westhroid tags

With the recent March out­break of swine flu in a few humans, I want to speak of facts.  This would involve all of you who use  desic­ca­ted por­cine pro­ducts, inc­lu­ding Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, Thyroid-S, etc.

Recent cases: As of April 26^th in the US, there are only 21 human cases of “swine flu” this year repor­ted by the CDC (Cen­ters for Disease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion):  Cali­for­nia 7 cases;  Kan­sas 2 cases;   New York City 9 cases;  Ohio 1 case;  and Texas 2 cases. There have also been out­breaks in Mexico which may be rela­ted.  No one has died and none of the cases have been severe.  The current out­break is a com­bi­na­tion of swine, bird, and human influenza viruses.

What is the Swine flu? Swine flu is a type A influenza and has been in exis­tence with pigs for a long time.  Many pigs will get sick when it does go around; very few will die.

Why are humans get­ting it? The real irony is that humans can be ones who give it to pigs in the first place!  But in turn, new human infec­tion from infec­ted pigs is actually quite rare. In most all cases, a healthy human will get it from con­tact with a live pig, such as at a lives­tock show. Then, the infec­ted human will spread it to other humans.  So, when you see that “21” peo­ple have got­ten it,  some may have got­ten it from “one” per­son – i.e. a human-to-human contact.

The CDC also sta­tes that in a par­ti­cu­lar study, 76% of swine exhi­bi­tors tes­ted had anti­body evi­dence of swine flu infec­tion but no serious ill­nes­ses were detec­ted among this group. In other words, the majo­rity of those expo­sed don’t even get the ill­ness. If they do, it’s mild for most and only serious for a very small minority.

How com­mon is swine flu among pigs? Swine flu is com­mon in groups of pigs all across the world, espe­cially during the win­ter months.  Anywhere from 25 – 50% show evi­dence of having been infec­ted.  But many pigs are vac­ci­na­ted against it.

Can I get it from the use of Armour or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts? The stan­dards in the making of desic­ca­ted thy­roid pow­der as set by the U.S. Phar­ma­co­poeia is extre­mely rigo­rous.  So, it is impor­tant to unders­tand that your chan­ces of get­ting swine flu from taking a US Pharmacopoeia-approved pro­duct is remar­kably low, low, low. You have a much grea­ter chance of injury from riding in your car.

So, for me, with all the above facts, I’m going to take my Armour with ease and peace, because using desic­ca­ted thy­roid to treat my hypothy­roid is FAR FAR bet­ter than any other treat­ment. Perhaps you will decide to do the same.  If you stay worried about it, you might also want to avoid using your car, stop using stairs, and avoid most peo­ple at all costs.   P.S. Check out the com­ments to this post. Will also help put you at ease.

* Here’s John Lowe’s rebut­tal to the scare of swine flu: http://www.thyroidscience.com/index.htm It con­firms everything I’ve said plus a whole lot more. i.e. take your desic­ca­ted thyroid!

* Want to know what’s on my mind? Inte­res­ted in the latest infor­ma­tion on desic­ca­ted thy­roid? Just use the Noti­fi­ca­tions on the left at the bot­tom of the links.

*If you find the web­site to be too enor­mous for your brain fog, or want bet­ter ease of get­ting the facts, the patient-to-patient STTM book is pro­ving to be a good choice, say many who write me.  Just make sure you have a yellow high­ligh­ter. haha

I can remem­ber a few peo­ple the past year who proc­lai­med fer­vently that Armour was being dis­con­ti­nued because of the shor­tage.  And I chuc­kle about it.  Hope­fully, my pre­vious posts hel­ped calm that fear.

But in case you haven’t heard, those lar­ger sizes are back!  And you can keep track of what’s going via the Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals cus­to­mer pro­duct avai­la­bi­lity hot­line: 1 – 866-927‑3260  As of today, April 19, they state that the one grain tabs (60 mg) and 1 1/2 grains tabs (90 mg) are on bac­kor­der, and will catch up with pro­duc­tion on April 20^th, tomo­rrow as I am wri­ting this.  We’ll see.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, the new for­mu­la­tion has made Armour lac­king in sweet­ness, and it’s almost impos­si­ble to do it sublin­gually.  Sad. Maybe another phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal will get the hint. In the mean­time, if you swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid, make sure to avoid cal­cium, iron and estro­gen at the same time. And if you’ve been doing it sublin­gually, and have to switch to swa­llo­wing, you may need a tad more.

