thyroid tags

Ans­wer: Most are duds.

On Mon­day, I had an enjo­ya­ble expe­rience with an excep­tion to the lemon cliche:  I was a guest on Dr. Ste­ven F. Hotze’s radio pro­gram Health and Well­ness Solu­tions, broad­cast live from Hous­ton, Texas.  You can lis­ten to a recor­ding of our con­ver­sa­tion here on the lower right under the hea­ding Dr. Hotze Radio in orange.

The com­mer­cials were like flies, zeroing in often and irri­ta­tingly. But we mana­ged to briefly men­tion both Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness as well as the Hotze Health & Well­ness Cen­ter.

And two things struck me about our friendly chat: first, Hotze men­tio­ned that he star­ted presc­ri­bing natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the 1990’s, far ahead of most doc­tors even today!  If only we knew.  And second, he made a quick men­tion of how disap­poin­ting most doc­tors are for patients, refe­rring to the STTM page called Give Me A Break. If you haven’t seen it, or it’s been awhile, you will find it both hila­rious and com­ple­tely sad.

And it all made me pon­der how in 2010, eight years after I per­so­nally found the life chan­ging desic­ca­ted thy­roid,  there are still so many family prac­ti­tio­ners and Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists kee­ping thy­roid patients sick all over the world, even if they mean well, even if they are good peo­ple, even if they do other diag­no­ses and treat­ments correctly.

So on one hand, it’s rea­lity that pro­gress is slow. But on the other hand, the thy­roid treat­ment wall of igno­rance is slowly tum­bling down about bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment thanks to patients who read about it and carry that infor­ma­tion into their doc­tors offices.

So perhaps over time, the lemons who prac­tice bad thy­roid treat­ment will become less and less pro­mi­nent in the name of enligh­ten­ment, wis­dom and LISTENING to patients.

P.S. And by way, if you are lucky enough to have found one of those docs who presc­ribe desic­ca­ted thy­roid, remem­ber that NO doc­tor is all-knowing. YOU live in your own body, and can have your OWN wis­dom and know­ledge. So expect the rela­tionship be a part­nership. And if you can’t get that part­nership, find a bet­ter doc­tor.

Want to read more about natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Go here.   To read my own story, go here.

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!

Please note: Dr. Lowe is NOT an MD or DO who see’s patients and can presc­ribe. He’s a thy­roid and fibro “researcher” with good know­ledge about T3,  fibro, meta­bo­lism, sup­ple­ments etc. Many ques­tions have been coming in which are already ans­we­red on STTM, or are more tar­ge­ted to a prac­ti­cing phy­si­cian, not a researcher. FYI.

On the heels of an infor­ma­tive and won­der­ful THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL on Talkshoe last week with Dr. John C. Lowe (see posts below), we’re going to do it again this coming Thurs­day, January 14^th.  Join us for Part 2!

Dr. Lowe is a fibrom­yal­gia, thy­roid, and meta­bo­lism researcher who has always been such a cham­pion for bet­ter diag­no­sis and treat­ment in thy­roid patients. He is Editor-in-Chief of the open access jour­nal www.thyroidscience.com as well as his own www.drlowe.com

And this time, Dr. Lowe is going to spend more time ans­we­ring  your spe­ci­fic ques­tions. Check out his web­si­tes above to get an idea what his exper­tise is, which inc­lu­des the use of T3,  Hashi­mo­tos autoim­mune thy­roid disease, iodine, fibrom­yal­gia, the tyranny of the TSH lab test, good sup­ple­ments, the FDA, and more.

So here’s your chance: think of one or two ques­tions you’d like to hear him ans­wer. Please, if you have more more than two,  narrow them down to the two most impor­tant, and keep them brief.  No excep­tions. Two max only, and brief.  Then use the Com­ments below to post them.  Be sure and check out if your ques­tions have already been asked in other comments.

I’ll be collec­ting the ques­tions ahead of time and will let him pre­view them. He wants to give you his best.

TIPS ABOUT TALKSHOE: Some repor­ted being boo­ted off and having to quickly rejoin. One step that may help is to down­load the Talk Shoe Live Pro ahead of time (takes 25 minu­tes for some) and use that soft­ware during the call, since it gives you far more sta­bi­lity.  Also, make SURE you have everything else clo­sed and/or not run­ning on your com­pu­ter at the same time you are in the Talkshoe call. I will also be chat­ting with Talkshoe sup­port and will get more ideas.

