards Erfa’s Thy­roid can be a plus.

Have other ideas or com­ments about Cellu­lose in our desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Use the COMMENT func­tion below and let’s talk!