Patients tags

Who, as a smo­ker, hasn’t heard how dele­te­rious tobacco smo­king is for your health. Not only will you acquire health pro­blems directly rela­ted to smo­king, but your life is shor­te­ned by 10 – 15 years ave­rage accor­ding to sta­tis­tics. My own father died at age 63 directly rela­ted to his smoking.

But in spite of strong rea­sons to quit, most smo­kers will tell you it’s NOT easy. Why? Because the nico­tine in tobacco is the addic­tive bogey­man. Nico­tine sti­mu­la­tes those plea­sure cen­ters in your brain, besi­des being a subs­tance which “gets you going” by relea­sing both blood sugar and adre­na­line. The Ame­ri­can Heart Asso­cia­tion sta­tes that “Nico­tine addic­tion has his­to­ri­cally been one of the har­dest addic­tions to break.“

But for hypothy­roid patients, tobacco smo­king pre­sents another whammy. Namely, it stres­ses your adre­nals over and over. And with adre­nal fati­gue being a com­mon side effect of trea­ting hypo with T4 meds like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, et all, as well as being dosed by the lousy TSH, you’ve got a third rea­son to fall into adre­nal fati­gue if you are a smoker.

Addi­tio­nally, another fac­tor in the dif­fi­culty of quit­ting is that cor­ti­sol dec­rea­ses when you try to quit. A 2006 research report found that the lowe­red cor­ti­sol after quit­ting is asso­cia­ted with smo­king relapse and with reports of inc­rea­sed with­dra­wal seve­rity and dis­tress. So, when you already have adre­nal fati­gue, and you quit smo­king – a dou­ble whammy against being successful.

What’s the solu­tion? If you don’t have adre­nal fati­gue and want to quit, it may be wise to have a good adre­nal sup­port on hand, such as Iso­cort or any qua­lity OTC adre­nal pro­duct at your health food store. If you DO have adre­nal fati­gue, sta­ying away from cigs may require adding addi­tio­nal cor­ti­sol to your daily amount. Chap­ters 5 and 6 in the STTM book have good infor­ma­tion to help you with cor­ti­sol support.

Are you a smo­ker with hypo? Don’t hesi­tate to res­pond to this post with your expe­rience. (Please note that replies are not for questions.)

READ DEBORAH’S STORY ABOUT HER ATTEMPT to STOP SMOKING.

The topic of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion for your ove­rall health has been gro­wing the past few years among patients, espe­cially in light that many of us may be low in iodine, or just the fact that iodine has anti-cancer qua­li­ties. I became inte­res­ted in the topic after rea­ding Dr. David Derry’s book Breast Can­cer and Iodine. I’ve also seen the tes­ti­mony of seve­ral women with Fibrocys­tic Breast Disease who saw it disap­pear once they star­ted iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion. Impressive!

And since thy­roid hor­mo­nes are pri­ma­rily com­po­sed of iodine, thy­roid patients are lis­te­ning to and ques­tio­ning the use of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion. Yahoo Groups has an exce­llent iodine group now led by Stepha­nie, where you can ask ques­tions and decide for your­self. Also, if you goo­gle “iodine”, you’ll find much to read.

But thy­roid patient Mike Law­son came up with some very inte­res­ting facts this week about iodine in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just one more rea­son to con­si­der using Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts! He figu­red out the below:

T3 = C15H12I3NO4 = molar mass of 650.9776
T4 = C15H11I4NO4 = molar mass of 776.87

So, each grain of Armour has 30.20325 mcg iodine. In other words, each
grain of Armour has 1/5 the RDA of iodine (150 mcg).

Very inte­res­ting facts, Mike! Sure, some thy­roid patients feel they need more than what desic­ca­ted thy­roid offers. But it’s a good start when so many indi­vi­duals feel their own iodine levels are too low, and need help, espe­cially those who have had to deal with thy­roid or breast can­cer, or have a family his­tory of it.

Shock and amazement.

At the 90^th annual mee­ting of the Endoc­rine Society, it was announ­ced that T3 can be an effec­tive subs­ti­tute for T4. And…the tar­get TSH was .5 — 1.5.

DUHHHHHHH.

But it’s GOOD news.

OK, so…

1) it’s light years behind what patients had already figu­red out for a longgggg time
2) it’s not as effec­tive as being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid (which has exactly what your thy­roid would be giving you: T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin)
3) the TSH needs be even LOWER when you are ade­qua­tely trea­ted.
4) NO THYROID TREATMENT SHOULD BE BY THE LOUSY TSH AT ALL.…

.…but it’s a GOOD STEP in the right direction!!

http://www.endocrinetoday.com/view.aspx?rid=28931

p.s. Maybe if some of those Endo’s would open their minds to what PATIENTS HAVE LEARNED on this site and the book, they might finally make the next great step!! TAKE THIS INFORMATION INTO YOUR DOCTOR’S OFFICE!! It’s the power YOU have to change this mess!

I was lucky.

