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STTM’s Armour-vs-other-brands page now has infor­ma­tion on desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Den­mark, Ger­many and Italy: www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/armour-vs-other-brands Thanks go to Julia Hendryx for aler­ting me about the brand in Denmark!

If I need to add more info or correc­tions, please use the Con­tact Me form at the bot­tom of any page on Stop the Thy­roid Madness.

THIS PATIENT REVOLUTION for a bet­ter hypothy­roid treat­ment is wor­king! Desic­ca­ted thy­roid brands which were almost extinct from low use are now seeing a come­back. Another come­back?? PATIENT HEALTH!! T4-only meds do NOT work, unless an ele­va­tor which only goes to the 5^th floor of a 50 story building.…works. My quote; my words.

p.s. See the post below about the impor­tance of your potas­sium levels, and below that, how being hypothy­roid can affect your liver, and my opi­nion of that fact with T4 meds vs. desic­ca­ted thy­roid, which one com­ment disa­grees with.  For the May 7^th post, com­ments are still coming in about the “New” Armour. Express yours, and let’s hope that just rai­sing it will do the trick, in spite of the loss of being able to do it sublin­gually as easy as before – a sad loss.

*Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the bot­tom left of the links.

In 2002, when I first got on desic­ca­ted thy­roid and it abso­lu­tely chan­ged my life, it hap­pe­ned to be the brand name called Armour by Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.  And I swoo­ned.  You could do it sublin­gually (even if it wasn’t made that way), and I prai­sed Armour for that. So did other patients after we spread the word on patient groups, on the STTM web­site and in the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book.

My fond­ness for Armour did not take away my prai­ses for other presc­rip­tion brands, though, inc­lu­ding Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid by RLC Labs.  I simply made a doe-eyed com­mit­ment to Armour for my per­so­nal treat­ment because you could do it sublin­gually. I have also used the name “Armour” interchan­geably to repre­sent all good desic­ca­ted thy­roid products.

But because of a suc­ces­sion of three events, I think it’s time to give back my going-steady ring.

The first blow to my romance with Armour cen­te­red around the extreme tight-lipped sec­recy from Forest when the refor­mu­la­tion of Armour began. We can sur­mise the trou­ble begin in 2007 when patients were fin­ding Armour in the lar­ger sizes to be sud­denly inef­fec­tive.  For the entire year of 2008, sup­plies were extre­mely limi­ted and only the one grain size or lower could be found, if at all.  Patients were worried and unhappy.  I even sup­por­ted Forest in my blog posts, assu­ring patients that everything would be fine.  But Forest said prac­ti­cally nothing. Why was and is Forest mum about why this was happening ?

The second blow to our courtship was the change to the “refor­mu­la­ted” Armour. Sud­denly, patients find that doing Armour sublin­gually was a thing of the past. Now all we get is a never-ending chalky pasty resi­due.  Addi­tio­nally, many patients have been repor­ting that the amount of Armour that once remo­ved all symp­toms, was now brin­ging them back.  Huh?? In spite of an appa­rent draw­back in some batches in 2007, why would Forest take an effec­tive pro­duct and change it?

And the third and final straw to my affair of the heart? I made a phone call to Forest using the same 800 num­ber you all can use. That was Tues­day, May 5^th. My intent was to ask about the word anhy­drous which is now after the ingre­dient dex­trose in the Armour ingre­dients lis­ting. (It means that all mois­ture has been with­drawn, but I wan­ted to con­firm the details for the brands page.)  When I reached the repre­sen­ta­tive for Forest, and after she asked my name and I gave it (oops),  the tune of the con­ver­sa­tion chan­ged.  She said she could not ans­wer my ques­tion since I own a public web­site, and would have to inform the “Media group” from Forest, and they would call me back. When I asked when, the ans­wer was a vague as Synth­roid is in trea­ting hypothy­roi­dism i.e. she didn’t know. I even called back the next day to get the same drib­ble.   Why have repre­sen­ta­ti­ves on the Forest hot­line been ins­truc­ted not to ans­wer a sim­ple ques­tion from someone like myself,  and I still have not recei­ved a phone call from Forest?

