tsh tags

If you read my recent blog post about it (click on link below or just scroll down on the STTM blog), or if you saw NBC’s Today Show, you’ll know that Dr. Kent Hol­torf correctly diag­no­sed a clearly-hypothyroid woman, Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner Eola Force, by not going just by the TSH, and chan­ged her life. He was cri­ti­ci­zed by an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist as having “no real scien­ti­fic basis”  for what he does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.  (chuckle)

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2010/01/28/endocrinologists-tsh-lab-test/

Well, it’s time to hear what Dr. Hol­torf has to say!

Join us as I chat with him about this inci­dent next 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

***Note that we moved it to Wed­nes­day nights. That should help with any drop­ped calls that were hap­pe­ning on busy Thursdays.

By the way,  Dr. Hol­torf recently launched his new web­site, called The Non-Profit Natio­nal Aca­demy of Hypothy­roi­dism in an attempt to reach doc­tors about appro­priate diag­no­sis and treat­ment of hypothy­roi­dism, which patients know does NOT inc­lude just the lousy TSH lab test.  Will doc­tors, and espe­cially Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, ever figure out this clear and easy truth?  Don’t we hope so.

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

“It is far bet­ter to grasp the Uni­verse as it really is than to per­sist in delu­sion, howe­ver satisf­ying and reas­su­ring.” –Dr. Carl Sagan

You may have seen the seg­ment on NBC’s Today Show this mor­ning, January 29^th, 2010, or you may have heard about it on the inter­net. But in case you didn’t, the Today Show had a rare short piece about hypothy­roi­dism and diag­no­sis which pre­sen­ted a Nurse Prac­ti­tio­ner, Eola Force, with clear symp­toms of hypo, inc­lu­ding extreme tired­ness, fee­ling like she’s dying, huge weight gain, depres­sion, and brain fog, to name a few.

Yet, she had a so-called “nor­mal  “TSH” lab test. The expla­na­tion for her symp­toms?? She’s FAT, HORMONAL and FEMALE, of course!

And because she is under the care of a wise and know­led­gea­ble doc­tor named Dr. Kent Hol­torf and his cli­nic, which uses addi­tio­nal tests besi­des the TSH, he diag­no­sed her clearly, put her on thy­roid hor­mo­nes, and chan­ged her life.

And the res­ponse by Dr. Sin­ger, an Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist? There is “no real scien­ti­fic basis” for what Hol­torf does in his prac­tice, and it was equi­va­lent to the “laying on of hands”.

Well my dear Dr. Sin­ger sir, if hun­dreds of millions of patients all over the world wai­ted on “science” to prove what they know by deca­des of mise­ra­ble expe­rience because of the TSH, we’d all still be sick as dogs. The mutually accep­ted delu­sion by the Endoc­ri­no­logy field about the TSH lab test has left millions of thy­roid patients undiag­no­sed and under­trea­ted for nearly 40 years of its exis­tence.

Other than to poten­tially diag­nose a pitui­tary pro­blem, no, the TSH lab test is NOT the gold stan­dard for thy­roid scree­ning any­more than rea­ding tea lea­ves tells me what kind of day I’m going to have.

Read more about the TSH lab test here, or find even more detail in Chap­ter 3 in the book called TSH: THYROID STIMULATING HOOEY.

See much bet­ter lab­work than simply the TSH here.  Find what your results mean here. And here’s how to find a much bet­ter doctor.

P.S. Thy­roid patient Lynn Dun­ning emai­led me about tal­king about the cra­zi­ness of current thy­roid treat­ment at her work, and one of her collea­gues put this up on the work web­site:
http://www.spunout.ie/health/Healthy-body/Thyroid-madness Good for Lynn and the Spu­nOut website!

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.

Seve­ral years ago, a large per­cen­tage of thy­roid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figu­ring out that they had adre­nal fati­gue, aka low cor­ti­sol, from years of adre­nals wor­king over­time due to the ina­de­quate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medi­ca­tions like Synth­roid, Levoxyl, levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, etc.

Not only does low cor­ti­sol keep desic­ca­ted thy­roid from wor­king well, it also cau­ses all sorts of angst with para­noia, depres­sion, anxiety, easy anger, sen­si­ti­vity to light and/or sounds, rec­lu­si­ve­ness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients dis­co­ve­red the impor­tance of using the 24 hour adre­nal saliva test rather than blood or urine. When low cor­ti­sol was con­fir­med, the treat­ment was using cor­ti­sol, aka hydro­cor­ti­sone, to give them­sel­ves back what their adre­nals were not, to allow thy­roid hor­mo­nes to reach the cells, and to give the poo­ped out adre­nals a rest.

And suc­cess was achie­ved! When all other issues were dis­co­ve­red and trea­ted, patients were finally able to heal their adre­nals with cor­ti­sol use, wean off, and be suc­cess­ful in their con­ti­nued treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thy­roid! That suc­cess con­ti­nues today!

Yet in spite of clear suc­cess in the treat­ment of low cor­ti­sol with sup­ple­men­tal cor­ti­sol in the correct amount for each indi­vi­dual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg gene­rally – men often need the higher end), as well as exce­llent books on the sub­ject by Wil­son, Peat­field, Jef­fries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encoun­ter doc­tors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I dis­co­ve­red your web­site which are both great. They are a superb source of infor­ma­tion and sup­port for thy­roid and adre­nal fati­gue suf­fe­rers. Thank you so much!

Per­so­nally I got adre­nal fati­gue by a sus­tai­ned lack of sleep for seve­ral years (crying babies).  I found a doc­tor who presc­ri­bed Hydro­cor­ti­sone (17.5 mg/day, 5 – 5-5 – 2.5), Flu­dro­cor­ti­sone, DHEA and Tes­tos­te­rone. Symp­toms disap­pea­red in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symp­toms reap­pear very quickly, so I retur­ned to the ori­gi­nal dose.

It is very stress­ful that many esta­blished doc­tors (our family doc­tor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are sca­ring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am des­tro­ying my body and I will never suc­ceed in wea­ning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symp­toms. She also has been sca­red about des­si­ca­ted thy­roid and HC. Rea­ding your book I was howe­ver con­vin­ced she could bene­fit a lot from a bet­ter treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfor­tu­na­tely, it’s true. Thy­roid and adre­nal patients are left in the dark by many doc­tors about a variety of issues rela­ted to bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, adre­nal issues, low ferri­tin, and more.  So here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this impor­tant infor­ma­tion into your doc­tors offices:

• All about the pro­blem of adre­nal fatigue
• How to treat
• Symp­toms of having an adre­nal problem
• The STTM book, which not only has more detail, but can be taken right into the doctor’s office
• Talk to other patients, inc­lu­ding a group tar­ge­ted for adre­nal fatigue

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If you mis­sed the exce­llent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thurs­day eve­nings, you can lis­ten to the recor­ding, as well as sign up to be a Follo­wer of the Thy­roid Patient Com­mu­nity Call, here.

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.