synthroid tags

Yup, we’re all hea­ding in the same direc­tion — being just a tad older every sin­gle year and get­ting that first mai­ling from AARP.  Yup.

And get­ting older inc­rea­ses the inci­dence of thy­roid disease.

Even worse, those who acquire it at an older age are pro­bably going to go through the same bunk and bull those youn­ger have gone through – having depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, osteo­po­ro­sis or oste­pe­nia, weight gain, easy fati­gue, couch potato syn­drome, dry skin and hair, plus more––all clas­sic symp­toms of undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypothyroidism.

But older folks are told it’s all just part of aging so here’s your latest tablet for your handy-dandy Wal Mart pill box.

I recently found a great blog by Pam whose Feb. 23^rd, 2010 post is tit­led Older Women and Low Thy­roid. She tur­ned 65 in 2009 (and she looks a lot youn­ger) and wri­tes how she found her­self with hypothy­roid at a later age as well.  And Pam is WAY ahead of the game in her know­ledge. She unders­tands that most older folks are put on Synth­roid (which can be a lousy way to treat hypothy­roi­dism for many), that get­ting older means con­ver­sion from T4 to T3 can be more dif­fi­cult,  that being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid or T3-only just might be the bet­ter treat­ment, and you can get adre­nal fati­gue at an older age as well (thanks to poor treat­ment with T4, the TSH lab test, or being under­do­sed even on desic­ca­ted thyroid).

You can read Pam’s post here, as well as about the phone call from her friend who is 50 lbs over­weight, has brain fog, is out of work, has no energy…and voila – is on Synth­roid so it can’t POSSIBLY be her thy­roid. Sad. In fact, what has hap­pe­ned to Pam’s friend is what I keep sta­ting to those who feel they are just doing peachy on T4: watch out, because as you age, the truth about T4 will reveal itself!

Pam, I love your blog posts, and I’m going to hope to see more of those in the “vene­ra­ble age range” be just as wise as you are!!

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FDA HAS MADE A STATEMENT ABOUT NATURAL DESICCATED THYROID: Just before I was going to plop into my bed for the eve­ning, I chec­ked my noti­fi­ca­tions to dis­co­ver that right on the FDA web­site and their 2010 Drug Shor­ta­ges page (3^rd column up from bot­tom), it sta­tes: Forest reports manu­fac­tu­ring issues invol­ving the raw mate­rial and RLC reports inc­rea­sed demand. FDA has not orde­red Forest or RLC to remove these thy­roid (desic­ca­ted) tablets from the mar­ket. BINGO. I’ve been wai­ting for this for months, because though web­si­tes and groups were for­med last year as if we nee­ded to “res­cue” desic­ca­ted thy­roid from being ban­ned, I couldn’t join the fear­ful rally of a few because my gut was telling me something quite dif­fe­rent.  And a few others, I dis­co­ve­red, had the same fee­ling.  And hoo­ray! Our guts were right on!

Does this mean the FDA “gets it” about desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Maybe, or maybe not. Yes, their timing WAS awful last year with Time Caps Labs, right when we were star­ting a shor­tage. And there does appear to be some kind of future requi­re­ment “pro­ving” the safety and effi­cacy of dess. thy­roid – two things we ALREADY KNOW from 110 years of safe and effec­tive use. Duhhh on the FDA. But it’s FAR more hope­ful now, and rea­lis­tic, and will hope­fully pro­mote more rea­so­na­ble thin­king from now on.

Onward and upward, folks.

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Natu­reth­roid is coming back in phar­ma­cies all over the US! See the blog post below or here for infor­ma­tion about  the “new” Naturethroid.

(If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to come directly to the site where you can Comment).

Just one more remin­der here: this Wed­nes­day night on Talkshoe, I’ll be inter­vie­wing a cou­ra­geous doc­tor, Kent Hol­torf, MD, who is making a stand for far bet­ter hypothy­roid treat­ment that goes beyond the TSH lab test and T4 alone like Synth­roid, et al.  He is also a medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nal who has pla­yed a huge role in edu­ca­ting us about RT3 , aka Reverse T3. This is a man you’ll want to get to know, because I have a strong fee­ling he’s going to gain even more media atten­tion because of his cou­ra­geous stands!

