Patients tags

Just when we, as thy­roid patients, are not only pro­ving the supe­rio­rity of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment by our chan­ged lives, but are making good tiny steps in edu­ca­ting our doc­tors, comes a com­plete nation taking Armour away. Yup, the medical-Brit-authorities-that-be, in all their bri­lliant ludic­rous wis­dom, did just that last month, explai­ned here.

And then it was expe­rien­ced per­so­nally by a thy­roid patient in the UK on Feb. 20^th when her Armour was in fact, taken away.

Below is the hea­ding to the peti­tion, and don’t ya love the final sen­tence. GOOD FOR TPA-UK!

To:  UK Govern­ment Office of Fair Tra­ding We the under­sig­ned peti­tion the Government’s Office of Fair Tra­ding and the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion for medi­cal jus­tice in the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of patients suf­fe­ring from the symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism, in spite of current medi­cal prac­ti­ces. The peti­tion is sup­por­ted by the fact that medi­cal science shows that through a pro­per appli­ca­tion of modern medi­cal and scien­ti­fic know­ledge those res­pon­si­ble for our well-being should be capa­ble of res­to­ring us back to opti­mal health.

Because of subs­tan­tial con­fu­sion in the endoc­ri­no­logy spe­cialty, patients con­ti­nue to suf­fer, and the follo­wing lament by Doc­tors Anthony Toft and Geof­frey Bec­kett must, once and for all, be put to rest.

It is extraor­di­nary that more than 100 years since the first desc­rip­tion of the treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism and the current avai­la­bi­lity of refi­ned diag­nos­tic tests, debate is con­ti­nuing about its diag­no­sis and management.

http://www.petitiononline.com/tpauk123/petition.html

**Want to be infor­med of these blog posts when they appear? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind in her acti­vism for bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment? Just go to the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the left and at the bot­tom of the links.

Just two months ago on January 15^th, I wrote an article tit­led Ten Rea­sons You May Still Feel Bad.  Nearly every hypothy­roid patient can have some of those ten pro­blems, and if so, they need to be dis­co­ve­red and corrected.

And one of those issues was low B12. B12 is a vita­min which has a key role in cell meta­bo­lism of your entire body, giving you energy, sharp­ness in your brain, and healthy ner­vous sys­tem functioning.

And unfor­tu­na­tely, a cer­tain per­cen­tage of hypothy­roid patients have low levels of this impor­tant vita­min, lar­gely due to diges­tive issues com­mon with hypothy­roi­dism– either undiag­no­sed due to the lousy TSH lab test, or under­trea­ted on T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Symp­toms of low B12 can vary from per­son to per­son, but can inc­lude numb­ness and tin­gling in your hands or feet,  tre­mors, poor refle­xes, ton­gue sore­ness, leg pain, or dif­fi­culty wal­king with balance.   Psycho­lo­gi­cally, you may have memory issues, con­fu­sion, or depres­sion. Young women may have dif­fi­culty get­ting preg­nant due to low B12.

When doing lab work, you want a result in the upper end of the range.  To correct ina­de­quate levels of B12, you’ll want to use high oral B12 (methyl­co­ba­la­min is the recom­men­ded form of B12), B12 cream, or injec­tions by your doc­tor (espe­cially if you have per­ni­cious ane­mia) .  It’s also recom­men­ded to inc­rease your con­sump­tion of meat and dairy pro­ducts, which can be rich in B12.

March 27, 2009 is the kick-off date to begin an awa­re­ness cam­paign of B12 health, with Sep­tem­ber 23^rd being “Vita­min B12 Awa­re­ness Day”. And I highly recom­mend the book Could It Be B12? An Epi­de­mic of Mis­diag­no­ses by Sally Pacho­lok, R.N. and Jef­frey Stuart, D.O., who are spearhea­ding this awareness.

Have you found your­self with low B12? Tell us your symp­toms, how you trea­ted it, and how long it took to stop the symptoms.

Want to be noti­fied of these blog posts? Curious what Janie is ran­ting about this time? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the bot­tom left of the links.

Ever heard of Henry R. Harrower?