Remem­ber: if you have any issues with natu­ral Armour desic­ca­ted thy­roid in the treat­ment of your hypothy­roi­dism, you can always ask your doc­tor for a presc­rip­tion switch to Natu­reth­roid or Westth­roid, both fine FDA-approved, US Phar­ma­co­peia stan­dard presc­rip­tion desic­ca­ted thyroid.

Janie

Want to be infor­med of my posts? Curious what I am raving about as a Thy­roid Patient Acti­vist? You can sign up for a Noti­fi­ca­tion at the bot­tom of the links to your left.

P.S. If you haven’t bought the Stop the Thy­roid Mad­ness book yet, wan­ted to tell you that nume­rous patients are emai­ling me, sta­ting they find the book even easier to refer to than this vast web­site (plus it has more details and infor­ma­tion).  So if you want the ease of refe­rral, the book may be the way to go.

Now being announ­ced on the Forest Pharm hot­line at 866 – 927-3260, the follo­wing strengths of Armour are now com­ple­tely avai­la­ble again:

1) 15 mg. (1/4 grain)
2) 30 mg. (1/2 grain)
3) 60 mg. (one grain)
4) 120 mg. (2 grains)
5) 180 mg. (3 grains)
6) 240 mg. (4 grains)
7) 300 mg. (5 grains)

Yes­si­ree, the above repre­sent the dif­fe­rent size and strength tablets of natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid via the Armour brand, most of which had been una­vai­la­ble for quite awhile. The 90 mgs is still on backorder.

Rejoice!

P.S. And we thank RLC Labs for their con­ti­nued avai­la­bi­lity of Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid, plus Sri­pra­sit Pharma Co., Ltd. in Thai­land for their Thyroid-S.   Because no mat­ter how hard any phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pany, Endoc­ri­no­lo­gist, cer­tain hos­pi­tals,  or group of phy­si­cians (see below) tries to sing the prai­ses of T4 treat­ment with Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Levothy­ro­xine, Eltro­xin, Nor­ton for thy­roid disor­ders or hypothyroid.…WE KNOW BETTER.

(Want to be noti­fied of my blog posts? Curious what’s on my mind? Use the Noti­fi­ca­tion method to be infor­med. Look on the bot­tom left of the links where you can sign up. )

With recent news of Oprah’s con­ti­nuous weight gain (currently par­tially due to her fai­lure to pro­perly treat her hypothy­roi­dism and pro­bably Hashi­mo­tos (see post below this), it can make us all shud­der as we deal with the holi­days and all that great food!

I admit it: At Christ­mas­time, I LOVE the easy Gin­ger­bread Boy Coo­kies recipe I used when the boys were little, the Mic­ro­wave Fudge recipe to die for, my world famous Cho­co­late Chip Merin­gue Coo­kies which I color red and green, my mother’s won­der­ful Pra­li­nes which I occa­sio­nally try to make myself,  and Grandma’s Fruit Cake–yeah an actual fruit cake I LOVE, which I order EVERY SINGLE YEAR at this time.

And it’s hard not to gain weight! Is that you, too?? So let’s go over 6 HOLIDAY FACTS about thy­roid treat­ment with desic­ca­ted thyroid:

1) Armour, Natu­rethy­roid, Westh­roid, or any other desic­ca­ted thy­roid medi­ca­tion is not meant to be a Christ­mas weight loss pill. Desic­ca­ted thy­roid medi­ca­tions con­sist of thy­roid hor­mo­nes: T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin. They simply give you back what your own thy­roid is not giving you…the same five hor­mo­nes which give you back a stron­ger immune sys­tem, a nor­mal body tem­pe­ra­ture & impro­ved meta­bo­lism, bet­ter energy, healthier hair and skin, less aches & pains, emo­tio­nal hap­pi­ness, bet­ter lipid pro­fi­les like cho­les­te­rol, stron­ger bones…and on and on.  But even with all that bene­fit, and even though it does improve your meta­bo­lism, desic­ca­ted thy­roid is not meant to be a weight loss pill.