Sob.  Yup, brea­king up is hard to do, but a gal can only take so much strange betra­yal, tight-lipped silence…and igno­ring a sim­ple ques­tion from someone who has done a LOT to put money in their poc­kets out of extreme gra­ti­tude. Besi­des, there’s another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal cour­ting me at my door:  RLC Labs. Thank good­ness there are other fish in the sea.

Last week, I had found my blood pres­sure quite high for me! Upper 140’s and some 150’s for my Sys­to­lic, and upper 90’s and lower 100’s for my Dias­to­lic.   Stage One hyper­ten­sion!  I was pretty sure my 4 grains may sud­denly be a tad too high since ente­ring meno.  My temps and hear­trate implied that, too.

I got off Armour for two days to use up some excess, got back on one, then on 2 grains multi-dosed.  My plan is to make my way back up to 3 1/2 grains by a week or slightly more…and see.

In the mean­time, I have been using some blood pres­sure lowe­ring sup­ple­ments (high dose potas­sium, grape seed extract, Braggs Apple Cider Vine­gar in juice, more CoQ10 than nor­mal, plus my regu­lar sup­ple­ments).  I was more faith­ful to my tread­mill wal­king (thanks to an April that still thinks it’s win­ter), and medi­ta­ting. The lat­ter two defi­ni­tely hel­ped lower both the Sys­to­lic and Dias­to­lic, even if not low enough for my ideal.

For the last five days, my BP rea­dings have still been too high. All those days, I had been sea­ted on our couch. I put a pillow in my lap, laying my arm on that pillow, which meant my arm was slightly down­ward.  Some­ti­mes my wrist would hang off the pillow.

Today, I deci­ded I wan­ted to test something I have read. Namely, it’s actually quite impor­tant how you place your arm. The recom­men­ded way is pla­cing your arm per­pen­di­cu­lar to your body and at the height of your heart or a tad higher, all while com­for­ta­ble res­ting on something.  Elbow can be fle­xed, but your arm must still be per­pen­di­cu­lar to your body and about heart height or slightly higher.

Below are four of my most recent after­noon BP rea­dings with pulse: two with the Left arm, then two with the Right arm.

L:  139/106   98  (arm han­ging down and res­ting on sea­ted leg)
L:  122/88 89  (arm up, per­pen­di­cu­lar to my body, sup­por­ted by pillows)
R:  141/87     92  (arm han­ging down and res­ting on pillow)
R:  123/85 89 (arm up, per­pen­di­cu­lar to my body, sup­por­ted by pillows)

What you should note is that the first L rea­ding, and the first R rea­ding, were with the arm rela­xed on a pillow but lower than my heart.  The second of each is with the arm on two pillows, put­ting it per­pen­di­cu­lar to my heart,  with elbow fle­xed, and all of arm com­ple­tely supported.

I was shoc­ked! Put­ting my arms in what research is saying is the CORRECT posi­tion gave me much bet­ter rea­dings. I am VERY plea­sed with the 122 and 123.  Much bet­ter. And though the 88 and 83 Dias­to­lics are not to my liking yet, and tell me I need more work, the dif­fe­rence bet­ween the arm posi­tions was stunning.…as is the dif­fe­rence in what I’ve been get­ting for five days.

More info: it was brought to my atten­tion that taking a second BP rea­ding is usually always lower any­way. Ah, I thought, that’s correct! So to test this infor­ma­tion based on research, I went back last night before bed­time. First took my BP with my arm in the upper correct posi­tion. Then the second time, took it with my arm down.

138/89 (up per­pen­di­cu­lar to body; level with heart) pulse 80
146/100 (arm down) pulse 82

The second did NOT go down. It went UP! Interesting.

*Want to be infor­med of the STTM blog pos­tings?? Curious what’s on my mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions to the left at the bot­tom of the links.

**Are you in the US and want to help make sure we don’t end up like the UK, having our Armour taken away?? In the post below, I have given you SEVEN STEPS that I hope you will follow through on!  YOU can make a dif­fe­rence.

With the recent blog post by health wri­ter Mary Sho­mon con­cer­ning Dr. Sid­ney Wolfe’s new 4-year term with the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Mana­ge­ment Advi­sory Com­mit­tee, there has been much brooha and fear-mongering on thy­roid patient groups.

