thyroxine tags

The Bri­tish Medi­cal Jour­nal (BMJ) recently came out with yet another thy­roid article, benignly tit­led Diag­no­sis and treat­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism and autho­red by the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion (BTA),  that at first blush, looks so caring.

Namely, they express deep con­cern that that since hypothy­roid symp­toms can mimic other con­di­tions, patients may be get­ting an inco­rrect diag­no­sis which could expose some patients to the harm­ful effects of excess thy­roid hor­mo­nes, while other serious con­di­tions may go undiagnosed.

And they add: In other patients, ade­quate repla­ce­ment with levothy­ro­xine does not resolve symp­toms, which are attri­bu­ted to hypothy­roi­dism rather than other con­di­tions that may coe­xist, such as depression.

The article con­ti­nues with:  Nor­ma­li­sa­tion of thy­roid sti­mu­la­ting hor­mone means a return to nor­mal health in most patients with pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism.

In other words, what you have above are the Three Stoo­ges of the sta­ted beliefs of the Bri­tish Thy­roid Association.

Stooge stated-belief #1: “Inco­rrect diag­no­sis allow other con­di­tions go undiag­no­sed” What is infe­rred is that there are a host of diag­no­ses of hypothy­roi­dism that are inco­rrect. Why? Because a wise phy­si­cian dared to lis­ten to clear symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism or use the free T3, in spite of a so-called “nor­mal” TSH – a lab test which mea­su­res a pitui­tary hor­mone, not the cells abi­lity to receive enough thy­roid hormones.

Stooge stated-belief #2: “If ade­quate doses of levothy­ro­xine do not resolve symp­toms, those symp­toms are due to something else.” That is akin to saying if eating 100 calo­ries a day results in mal­nu­tri­tion and star­va­tion, your mal­nu­tri­tion and star­va­tion is due to something else. And one par­ti­cu­lar symp­tom they are refe­rring to is depres­sion–a clas­sic symp­tom of undiag­no­sed and under­trea­ted hypothy­roi­dism in MILLIONS of indi­vi­duals around the world.  And isn’t it just odd how that depres­sion resol­ves itself when the patient is put on Armour and allo­wed to dose by the eli­mi­na­tion of symptoms.

Stooge stated-belief #3: “A nor­mal TSH lab result equals nor­mal health in those trea­ted for hypothy­roi­dism”. Gee, funny how millions of thy­roid patients around the world have had a so-called “nor­mal” TSH lab result along with a diverse blend of con­ti­nuing and CLEAR hypothy­roid symp­toms.  Addi­tio­nally, we have a large and gro­wing body of patients who, when they switched to Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid or other fine desic­ca­ted thy­roid presc­rip­tion meds,  had those symp­toms resol­ved when they were dosed accor­ding to the free T3, impro­ved blood pres­sure, strong heart beat, lowe­red cho­les­te­rol, and com­plete eli­mi­na­tion of symp­toms. Patients have lear­ned what works!

When you unders­tand the Bri­tish Thy­roid Association’s hell-bent and rigid stands against Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid, their pro­mo­tion of one of the worst labs ever crea­ted to diag­nose and dose by, their love affair with the most ina­de­quate thy­roid medi­ca­tion ever thrust onto the mar­ket by money-grubbing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (levothy­ro­xine), and their com­plete fai­lure to lis­ten to patients and recog­nize con­ti­nuing symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism while on synthe­tic T4, you come to rea­lize how mea­ning­ful any article on hypothy­roi­dism will be by the Bri­tish Thy­roid Association.

P.S.  Do ya won­der if the Bri­tish Broad­cas­ting Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC) has the smarts to report the other side of the story??

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

Right on the heels of the insane recom­men­da­tion by the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians and the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion (that thy­ro­xine be the ONLY treat­ment for hypothy­roi­dism – see Feb. 14^th below) came an EXCELLENT and THOROUGH rebut­tal by Dr. John C. Lowe tit­led Sta­bi­lity, Effec­ti­ve­ness, and Safety of Desic­ca­ted Thy­roid vs Levothy­ro­xine: A Rebut­tal to the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion. WAY TO GO, John!!

p.s. Also see Sheila’s expe­rience on the Feb. 20^th post. Awful

Want to be infor­med of these blog posts? Curious what’s on Janie’s mind? Just go to the noti­fi­ca­tion on the left and bot­tom of the links.

