T4-only tags

I’ve been perusing comments in response to the UK’s Royal College of Physicians blundering and dark-age-constructed Diagnosis and treatment of primary hypothyroidism.  And though all comments are quite good and worth your read, I was struck by the comment titled May Reality Intrude? by a man named Charles.

Charles explains that in 1999, his 67-year-old wife had RAI (radioactive iodine) and was then put on levothyroxine, a T4-only medication (aka Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, Oroxine, levothyroxine, et al).  And not long after, she complained of having depression.

He had an idea why after reading the New England Journal of Medicine about T3, and proceeded to buy her Armour off the internet.  Without her knowing, he switched medications. Lo and behold, he states “she promptly returned to her usual sunny disposition”. Her physician knew nothing of the switch either, and found nothing to be concerned about in her.

Charles then explained how, at age 74 in 2007, she was near death thanks to an ulcer bleed.  And to continue treating her hypothyroidism, the hospital gave her levothyroxine all over again.  Back came her depression and a feeling of wanting to go home and die.

So Charles brought her Armour to the hospital, and though her physical state was depressing enough, her sunny disposition returned.  And that happy spirit while still on Armour continues today after a full recovery.

And Charles pondered. If his wife had been in a NHS (National Health Service) hospital under the care of a so-called thyroid specialist of the NHS, would she have failed to obtain T3 and instead, sent to a psychiatrist as if her depression had nothing to do with her levothyroxine treated hypothyroidism–the very treatment that the Royal College of Physicians has a dogmatic love affair with?

He then concludes: My wife’s depression was obvious. Since she is equipped with much the same assortment of body parts and associated physiology as others, is it not likely that many levothyroxine-treated patients suffer from less-noticeable depression?

Well Charles, most any thyroid patient who decides to respond to this will tell you unequivacably YES, YES, YES.  Because there’s no research, study or directive that is more profound and telling than the actual EXPERIENCE of patients all over the world with T4 treatment and depression…besides a slew of other side effects of continuing hypothyroidism on T4-only meds.

Did you have depression on a T4 med? Tell us about your experience in the Comments section of this post.

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*Scroll down to the June 2nd post and report your experience on the newly formulated Armour. It’s not a happy picture.

Jessica Terry is an 18 year old student at Washington State high school in the Bay Area who had years of problems which doctors couldn’t figure out: vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and stomach pains.  Doctors said she had irritable bowel syndrome or colitis, and said her intestinal tissue was just fine according to slides.

Yet, she just knew that wasn’t correct.

So she took some of her own intestinal tissue to her Biomedical Problems class, and voila…she diagnosed her own problem:  granuloma, and specifically, Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of her intestines.

Sound familiar??

Yup, thyroid patients have had to do the exact same thing–self-diagnose– for almost ten years because of continuing symptoms of hypothyroidism which doctors have routinely dismissed, pooh-poohed or blamed on something else.  It’s all been a horrific, wide-reaching and damaging 50 year medical scandal by the medical establishment upon thyroid patients.

And why has this calamity occurred? Because doctors have always been hoodwinked by their medical school training, continuing education and Big-Pharma-financed-research in believing that T4-only thyroxine medications like Synthroid, Levoxyl, Levothyroxine, Eltroxin, et. al. were from God Almighty, and the TSH lab test was just as holy.

And thanks to thyroid patients around the world who had the gall to use the internet and join patient groups, we figured out it’s all because those medications and labwork have not worked, and what has worked. Additionally, it was patients who discovered they had adrenal fatigue and/or low ferritin and how to treat it, and patients who have succeeded in beginning a wave of change around the world in the treatment and diagnosis of hypothyroidism (except for the UK, who has gone backwards to the dark ages).

You can read Jessica’s story first reported in the Sammamish Reporter,  and only recently reported to a wider audience in the Bay Area News newspaper. She also spoke to a CNN affiliate.

Thanks to Kem on NTH for informing me of this news.

P.S. Do ya think that any newspapers or major news outlets like CNN are going to finally get what a huge story thyroid patients have given them?? We’re still waiting……

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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 5th 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 7th 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.

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I’ve been noticing several articles coming out the past week about a strong association between hypothyroidism and a twice the risk of liver disease and liver cancer, especially in females. And then it dawned on me: another strong reason to play basketball with your trashcan using your lousy Synthroid, Levoxyl, Levothroxine or Eltroxin bottles while being replaced with desiccated thyroid.

In other words, continued hypothyroidism (being on the lousy T4 meds) and undiagnosed hypothyroidism (because of the inadequacy of the TSH lab test) can potentially promote the development of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a more severe Fatty Liver disease. The next progression is liver cancer, aka hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Even worse, the study revealed that women who had been hypothyroid for more than 10 years had a threefold higher risk of liver cancer compared to women without a history of thyroid disorders. This will make you pause when you consider how many reports there are of patients having hypothyroid symptoms for YEARS with a normal TSH…and a clueless, TSH-worshipping doctor.

And if reading this bores you, understand that your liver is a HIGHLY important gland that you can’t live without. It plays a key role in detoxifying the toxins you ingest and breath in daily (including smoking), besides being a major fat burner.  Make the liver diseased, and you become a breeding ground for toxins, the rise of other diseases…then death.

The solution? Run from TSH-kissing doctors, get on desiccated thyroid like Naturethroid et. al.  and avoid the most common mistakes of dosing while ceasing to smoke, curtailing the alcohol, and eating healthy (except for the daily dose of chocolate I gotta have. haha).

P.S. The original report came out in the May journal issue of Hepatology (published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases).  Similar results were also reported in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2005.

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See below about my disappointment in Forest Pharmaceuticals.

Before my thyroid disease of hypothyroidism was discovered, I had horrific and debilitating consequences from exercise or any activity.  You can read about it all here or even more detail in the Introduction of the patients-to-patients Stop the Thyroid Madness book.

When my so-called “borderline hypothyroid” was discovered by age 30, I thought whoo-hooo, I’ll finally get rid of this strange nightmare whenever I tried to do ANYTHING.  I was put on Synthroid and my anticipation for a better life was profound.

But my hope was dashed. Not only did my body continue to overreact to activity, it got worse over time.  Horribly worse.  Nearly twenty years after I had started on a T4-only medication, and was told by one doctor after another that my problem was not my thyroid, I was going to apply for social security disability.

But they were all dead wrong. Sure, turns out I have a form of Dysautonomia, a malfunction and overreaction of my autonomic nervous system, causing my body to far overreact to stress. But remaining hypothyroid, as we all do on the sucky t4-only medications, had made it far worse. And I proved it. When I switched to Armour desiccated thyroid in 2002 and raised it according to what patients have learned, a miracle occurred.  My severe autonomic reactions made an almost complete turnaround.

And my experience of change or improvement when it comes to other diseases or conditions has been shared by others.

Last week, I received an email from a man whose brother has MS–Multiple Sclerosis.  And though Armour has not taken his MS away, it allowed him to move from this wheelchair to a walker! That is impressive.

So I am left wondering:  what other conditions or diseases, which are unique in themselves, are worsened being undiagnosed thanks to the lousy TSH lab test or the inadequate treatment of Synthroid, Levoxyl, levothyroxine, Eltroxin and all other T4-only medications? It’s awful to think about it.

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