Why? Well look at it this way. This is a man of sta­ture. He is an MD, an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Medi­cine, the direc­tor of Public Citizen’s health research group which pro­mo­tes drug safety and public health, and edi­tor of the news­let­ter Worst Pills, Best Pills, and since August of  ’08, a mem­ber of the Drug Safety Com­mit­tee.  He also has a resume a mile long.

Yet in spite of his see­mingly caring acti­vism for our health and well-being, and his immense expe­rience and edu­ca­tion, he is clearly and com­ple­tely off-base about Armour and other desic­ca­ted thy­roid presc­rip­tion drugs.

For exam­ple, as as edi­tor of the Worst Pills, Best Pills news­let­ter,  Wolfe dec­la­red Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid as a “Do Not Use” pro­duct because it is not ade­qua­tely gua­ran­teed to pro­vide appro­priate blood levels of thy­roid hor­mone and relia­ble alter­na­ti­ves are avai­la­ble”. (Gee, funny how our expe­rien­ces are com­ple­tely other­wise.…)

Then in the May 2003 issue (of which you have to have a paid presc­rip­tion to read), he wrote an article tit­led  “Do Not Use! Natu­ral or Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid (ARMOUR THYROID) For Thy­roid Hor­mone Repla­ce­ment The­rapy.” In that article, the clue­less Wolfe sta­ted that he sup­por­ted The Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Association’s sta­te­ment “There is no evi­dence that desic­ca­ted thy­roid, a bio­lo­gi­cal pre­pa­ra­tion, has any advan­tage over synthe­tic thy­ro­xine.” (I guess millions of us and our impro­ved hear­trate, sta­mina, cho­les­te­rol, depres­sion and more…aren’t evi­dence?)

He then pro­po­ses that Armour is mostly presc­ri­bed for weight loss, is a niche mar­ket for the unsc­ru­pu­lous, and conc­lu­des with “if you are offe­red natu­ral thy­roid hor­mone repla­ce­ment treat­ment for any rea­son, this is a red flag and you should get a second opi­nion.” In a let­ter to con­su­mers, Wolfe and Public Citi­zen state that that T3 is only nee­ded from con­ver­sion and is pre­dic­tably found from con­ver­sion, that the T2 and T1 also found in desic­ca­ted thy­roid has essen­tially no acti­vity, that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is an unpre­dic­ta­ble mix­ture, that is has no pre­dic­ta­ble bio­lo­gi­cal acti­vity…plus so many more com­plete and total inac­cu­ra­cies based on “inte­llec­tual head chat­ter” not on obser­va­tion and experience.

Thud.

Mary Sho­mon, in 2003, did a bang-up job trying to com­mu­ni­cate with Wolfe, Worst Pills, Best Pills, and Public Citi­zen about the inac­cu­ra­cies of their beliefs and statements…basically to no avail. The TRUTH is here, and in more detail in Chap­ters 1 and 2 in the STTM book which are enligh­te­ning those rea­ding it all!

So we are left won­de­ring, six years later, what his four-year appoint­ment to this com­mit­tee will mean. But let’s make a few things quite clear to con­trast some of the fears going on and expres­sed on thy­roid groups:

1) Armour is not being ban­ned.
2) Wolfe is one of a current 9 mem­bers of this com­mit­tee. Wolfe is not “the com­mit­tee”.
3) Wolfe and seven others currently have voting rights. He is the only “Con­su­mer Repre­sen­ta­tive”.
4) There are still six more vacan­cies.
5) The com­mit­tee is NOT the power. They simply make recom­men­da­tions. And his­to­ri­cally, the FDA can be slow to act on their recom­men­da­tions, or doesn’t follow them at all (which is a GOOD thing when it comes to a SAFE and EFFECTIVE medi­ca­tion like desic­ca­ted thyroid).

So what can you do? I cha­llenge you to follow and act on the below, which puts our ener­gies into com­mu­ni­ca­tion, not fee­ding the ego and power of a mis­gui­ded man with our overtly expres­sed fears as if they have actually come to pass :

1) Remem­ber 1 – 5 above. Armour is fully avai­la­ble. Keep the facts straight, and fear-mongering down.