He came to the US from England in 1903 at age 20, and with great for­ti­tude and drive, became an MD and Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist. He had influence in the crea­tion of today’s  pro­fes­sio­nal Endoc­rine Society.   He also belie­ved (to the cons­ter­na­tion of many of his collea­gues) in the use of organs to treat con­di­tions, such as Armour desic­ca­ted thyroid.

And in 1931, he made the follo­wing inc­re­di­ble statement:

“A good labo­ra­tory report is cold com­fort to a patient whose symp­toms remain unchan­ged, and the doc­tor can repeat such reports until he is blue in the face, but they will not help his patient much if unac­com­pa­nied by con­tro­lled symp­toms and chan­ged feelings.”

He also stated:

“Are not the fee­lings of the patients often as cli­ni­cally valua­ble as the other fin­dings? In no case can we wholly dis­count them.”

BRILLIANT!!  BRAVO!! “Cold com­fort” couldn’t desc­ribe our reac­tion bet­ter when a slew of your modern collea­gues have habi­tually dis­coun­ted thy­roid patient symp­toms for deca­des in favor of ink spots on a piece of paper called “lab results” with dubious “nor­mal ran­ges”. And we give the same “Bravo” to a gro­wing body of doc­tors who are making a cou­ra­geous change in their rela­tionship with patients the last few years by LISTENING to the patient first and foremost.

p.s. Thanks to Stepha­nie Buist, wor­king to become a natu­ro­path, who pos­ted the first quote above to the Face­book of a mutual friend of ours. You can read more about Harro­wer here.

How do you feel about what Dr. Harro­wer said over 100 years ago? How would you rate the Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists you’ve seen the past few deca­des as com­pa­red to Harro­wer? Have you had no more than “cold comfort”?

The recent press release by the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians about the new gui­de­li­nes on the diag­no­sis and mana­ge­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism hit the web with a resoun­ding, stiff-necked thud.

And I have writ­ten about it in the news media here:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Royal-College-of-Physi-by-Janie-Bowthorpe-090210 – 698.html

p.s.  In the 1600’s, Gali­leo was the first most pro­li­fic voice to proc­laim that the earth revol­ved around the sun (Armour), in con­trast to the firmly held posi­tion that the sun revol­ved around the earth (Thy­ro­xine).  He was denoun­ced as being dan­ge­rous and here­ti­cal. But over time, the truth won out.

Are you from the UK? Tell us what you think.

Most of us are in our prime when our health is slaugh­te­red thanks to the lousy TSH lab result – a result which can be nor­mal for years before it rises high enough to reveal our hypothy­roi­dism, or a range which keeps us with lin­ge­ring hypo symptoms.

But the elderly are also wide open tar­gets of the scan­dal of  the use of the TSH test to diag­nose hypothyroidism.

My father-in-law was stout, tall and healthy as an ox his entire life.  For the first eighty-eight years of his life, life was active and grand. Oh did I love him.

Yet as he was nea­ring ninety, fate became fic­kle. He became like a Rip Van Win­kle,  slee­ping more than being awake the final three years of his life.  He slept in the mor­nings, he slept after lunch, he slept before din­ner, and he went to bed early.  And he see­med depressed.

Family con­cern (mine) promp­ted his doc­tor to test his TSH,  widely used by clue­less doc­tors to ascer­tain thy­roid func­tion. The family doc proc­lai­med “Nor­mal”

Sad. Because I had to watch him waste away in his fati­gue until he died.

Hypothy­roi­dism inc­rea­ses with age,  and many of our elderly fall vic­tim to it. Using most any search engine on the net, you’ll find nume­rous artic­les on thy­roid and the aged. But I sus­pect it’s an even grea­ter pro­blem that most any article can relay, since most of them are tal­king about the TSH and thy­ro­xine. So the elderly, just like us,  suf­fer due to the infi­ni­tely lousy TSH lab, just like my dear father-in-law.

Read my latest article on OpEd­News tit­led “TSH: Thy­roid Sti­mu­la­ting Hooey and the Loss of Wis­dom” (Yup, the first part is the same title of Chap­ter 4 in the STTM book) : http://www.opednews.com/articles/TSH-Thyroid-Stimulating-H-by-Janie-Bowthorpe-090205 – 60.html

Have you noti­ced sus­pi­cious hypothy­roid symp­toms in your grandma or grandpa, or your own elderly patients? Tell your story by com­men­ting on this blog post.