And right on the heels of my post below, I want to inform ever­yone of a REAL LIFE HORROR STORY that is hap­pe­ning to Sheila Tur­ner of the UK right now. Sheila is a thy­roid patient advo­cate who crea­ted the UK Thy­roid Patient Advo­cacy web­site here.

Sheila will tell anyone who asks that she was very ill while taking levothy­ro­xine (125 mcgs) only the­rapy, being wrac­ked with back pain so severe she was una­ble to get out of her armchair, bed or car after sitting/laying down for a while.  She also suf­fe­red from debi­li­ta­ting ‘brain fog’ and short term memory, along with the usual lin­ge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms while on thyroxine.

Sheila sta­tes: I couldn’t tole­rate levothy­ro­xine alone because it was found I was not con­ver­ting this mainly inac­tive hor­mone to the active hor­mone T3.  As my musc­les and tis­sues were not get­ting the T3 requi­red, my musc­les in my back were going into spasm, cau­sing the severe pain.

She then saw a pri­vate hor­mone spe­cia­list who star­ted her on natu­ral thy­roid extract (Armour Thy­roid, USP) and she regai­ned her full health! It was so pro­found that she star­ted the TPA-UK in 2004 to cam­paign for a bet­ter diag­nos­tic and treat­ment pro­to­col within the Natio­nal Health Sys­tem (NHS). (UK has socia­li­zed medicine.)

Fast foward to 2009.  As I wrote about below in my Feb. 14^th blog post,  the UK Royal College of Phy­si­cians along with seve­ral sup­por­ting orga­ni­za­tions recently brought out their pathe­tic and narrrow-minded new gui­de­li­nes on the diag­no­sing and treat­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism.  And lo and behold, Sheila, along with about 15 other patients on Armour via the same medi­cal con­sul­tant,  have had their Armour removed.

Says Sheila:  He and every NHS endoc­ri­no­lo­gist has been sent a let­ter from the Pre­si­dent of the Royal College of Phy­si­cians, telling them they should use thy­ro­xine ONLY as a treat­ment for pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism and that they should not recom­mend or presc­ribe Armour Thy­roid and that only acc­re­di­ted endoc­ri­no­lo­gists should ever recom­mend T3 as this was rarely indicated.

Sheila has been for­ced to return to the synthe­tic treat­ment of levothy­ro­xine (100 mcgs) and to it has been added 20 mcg liothy­ro­nine (T3) split twice a day. But there’s no gua­ran­tee she will be able to stay on the T3. Addi­tio­nally, don’t be foo­led into thin­king that a combo of synthe­tic T4 and synthe­tic T3 is as good as Armour. Patients all around the world who have tried it, then switched to Armour, report far bet­ter results with the latter.

Says Sheila in a com­ple­tely shoc­ked state:  I can­not believe this is hap­pe­ning — I tried to ques­tion him as to the rea­son all the NHS endoc­ri­no­lo­gists didn’t demand the BTA pro­duce MEDICAL EVIDENCE to show that hypothy­roid suf­fe­rers ONLY ever nee­ded T4 — he said he knew they should have pro­du­ced evi­dence, but it seems because it has come from the RCP, his and every­body else’s’ hands were tied — they have to be seen to be doing what they are told. I got the dis­tinct impres­sion that if any­body roc­ked the boat, they would be next doc­tor arraig­ned before the GMC.

Making this real life horror story even more shoc­king, her medi­cal con­sul­tant explai­ned that the only way to find the truth as to whether Armour was a bet­ter medi­ca­tion or not was through cli­ni­cal trials using Armour ver­sus levothy­ro­xine.  (i.e. patient expe­rience all over the world revea­ling it works isn’t enough evi­dence. Give me a break). But when she pres­sed him into star­ting this, he said they would need the bac­king of their thy­roid asso­cia­tion — yes, the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion (BTA), the very group that has said that a TSH of 10 is bor­der­line hypo. (See my Nov. 7^th post)

Sheila con­ti­nues: I told him they would never agree to this, and he agreed also. I told him that we did NOT NEED the Bri­tish Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion to get ethi­cal appro­val — and surely he could get a group of like-minded prac­ti­tio­ners around him and do this them­sel­ves — but it would cost a great deal of money — and, again, if you are a mem­ber of BTA (and I believe most endoc­ri­no­lo­gists are) then they daren’t do a thing without their approval.

At the moment, Sheila will tell you with sad­ness and shock that it all seems rather surreal at the moment. She is sca­red for every suf­fe­rer of this disease to be for­ced into taking only one thy­roid hor­mone — a synthe­tic sto­rage hor­mone. She is  sca­red for her­self, too.