2) STTM has a power­ful and gro­wing page of tes­ti­mo­nies of those who switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid.  Are you in there? If not, you need to be. This web­site currently has a huge audience. It’s noti­ced by doc­tors all over the world, as is the STTM book, which is YOUR book of YOUR expe­rien­ces,  which is also being orde­red by doc­tors. Use the Con­tact Me form at the bot­tom of that page.

3) Tell your expe­rience with Synth­roid or other thy­ro­xine medi­ca­tions at the follo­wing web­si­tes:  www.rateadrug.com,  www.drugs.com,  www.askapatient.com They don’t inc­lude any of the desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds yet, but you can tell of the nega­tive expe­rien­ces with all the T4-only drugs, inc­lu­ding adre­nal fati­gue if you fell into that, and all your lin­ge­ring thy­roid symp­toms.  The above links will take you to their Synth­roid page – you can search for the other T4 meds.  Remem­ber to men­tion Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid meds and how they have hel­ped you!! Update: thy­roid patient Gina found the drugs.com Armour page: http://www.drugs.com/comments/thyroid-desiccated/armour-thyroid.html

4) Report your T4-only expe­rience to Med­Watch, the FDA’s  pro­gram for repor­ting pro­blems.  You will see an Online Repor­ting Form to down­load. Don’t fail to men­tion which pro­blems were remo­ved or greatly impro­ved when you switched to Armour, or the fact that you now have to deal with adre­nal fati­gue thanks to the ina­de­quacy of T4-only treat­ment. You can also call 1 – 800-FDA-1088, but remem­ber: your call is not to draw atten­tion to Wolfe’s opi­nions! It’s to draw atten­tion to how lousy a treat­ment T4 is as com­pa­red to how much bet­ter Armour has been.

5) Go to my article tit­led Synth­roid Sucks: the Rall­ying Cry of Thy­roid Patients vs. Clue­less Doc­tors and com­ment on this article, inc­lu­ding men­tio­ning what Armour, Natu­reth­roid or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid did for you. Rate it as well. Both keep this article in the media and in the eyes of others.

6) Go to www.medications.com where patients ask ques­tions and YOU can ans­wer, men­tio­ning YOUR expe­rience and how much bet­ter desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been. Clic­king on that will take you to the Synth­roid patient ques­tions. Ans­wer them. Be care­ful with links – they may not catch them at first, but will remove them if they do.  You can men­tion web­site names, tho, like Stop the Thy­roid Madness.

7) Send peo­ple here to follow all these steps. Power is in numbers!

8 ) Use the follo­wing web­site to email or write your sena­tors and repre­sen­ta­ti­ves: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ THEY DO READ THEM. And they will remem­ber this!  Here’s a tem­plate let­ter you can use:  www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/template-letter-to-your-senator-or-representive/

If you have other ideas and pla­ces to write or call, add your com­ment to this post. Remem­ber,  put your power in com­mu­ni­ca­tion! LOTS of communication.

P.S. Did you know that the Ame­ri­can Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion, in coo­pe­ra­tion with the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, together sup­port January as “Thy­roid Awa­re­ness Month”…which is sup­por­ted through an unres­tric­ted grant from Abbott Labo­ra­to­ries, the makers of Synth­roid?? Major UGH.

An intri­guing thought: what if there were lab pac­ka­ges spe­ci­fi­cally desig­ned by Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness and all its patient-to-patient wis­dom.  Well, there are!

STTM has crea­ted lab pro­fi­les in part­nership with MyMed­Lab, a direct-to-consumer lab faci­lity which has expan­ded to pro­vide ser­vi­ces to nearly the entire Uni­ted States

This lab faci­lity pro­mo­tes the empo­wer­ment of patients in their own care, simi­lar to STTM’s focus on edu­ca­ting the patient and expec­ting a part­nership when you walk into the doctor’s office. Empowerment!

You will find a com­bi­na­tion of both in-home collec­ted tests (saliva cor­ti­sol) and those per­for­med at Lab­Corp collec­tion sites across the US.   Take a Peak: STTM Lab pac­ka­ges (be sure and click on the green What’s Inc­lu­ded icon on the lower right. You get a lot!)