Also, don’t wait until the call occurs to men­tion your ques­tion. We found it dif­fi­cult to try collec­ting them on the Chat. Ask now!!

Yes, you can also call in live during the Call, but it’s good to first let me know your ques­tion here.

And finally, at a cer­tain point of those who join (after 300 on chat), Talkshoe par­ti­ci­pants are auto­ma­ti­cally una­ble to post on the chat. You can lis­ten, but no chat­ting. So if you want to chat, join as soon as the Call opens up, which is 15 minu­tes before the actual audio begins. Times for the audio are 9 pm Eas­tern, 8 pm Cen­tral, 7 Moun­tain, and 6 pm Pacific.

The Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness Talkshoe page: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc

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See the blog post below those about Lowe for a very insight­ful Guest Blog Post by Amy about her role as an Under­co­ver Thy­roid Advo­cate. Below that, you can read how I was wrong about what it was like to be thy­roid­less, and seve­ral great comments.

Anyone who lis­te­ned to the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call last night will know that we were lis­te­ning to a powerhouse of a man with an encyc­lo­pe­dia of valua­ble infor­ma­tion: Dr. John C. Lowe.

He is the author of an exhaus­tive book on Fibrom­yal­gia called The Meta­bo­lic Treat­ment of Fibrom­yal­gia, which explains how the pro­per diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism is a good choice in the treat­ment of fibro. He also owns drlowe.com and the research web­site Thy­roid Science.

I already knew he was great. He’s lis­ted in the Ack­now­led­ge­ments of the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book as one of a hand­ful of medi­cal pro­fes­sio­nals who pla­yed a huge role in edu­ca­ting and empo­we­ring patients all these years.  He, like the others, was a spring­board for patients to move for­ward in gai­ning far bet­ter infor­ma­tion about thy­roid treat­ment and everything else we have have lear­ned over the years!

And he has agreed to come back, since we had many more ques­tions to ask him! I’ll announce that when we secure a date.

Below are some high­lights from our talk with Dr. Lowe:

1. The use of high dose B-vitamins is very impor­tant for the thy­roid patient, and even more so when you are fee­ling bet­ter in your treat­ment. Thy­roid inc­rea­ses the pro­duc­tion of pro­tein, which dri­ves energy, and you’ll need the B’s to help this higher energy production.
2. Sadly, it’s eco­no­mics which domi­nant science and and researching, and it’s all for mar­ke­ting pur­po­ses ins­tead of the pur­suit of truth and the real health of patients.
3. What dri­ves your medi­cal inves­ti­ga­tions? To gain wealth, or to help patients?
4. 75% of the time, if a doc­tor uses the TSH to either diag­nose hypo or treat it, he will be wrong.
5. In the 1980’s, the top of the TSH range was 7.5.
6. Abbott Labs, the makers of Synth­roid, gives one million dollars in an unres­tric­ted edu­ca­tio­nal grant to the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist (AACE) i.e. no won­der Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists have a love affair with Synth­roid, a medi­ca­tion like other brands which has left the vast majo­rity of us under­trea­ted. You can read more details from Lowe on this sub­ject here.
7. Iso­cort, an OTC treat­ment for low cor­ti­sol, is pro­tec­ted by the 1994 Die­tary Sup­ple­ment Health and Edu­ca­tion Act.
8. HC, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, is water solu­ble. Iso­cort is fat solu­ble. Peo­ple need bile so the lipase enzy­mes are able to work on it.
9. There are no stu­dies to com­pare Iso­cort to HC, and should be.
10. If swa­llo­wing, take thy­roid one hour before eating for best absorp­tion. If meal will have a lot of fat, 3 – 4 hours before eating.
11. Elderly peo­ple have less Hydroch­lo­ric Acid and do a worse job absor­bing nutrients. (And so do under­trea­ted hypo patients, remin­ded Diane)  Betaine is a good sup­ple­ment to help.
12. Why it can be a bad idea to swa­llow thy­roid with meals: we never know how many com­pounds are in the food that will bind it, like cal­cium and iron.  T4 is the most badly absorbed.

To hear more, just click above and lis­ten to the recor­ded call. Thank you for being you, Dr. John C. Lowe.

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BRRRRR. In the US and many other coun­tries,  we are having one of the col­dest win­ters we’ve seen in a long time. And if you are out in it alot, you may need a tad more thy­roid meds to keep your­self optimal.