My cho­les­te­rol hadn’t star­ted to raise yet when I was on Synth­roid and later Levoxy. But it was going to, because nearly ever­yone on a T4-only medi­ca­tion has a clim­bing cho­les­te­rol num­ber, soo­ner or later, along with heart pro­blems and/or ele­va­ted CRP. And what do their doc­tors do next? Put them on sta­tins with all the lovely side effects: muscle aches & pains, memory loss, and periphe­ral neu­ro­pathy. (See the Yahoo Stop­ped My Sta­tins group here.)

My mother is the clas­sic exam­ple. We have abso­lu­tely no heart pro­blems in our family his­tory that I know of. Yet, here was my mother who, in her 60’s, was sud­denly in the hos­pi­tal having a balloon pro­ce­dure on her heart, called an Angio­plasty, done to open up a clog­ged artery to her heart. Huh??

It was only years later, when I become a thy­roid patient advo­cate, that I could look back and see why that hap­pe­ned to her. She had been on a T4 medi­ca­tion for the majo­rity of her adult life!

Today, as patients are switching to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid and others, and as they are allo­wed by their infor­med doc­tors to raise NOT accor­ding to the TSH but by the com­plete eli­mi­na­tion of symptoms…VOILA.… their once-high cholesterol.…FALLS!!

But guess what else falls? Your CRP.

CRP stands for C-Reactive Pro­tein, and it beco­mes ele­va­ted in res­ponse to an inflam­ma­tion. With that ele­va­tion comes the heigh­te­ned risk of heart attacks and stro­kes. And guess what: con­ti­nued hypothy­roid (as found with T4-only treat­ment) results in an inc­rea­sed CRP level.

On an opti­mal amount of Armour, which for me is 4 grains, my CRP is 0.9. Ideal is less than one. Bingo.

***Have a story to share about your impro­ved lipid or CRP levels since you became opti­mal on Armour? Let us know.

YEEHAW! Check out this study done in 2007 – the higher the TSH, the worse your lipids. Iro­ni­cally, even a TSH IN RANGE does this, accor­ding to the expe­rience of MILLIONS of patients!! Thanks Nita for brin­ging this to my attention!

Cuz it ain’t the one WE live on, dah’ling.

For a few years now, patients have repea­tedly writ­ten the Oprah show, beg­ging her to address the thy­roid scan­dal of deca­des of T4-only medi­ca­tion and the lousy TSH lab, both of which have left MILLIONS of patients with lin­ge­ring hypo symp­toms while our doc­tors proc­lai­med we were NORMAL…and about a FAR bet­ter treat­ment called natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid and dosing by symp­toms, NOT the TSH.

And when she finally has a pro­gram which somewhat addres­ses the thy­roid issue this week, she allows her hallo­wed guest, Dr. Chris­tiane North­rup, to state “your symp­toms are actually your soul’s way of brin­ging dee­per issues to your atten­tion.” Hog­wash! And thy­roid patient Mary Sho­man has rightly proc­lai­med that “thy­roid disease is NOT your fault, des­pite what Dr. North­rup says.”

But the issue goes even further. Oprah implies, by her own expe­rience, that taking a month vaca­tion and eating fresh foods is enough to make one well from thy­roid disease?? Dou­ble hog­wash! Thy­roid patients seek to live some of the healthiest lifesty­les there are. All you have to do is observe the con­ver­sa­tions in most any inter­net thy­roid patient talk group, and you will see daily posts on the best sup­ple­ments to take, healthiest foods to eat, and best ways to de-stress our lives. We are ove­rall a VERY edu­ca­ted group of patients about health, and we prac­tice it. We HAVE to be in light of how poorly edu­ca­ted most of our doc­tors are about our thy­roid disease. And in spite of all the above, our thy­roid con­di­tion per­sists.

What has CHANGED our lives is lea­ving the scan­dal of T4-only treat­ment in the dust, and lear­ning about desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, switching to it, and dosing accor­ding to the eli­mi­na­tion of symp­toms, NOT simply labs. We have also faced the fact that at least 50% of us have adre­nal fati­gue, which lea­ves us impa­tient and angry, with hea­daches and body aches, chro­nic back pain and body aches, a loss of pas­sion, and sleep issues. And we have tread new ground in our know­ledge on how to treat it, when many of our doc­tors pooh-pooh the rea­lity of adre­nal fatigue.

I love ya, Oprah, as do millions of women out there. But taking a month vaca­tion and eating fresh foods does NOT cure our thy­roid disease. So time will tell what went on with you! So now, all we can do is hope eter­nal that Oprah will get on the pla­net that the rest of us live on, and help us to spread the word as to why millions of thy­roid patients have been suf­fe­ring and about a far bet­ter treat­ment. If you can con­ti­nue to have per­sis­tence, you can email her here. STOP the thy­roid madness!

P.S. Go here to read thy­roid patient Anna’s humo­rous expe­rience with follo­wing the same kind of advice given on Oprah’s show.