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.

*Want to be infor­med of these blogs? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the lower left of the links.

*Scroll down to the June 2^nd 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.…..

*Want to be infor­med of Janie’s blog posts? Curious what’s on her mind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tion link to the bot­tom left of the links.

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.

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.

Want to be infor­med about my blog posts? Curious what I’m ran­ting about? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links.

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.

Want to be infor­med of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my nind? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the bot­tom of the links to the left.