Join us as I chat with him about the recent Today Show piece where an Endo said he was simply “laying on of hands”, this WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17^th at 6 pm Paci­fic, 7 pm Moun­tain, 8 pm Cen­tral, and 9 pm Eas­tern, right on your computer’s audio on STTM’s Talkshoe Call web­page (below). Call in to ask ques­tions, too. MARK YOUR CALENDER! SET YOUR CELL PHONE ALARM! This is one intro­duc­tion that I’m going to have fun with, don’t ya think??

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

Want to learn more about him to bet­ter appre­ciate this Com­mu­nity Call?

• His clinic’s web­site: http://www.holtorfmed.com/
• About him: http://www.fibro360.com/dr-kent-holtorfs-story.htm
• His new web­site tar­ge­ted to doc­tors: http://nahypothyroidism.org/
• His info about RT3: http://www.holtorfmed.com/topics/thyroid/reverse-t3-is-the-best-measurement-of-tissue-thyroid-levels

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Have something to say? Use the Com­ment func­tion at the bot­tom of this blog post. If you are rea­ding this via the News­let­ter email noti­fi­ca­tion, just click on the title of this blog post to take you directly to the actual blog post.

I’ve been dis­trac­ted the past week, having to do exten­sive research and tra­ve­ling to find the per­fect “new used car”.

Then I caught a cold from hell – rare for me.  I was taking zinc and Vit. C. But a good friend remin­ded me about Vit. D and it’s immune enhan­cing effect. OMG, I for­got about it!  So later last night, I took what I thought was 12,000 IU on the first night of being sic­ker than a dog.  They say to take 1000 mg per 10 lbs of weight. Tur­ned out the gel caps were not 1000 IU each, as I thought, but 2000 IU each. So I ended up taking 22,000 IU.  lol. But the long and short of it is this: though I woke up this mor­ning quite tired and weak, I’ve slowly got­ten bet­ter all day!! My con­ges­tion has hugely impro­ved.  Read this: http://pandemicsurvivor.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/eliminate-the-common-cold/

Love your green pow­der drink? Just a word of cau­tion: much of what is in many of those pow­de­red greens are goi­tro­gens, which inhi­bit thy­roid pro­duc­tion, such as wheat grass, bar­ley grass, broc­coli, spi­nach,  cab­bage, maca and spi­nach, plus much more. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the green pow­der. You’ll just have to be sure to use it in mode­ra­tion, and not con­sume too many other goi­tro­gen foods each and every day. Or, raise your thy­roid meds.

Dr. Peter Gott can give even bet­ter infor­ma­tion to rea­ders. I noti­ced that a column on the Tulsa web­site by Peter Gott, MD of the News­pa­per Enter­prise Asso­cia­tion  could have given dif­fe­rent infor­ma­tion to a dis­tres­sed rea­der who couldn’t find Armour anywhere.  He recom­men­ded to this rea­der, who already sta­ted that Synth­roid is not a well-handled treat­ment, to see if her phy­si­cian could “alter the Synth­roid dosage to find a level”  that could be tole­ra­ted.  Actually, there are far bet­ter options during this bac­kor­de­red time, which I have com­pi­led here, and inc­lu­des Erfa’s Thy­roid and more.

Natu­reth­roid is appea­ring in phar­ma­cies! Yup, patients are repor­ting it! No, it’s not all phar­ma­cies. But you might want to call and see if YOUR local phar­macy has it. Other­wise, it’s coming.  For options during the current natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid shor­ta­ges, go here. To see why we are where we are today, read this.

Is there research to prove having a free T3 in the upper quar­ter of the range when on desic­ca­ted thy­roid?? A gal emai­led me, wan­ting stu­dies to show her doc. But unfor­tu­na­tely, the ans­wer appears to be no. Ins­tead, this is what patients all over thy­roid groups dis­co­ve­red from their lab results when they were fee­ling fabu­lous again with no lin­ge­ring symp­toms.  So we simply spread the word. Patient expe­rien­ces DO count for something.  P.S. Here’s an ongoing list of research that DOES prove some things patients KNOW first hand.  And by the way, when you have a high free T3 and con­ti­nuing symp­toms, time to do labs for ferri­tin and adre­nal fati­gue.

By using a code, you can save on labs from Healthchec­kUSA. I was infor­med from Healthchec­kUSA that many patients were for­get­ting to men­tion the dis­count code. So look again, and be sure and use it from the Recom­men­ded Lab­work page.

Janie on radio shows, and a great guest for the upco­ming Talkshoe Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call. Can’t say much more, because it’s in the works. Watch for announ­ce­ments soon.