2) Armour et. al. can only do its holi­day job if you have strong adre­nals or ade­quate cor­ti­sol treat­ment. Because cor­ti­sol is nee­ded for thy­roid hor­mo­nes to move from your blood to your cells, you can only bene­fit opti­mally from desic­ca­ted thy­roid during the holi­days if you are lucky enough to have strong adre­nals, or if you are giving your­self back the cor­ti­sol you need based on sta­ble temps, blood pres­sure, and remo­val of most low cor­ti­sol symp­toms.  So don’t for­get that cor­ti­sol right now, and defi­ni­tely con­si­der adding a stress dose of cor­ti­sol if things get rough with the in-laws. (See Chap­ter 6 in the STTM book for even more details about sta­ble temps, blood pres­sure, and stress dosing)

3) Don’t drink that Armour down with Egg Nog! Cal­cium is a known bin­der of thy­roid hor­mo­nes in your sto­mach, kee­ping you from bene­fi­ting from some of those health-giving thy­roid hor­mo­nes.  So if you swa­llow your desic­ca­ted thy­roid, get the water.  Or even bet­ter, do it sublin­gually.

4) Don’t expect Armour to keep you from loo­king like Santa Claus: you still gotta exer­cise & watch what you eat! It’s true: the opti­mal use of desic­ca­ted thy­roid does raise your meta­bo­lism and eats those extra calo­ries up like Pac­Man.  But if you’re like me, you can still have a ten­dency to put on those love handle but­ter pounds if you eat your fill of holi­day foods.  ho ho ho. To cur­tail the gain, add exer­cise to your holi­day regime, or inc­rease what you already do. I try to aero­bi­cally walk a LOT during the holi­days. And when I’ve eaten a Christ­mas stoc­king full of goo­dies, my next meal will be nothing but high pro­tein, like  tur­key, chee­ses and nuts. Or, you can also balance your intake by choo­sing one meal a day to be low gly­ce­mic to somewhat balance out the high gly­ce­mics you know you are going to eat later. For exam­ple, I make my break­fasts only eggs and nitrate-free bacon, or plain yogurt with berries, nuts, and Stevia.

5) Buil­ding a holi­day snow­man outside?  Con­si­der an extra 1/4 grain of Armour. It’s a fact that pro­lon­ged expo­sure to cold inc­rea­ses your demand for energy, which in turn can inc­rease your demand for more thy­roid hor­mo­nes. As a result, many patients find that adding an extra 1/4 grain of desic­ca­ted thy­roid to one’s daily amount helps meet the demands of Frosty the Snow­man or that holi­day sprin­kling of lights all over your house in the cold air.  Talk to your doctor.

6) Give a gift of the STTM book to a loved one. There are other good thy­roid books on the mar­ket, but unlike all of them, this is the bible of patient expe­rience on suc­cess­ful thy­roid treat­ment. You’ll find volu­mes of infor­ma­tion that patients all around the world have lear­ned. A true patient-to-patient guide to fee­ling won­der­ful again.  Go here to order.  And the publishing com­pany is exten­ding the time you can order a book to be sent DIRECTLY to your loved one.

The topic of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion for your ove­rall health has been gro­wing the past few years among patients, espe­cially in light that many of us may be low in iodine, or just the fact that iodine has anti-cancer qua­li­ties. I became inte­res­ted in the topic after rea­ding Dr. David Derry’s book Breast Can­cer and Iodine. I’ve also seen the tes­ti­mony of seve­ral women with Fibrocys­tic Breast Disease who saw it disap­pear once they star­ted iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion. Impressive!

And since thy­roid hor­mo­nes are pri­ma­rily com­po­sed of iodine, thy­roid patients are lis­te­ning to and ques­tio­ning the use of iodine sup­ple­men­ta­tion. Yahoo Groups has an exce­llent iodine group now led by Stepha­nie, where you can ask ques­tions and decide for your­self. Also, if you goo­gle “iodine”, you’ll find much to read.

But thy­roid patient Mike Law­son came up with some very inte­res­ting facts this week about iodine in desic­ca­ted thy­roid – just one more rea­son to con­si­der using Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid or other desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts! He figu­red out the below:

T3 = C15H12I3NO4 = molar mass of 650.9776
T4 = C15H11I4NO4 = molar mass of 776.87

So, each grain of Armour has 30.20325 mcg iodine. In other words, each
grain of Armour has 1/5 the RDA of iodine (150 mcg).

Very inte­res­ting facts, Mike! Sure, some thy­roid patients feel they need more than what desic­ca­ted thy­roid offers. But it’s a good start when so many indi­vi­duals feel their own iodine levels are too low, and need help, espe­cially those who have had to deal with thy­roid or breast can­cer, or have a family his­tory of it.