Sheila expounds: I just sin­ce­rely hope that I can cope with the change-over to synthe­tics and that Armour has made my body strong enough to do this. I will make abso­lu­tely sure that my adre­nals can cope with this. I feel SO VERY sorry for all of those suf­fe­rers who are being left in the care of a head in the sand endo­prat , who will refuse to even give them the correct thy­roid hor­mone their body needs.  Once again — THE NHS IS KILLING US!

This is pro­foundly sic­ke­ning and shocking.

If you are so moved,  send this blog post (www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/blog) to anyone and ever­yone.  Send it to your news­pa­per, your radio,  talk shows, your friends, rela­ti­ves, anywhere.   This should NOT go unheard of by others. We need to tell the world about this tra­vesty.  Speak your mind about this by adding a comment.

Update: you can read Sheila’s and UK-TPA’s res­ponse here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/uk-tpas-response-to-the-rcp/

More from Sheila that gives UK patients hope: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/relationship-between-the-RCP-and-MHRA/

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The recent press release by the UK’s Royal College of Phy­si­cians about the new gui­de­li­nes on the diag­no­sis and mana­ge­ment of pri­mary hypothy­roi­dism hit the web with a resoun­ding, stiff-necked thud.

And I have writ­ten about it in the news media here:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Royal-College-of-Physi-by-Janie-Bowthorpe-090210 – 698.html

p.s.  In the 1600’s, Gali­leo was the first most pro­li­fic voice to proc­laim that the earth revol­ved around the sun (Armour), in con­trast to the firmly held posi­tion that the sun revol­ved around the earth (Thy­ro­xine).  He was denoun­ced as being dan­ge­rous and here­ti­cal. But over time, the truth won out.

Are you from the UK? Tell us what you think.

(Want to receive noti­fi­ca­tion of each blog post that comes up here? Just go to the Noti­fi­ca­tion on the left of this page below the links and sign in with Notifixious).

Well, here we go again.

As this first week of Oprah’s “Best Life Week” series ends, we all know that Oprah has announ­ced she is going on a weight loss and exer­cise plan once again (hams­ter wheel tur­ning, tur­ning…).   Oh…and did I men­tion that she said her hypothy­roid was cured?

(Wait. Do I hear a collec­tive and world­wide SIGHHHHHHH among thy­roid patients??)

Thy­roid patient Mary Sho­mon now sha­res my own long-held con­cerns in an exce­llent sum­mary per­tai­ning to Oprah’s thy­roid and weight saga.  Oprah has been remar­kably unin­for­ma­tive about her diag­no­sis and details, and leads those unin­for­med to believe they can stop taking their medi­ca­tion and be cured.  And Oprah appears to have igno­red a slew of emails over the years from all camps of thy­roid advocacy!

Just as bad is a visit in the pages of O Maga­zine. On page 151 of the January issue, and right next to the article about Oprah’s weight gain, is a side article tit­led The Truth About the Thy­roid.  And the lon­gest para­graph is about the use of the TSH lab test and its so-called nor­mal range – one of the worst tests ever crea­ted to diag­nose and treat hypothy­roi­dism. Addi­tio­nally, the article ends with the men­tion of a presc­rip­tion of synthe­tic thy­ro­xine–a medi­ca­tion which lea­ves nearly ever­yone with linge­ring hypothy­roid symp­toms.

But the disap­point­ment in Oprah has to go farther than a gene­ral call to be edu­ca­ted about thy­roid disease. There is a need to be spe­ci­fi­cally edu­ca­ted about the scan­dal of thy­ro­xine treat­ment, about the fallacy of the TSH lab test which lea­ves patients undiag­no­sed for years or under­trea­ted when on meds, about the ram­pant pro­blem with adre­nal fati­gue in thy­roid patients on thy­ro­xine or those left undiag­no­sed (and where Oprah may be hea­ded), and about a far bet­ter treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, and opti­mi­zing other areas, inc­lu­ding ferri­tin, B12, and our ove­rall health.

Let’s not give up.

Suc­cess is like lot­tery tic­kets: you have to make seve­ral attempts before that magic one makes it. Even­tually, your email can be the one that finally stops her hams­ter wheel of “eat less, be hungry, exer­cise more, it’s not my thy­roid” men­ta­lity.  Tell Oprah about your suc­cess, others suc­cess, the patient-to-patient site www.stopthethyroidmadness, and more.  And don’t hesi­tate to share your email below.