My mouth fell open when she told me!
I called Rhea on the phone today.
Earlier today, Rhea was in the one-operator beauty salon at the same time as my 90 year old mother-in-law: one getting her gray hair dried while the other got her grayer tresses rolled. And as conversations go in beauty salons, it turned to personal topics (which can range from one’s marital happiness to whether Mrytle’s boobs are real or expanded.) And one of those topics was about Rhea’s hypothyroidism as well as her daughter’s.
And of course, my very doting mother-in-law mentions the STTM book written by her daughter-in-law, Janie, and hands her a copy from the car. Long story short…Rhea wants me to call her.
The phone conversation went into the fact that she used to be on Armour, but then listened to a local doctor several years later who switched her to Synthroid – “a far more stable medication”. (not) Since she switched, she says she’s felt terrible for years, and has recently returned to Armour, and with the vast information in the book, understood now how she needed to raise.
And then came the shocker: THE DOCTOR WHO PUT HER ON ARMOUR WAS BRODA BARNES.
My eyes got as big as fiesta dinner plates and I exclaimed “THE Broda Barnes??” “Yes,” she replied. “I saw him in Loveland, Colorado and he was a darling man.” She proceeded to tell me that when doctors entered the room back then, you stood. And she remembers his wife being there, and being just as sweet as he. She recalled him saying that when he was in medical school, he was disappointed when the professor assigned him to study the thyroid gland. “Such a little puny gland”, he thought. “But today, 50 years later, I still have so much to learn about that little gland.”
For those who don’t know the name of Broda Barnes, he was the father of the desiccated thyroid movement and an authority on the thyroid. Even back then, he knew of the superiority of desiccated thyroid treatment like Armour, and prescribed it. He also wrote the classic Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness. His book and legacy kept the idea of Armour and desiccated thyroid alive all these years later when we, as patients, were paying attention.
Rhea is now up to 4 grains Armour and feeling much better, and may have to go a little higher before she’s optimal. Thank you, Rhea, for giving me and anyone reading this a little peek into the wonderful Broda Barnes.