westhroid tags

I often won­der how many cele­bri­ties MUST have hypothy­roi­dism, yet we don’t know it. Tonite, I just found out that Jillian Michaels, the tough and mus­cu­lar fit­ness buff on the TV show Big­gest Loser, has hypothyroidism.

And you’re left to won­der: is she, and are others, on Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid?? Have they found out about the supe­rior treat­ment of desic­ca­ted thy­roid over a T4-only treat­ment with Synth­roid, Levoxyl, et al?

Other cele­bri­ties with hypo inc­lude Kim Ale­xis, Linda Rons­tadt, Kim Cat­trall, Kelly Osbourne, Oprah Win­frey and others. We can only hope that one day, someone will figure out that desic­ca­ted thy­roid is a supe­rior treat­ment, and help us spread the word. So far, Oprah has let us down. Maybe…maybe…someone with the abi­lity to spread the word will step up to the plate.

p.s. Pre­fer a book to a web­site? STTM is now in book form, with even more infor­ma­tion than you can find on this site, and wai­ting to be in your hands.

Six years ago, when I got invol­ved in thy­roid patient advo­cacy by star­ting the Natu­ral Thy­roid Hor­mone Users group on Yahoo, I did it because I was ama­zed and shoc­ked what switching to desic­ca­ted natu­ral thy­roid did for me! There I was, on the brink of appl­ying for Social Secu­rity Disa­bi­lity after YEARS of misery & lack of ans­wers, and simply chan­ging to a dif­fe­rent thy­roid treat­ment com­ple­tely tur­ned my life around. I owe some of that change on what I found out on Mary Shomon’s Thy­roid group in early 2002.

And it daw­ned on me: if desic­ca­ted thy­roid with its T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin did this for ME, what could it do for others?!I  A group was NEEDED with a direct focus on desic­ca­ted natu­ral thyroid.

And over time, as NTH grew and other fine inter­net patient groups evol­ved and grew, other patients were just as ama­zed at what it was doing for them, as well.  This wasn’t coming across at ALL as a treat­ment only for “some”. It was coming across as a treat­ment that might just bene­fit quite a large body on indi­vi­duals! We also lear­ned by the seat of our collec­tive pants about low ferri­tin, low cor­ti­sol, low B-12, Celiac and glu­ten into­le­rance – you name it.

From all the above came the STTM move­ment: a patient-to-patient com­pi­la­tion of all we have lear­ned – and then the book with even more infor­ma­tion.  The STTM move­ment was crea­ted because “inter­net groups” were NOT enough to get the word out about the effi­cacy of desic­ca­ted thy­roid, nor were they enough to change the huge and rigid medi­cal esta­blish­ment. Change had to come from the bot­tom up – in other words, edu­cate patients, who in turn can take the new infor­ma­tion into their doctor’s offices.

But sadly, with the suc­cess of patient infor­ma­tion about the ama­zing results of desic­ca­ted thy­roid treat­ment has come vei­led cri­ti­cism and over­blown mis­con­cep­tions within our own ranks. And it’s a sad thing to behold!

Namely, we can now read a Sep­tem­ber 10^th inter­net blog “con­ver­sa­tion” by so-called thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes who imply that it is “dogma and narrow-minded” if anyone dares state there just might be a thy­roid treat­ment which JUST MIGHT BE bet­ter for most all thy­roid patients. IMAGINE the auda­city!! I guess it was just as “dog­ma­tic and narrow-minded” when it was first sug­ges­ted there were bet­ter ways to deal with cer­tain health con­di­tions than blood­let­ting. I can hear it now: “To deny blood­let­ting is just boxing peo­ple in!” “Offe­ring blood­let­ting as a choice is hel­ping peo­ple expand.”

And con­trary to the self-righteous tone, con­des­cen­ding mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions, and vei­led cri­ti­cisms towards cer­tain patient groups, this patient move­ment is not a one size fits all move­ment.  Ins­tead, it’s a “one size JUST MIGHT BE a bet­ter alter­na­tive” than the other avai­la­ble alter­na­ti­ves, and we strongly encou­rage that each patient con­si­der fin­ding a doc­tor to help them give it a try.  And, if something about desic­ca­ted thy­roid isn’t wor­king, we strongly encou­rage patients to look at par­ti­cu­lar rea­sons that can under­lie problems.

If you think T4 is wor­king for you, go for it! The same goes for the use of T3 only, or synthe­tic T4/T3, or cer­tain ratios of T4 and T3.  Choice is a bles­sing we can all res­pect.  Just keep an eye out for depres­sion, rising cho­les­te­rol, less sta­mina than others, adre­nal issues and/or a myriad of other con­ti­nuing hypo symp­toms that just might creep up on you as you age on these treat­ments.  Or, con­si­der that we’ve seen many peo­ple on these treat­ments, who, when they switched to desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid, Westh­roid, etc, they repor­ted even bet­ter results. (The use of T3-only for high RT3 is a dif­fe­rent issue and is where T3-only may be abso­lu­tely nee­ded and good. We also res­pect those who have ethi­cal issues with ani­mal products.)