A new way to be infor­med of these thy­roid posts. The for­mer Noti­fi­xious noti­fi­ca­tions went out of busi­ness. But we have a new and GOOD one, refe­rring to the noti­fi­ca­tion as a new­let­ter, and you can sign up free and with no strings attached.  See on left below on the links.   Also, there are many more impor­tant posts right below this.

Yes­ter­day, I was mean­de­ring through a small biking/river run­ners store, exchan­ging a vest I got my son for Christ­mas that tur­ned out to be too large, and loo­king intently for a repla­ce­ment gift he’d like.

The only other shop­per left — a tall, dark and hand­some young man. And almost as quickly, he re-entered,  approached me, and asked if that was my car out there.

“My car?” I replied. “Yes, why?”

“I’m curious about the stic­ker you have on your back win­dow,” he sta­ted with a friendly but curious smile.

The stic­ker is of Cal­vin peeing on the word of a par­ti­cu­lar T4-only medi­ca­tion.  I give these away free if someone requests it with their current order of the STTM book.  And this was not the first time I’ve been asked about that attention-getting sticker.

So I pro­cee­ded to tell him that I’m a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist, owner of Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness, about the his­tory of T4, how lousy many patients have repor­ted doing on it for nearly 60 years with their own variety and inten­sity of lin­ge­ring hypo symp­toms, and how much bet­ter natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been for patients all over the world.

I then inno­cently asked: “Are you on Synth­roid?” I just knew I had one more vic­tim of this treat­ment who nee­ded enlightenment.

“Nope”,  he said with a con­fi­dent and defiant air.  “I have until recently been a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal rep with Abbott Labs.”

THWACK.   Stan­ding before me stood a mighty well-trained Big Pharma cham­pion for Synth­roid who was going to reveal and defend his pro­pa­ganda like a mas­ter. And that led to the most hea­ted and pier­cing give-and-take I’ve ever expe­rien­ced, right in front of the cha­gri­ned and wide-eyed sales per­son at the chec­kout desk. We were like sumo wrest­lers but­ting our words against each other.

When I explai­ned the slew of con­ti­nuing symp­toms repor­ted by patients world­wide who have been on T4, and no mat­ter how high they rai­sed it…his res­ponse?  “Those symp­toms can be the result of many issues other than hypothy­roi­dism.“

I res­pon­ded: “Well isn’t it odd that those who are hypo and on Synth­roid, and who get on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, find those symp­toms com­ple­tely removed.”

His reply?? “Heroin can do the same thing”.  Groan. I simply had to laugh at him. How many times have we heard the same kind of baloney.

He pro­cee­ded to tell me in great detail with each point he made that:

1. He has wor­ked with many patients and they do well on Synth­roid (A rep has wor­ked with many patients? And what in the world does “well” mean?)
2. Cli­ni­cal trials have pro­ven that Synth­roid works. (Ah! You mean those finan­ced by Abbott Labs and which are con­trary to the repor­ted expe­rience of millions of patients around the world? Those??)
3. The TSH lab test gives proof about the effi­cacy of T4 (Funny how patients all over the world have pro­ven by their con­ti­nuing symp­toms that the TSH lab test for the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism belongs at the bot­tom of a trash heap)
4. There are many dif­fe­ren­ces in the effi­cacy of T4 brands to explain any issues in patients (Funny how not ONE brand of T4 has been exempt from lea­ving con­ti­nuing symp­toms accor­ding to the glo­bal rex­pe­rience of a huge body of patients) 
5. Bla­ming T4 for the amount of adre­nal fati­gue that “sup­po­sedly” some T4-treated patients find them­sel­ves with is silly since there can be other rea­sons for it. (Another laugh on my part.  Clearly, when someone isn’t ade­qua­tely trea­ted on T4, something has to kick in to keep them going, and voila – it’s those trusty dusty adre­nals which even­tually just poop out thanks to T4 and the TSH.)

There were much more machine gun stan­ces bet­ween us, but that would make this blog post far too long.

One truth we did agree on? That “some” patients do get bene­fit from using T4. He spe­ci­fi­cally refe­rred to the elderly. And my quick res­ponse? Why accept “some” when patients all over the world report get­ting rid of that “some” with desic­ca­ted thy­roid (and espe­cially for cer­tain ones who also treat their low cor­ti­sol, low ferri­tin, and other issues most likely rela­ted to an infe­rior treatment.)

Clearly, we were each dead­loc­ked in our posi­tions.  And he conc­lu­ded, loo­king at the sales asso­ciate, that neither of us were wrong; we just repre­sen­ted two sides.

And I tur­ned my head, loo­ked him straight in the eye, and said:  Uhhh, no. YOU are com­ple­tely and totally wrong.

P.S. After he left, the sales gal said she was totally in tune with what I was saying, and wrote down the name of this web­site. lol lol

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See the blog post below about favo­red Cana­dian phar­ma­cies, plus many more com­ments by patients.

What the heck is going on with desic­ca­ted thy­roid and current shor­ta­ges? Read about it here.

When the shor­ta­ges hit the Uni­ted Sta­tes for natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in 2009, we all had to figure out which way to turn, since the 110-year-old natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid has been a far, far bet­ter treat­ment for our hypothy­roid state than levothy­ro­xine T4-only such as Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Eltro­xin, Oro­xine, etc.

Addi­tio­nally, Armour thy­roid by Forest Labs was refor­mu­la­ted in early 2009, and patients world­wide repor­ted a return of symp­toms as well a stress on their adre­nals.  So patients star­ted an exo­dus away from Armour.

Luc­kily, the FDA loo­se­ned res­tric­tions and allo­wed us to order the Cana­dian brand by Erfa Canada Inc, called simply “Thy­roid”.   Erfa’s Thy­roid pro­ved to be an exce­llent desic­ca­ted thy­roid for most, espe­cially if they rai­sed high enough once again to rid them of symp­toms.  And since it con­tains suc­rose, patients have been able to do it sublin­gually – a method which is not neces­sary for bene­fits, but is pre­fe­rred by many.

I gathe­red a list of known Cana­dian online phar­ma­cies, which you can view on the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment page.

And just recently, I sought opi­nions from patients about the phar­ma­cies they have used:

Uni­ver­sal Drugs­tore aka Cana­dian Phar­macy Online: This phar­macy recei­ved the grea­test kudos from US patients and with the best prices.

• Awe­some — good pri­ces and fast, friendly ser­vice. Will call your drug store and get your Armour script transferred.
• Faxed my presc­rip­tion and it was mai­led the next day. I believe it took a week and a few days to arrive to Florida.
• Great cus­to­mer ser­vice, easy orde­ring, and was chea­per than paying the co-pay with my insu­rance. It takes about 10 to 14 busi­ness days to get your presc­rip­tion, accor­ding to the com­pany, but mine came soo­ner than that and it was the holi­day mail rush season!
• Rapid ser­vice, exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, email remin­ders to refill, coupons
• They had the best price and were very pro­fes­sio­nal and effi­cient.  My order arri­ved within ten days.
• I paid $43.25 for 200 60 mg pills
• Online forms were easy. I faxed my presc­rip­tions and recei­ved my Thy­roid in twelve days for $7 shipping

Phar­ma­cies Online:

• Easy to regis­ter and the cus­to­mer ser­vice was exce­llent. I faxed my presc­rip­tion. A phar­ma­cist called me to see if I had any ques­tions. I paid $45.63 inc­lu­ding ship­ping for 100 60mg pills

Cross Bor­der Phar­macy:

• Exce­llent cus­to­mer ser­vice, great pri­ces, two week arri­val from date of order, wish phar­ma­cies here were this good.

Canada Drugs Online:

• Good expe­rience, prompt (7 – 10) days ser­vice get­ting my Erfa thyroid

See more recom­men­da­tions in the Com­ments sec­tion for this post. And I’m going to hope that no phar­macy “uses” this to adver­tise their phar­macy. This is FOR PATIENT COMMENTS ONLY.

What has been your expe­rience with online Cana­dian Phar­ma­cies? Do I need to remove any from the Options for Thy­roid Treat­ment for any rea­son? Do I need to add any?

ARE YOU A CANADIAN PATIENT ON DESICCATED THYROID? Use the Con­tact Me form if you’d like to be inter­vie­wed by a well-known Cana­dian repor­ter about desic­ca­ted thy­roid in Canada. I’ll need your name and email address. You need to con­tact me before Mon­day, January 25.

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Recent blog posts worth reading:

Read a guy’s email to me about his expe­rience with doc­tors being afraid of HC, which patients know is safe and WORKS!

Will the FDA be more trans­pa­rent for thy­roid patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid with their new initiative?

Lis­ten to the second inter­view, Epi­sode 9, I had with Dr. John C. Lowe. What a bri­lliant man!