Finally, I encou­rage others who con­si­der them­sel­ves thy­roid patient advo­ca­tes to TAKE A BIG BREATH and TAKE THE TIME to be in open-minded dia­lo­gue with all patients, inc­lu­ding me and all of us over here, ins­tead of openly igno­ring our exis­tence or deci­ding what we pro­mote is simply narrow-minded dogma.  You might find that direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion and kind­ness is a far bet­ter method to help thy­roid patients ins­tead of the underhan­ded vei­led bashings and mis­re­pre­sen­ta­tions within this recent blog con­ver­sa­tion.

To update again if you’re fee­ling panicky – Armour thy­roid, made by Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, is not dis­con­ti­nued, con­trary to what your poorly-informed phar­ma­cist or Synthroid-loving doc­tor tells you.

What is going on is this: about a year ago, something went wrong in the pro­duc­tion of the higher grains, i.e. they didn’t work. Those who had been on Armour awhile and pic­ked up their new presc­rip­tions had their hypothy­roid returning!

And when a Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal makes a mis­take, they have to jump through hoops with the FDA to correct their manu­fac­tu­ring pro­blem, and it takes a lot of TIME to get back to pro­du­cing their product.

What stop­ped being pro­du­ced this year, as a result of the pro­blem, were the 2, 3, 4 and 5 grain tablets (120 mg, 180 mg, 240 mg. and 300 mg). Ever­yone was now for­ced to use the sma­ller amounts, and the inc­rease in demand put a great strain on quan­tity in your local pharmacies.

Forest now pre­dicts that the lar­ger sizes will return in “late 2008″. So we’ll see. One gal has repor­ted that some of the lar­ger sizes did return to her phar­macy this week, but I’ll need con­fir­ma­tion before saying it’s a fact.

What do you do in the mean­time? Call phar­ma­cies to see what they still have, and expect to drive farther to a phar­macy which still has them in stock. Because many still do. If you don’t find any close enough with Armour, you can get your doc­tor to write out a presc­rip­tion for Natu­reth­roid or Westh­roid, both qua­lity desic­ca­ted thy­roid pro­ducts and very available.

To keep up with the latest from Forest about Armour avai­la­bi­lity, just call 866 – 927-3260 for a recor­ded mes­sage (which will be a repeat of some of the infor­ma­tion you have read right here.)

p.s. Think your doc is open-minded enough to read the STTM book?? You can have the publishing com­pany send one directly to your doc­tor. Click on the SEND A BOOK TO YOUR DOCTOR.

I was lucky.

My cho­les­te­rol hadn’t star­ted to raise yet when I was on Synth­roid and later Levoxy. But it was going to, because nearly ever­yone on a T4-only medi­ca­tion has a clim­bing cho­les­te­rol num­ber, soo­ner or later, along with heart pro­blems and/or ele­va­ted CRP. And what do their doc­tors do next? Put them on sta­tins with all the lovely side effects: muscle aches & pains, memory loss, and periphe­ral neu­ro­pathy. (See the Yahoo Stop­ped My Sta­tins group here.)

My mother is the clas­sic exam­ple. We have abso­lu­tely no heart pro­blems in our family his­tory that I know of. Yet, here was my mother who, in her 60’s, was sud­denly in the hos­pi­tal having a balloon pro­ce­dure on her heart, called an Angio­plasty, done to open up a clog­ged artery to her heart. Huh??

It was only years later, when I become a thy­roid patient advo­cate, that I could look back and see why that hap­pe­ned to her. She had been on a T4 medi­ca­tion for the majo­rity of her adult life!

Today, as patients are switching to natu­ral desic­ca­ted thy­roid like Armour, Natu­reth­roid and Westh­roid and others, and as they are allo­wed by their infor­med doc­tors to raise NOT accor­ding to the TSH but by the com­plete eli­mi­na­tion of symptoms…VOILA.… their once-high cholesterol.…FALLS!!

But guess what else falls? Your CRP.

CRP stands for C-Reactive Pro­tein, and it beco­mes ele­va­ted in res­ponse to an inflam­ma­tion. With that ele­va­tion comes the heigh­te­ned risk of heart attacks and stro­kes. And guess what: con­ti­nued hypothy­roid (as found with T4-only treat­ment) results in an inc­rea­sed CRP level.

On an opti­mal amount of Armour, which for me is 4 grains, my CRP is 0.9. Ideal is less than one. Bingo.

***Have a story to share about your impro­ved lipid or CRP levels since you became opti­mal on Armour? Let us know.

YEEHAW! Check out this study done in 2007 – the higher the TSH, the worse your lipids. Iro­ni­cally, even a TSH IN RANGE does this, accor­ding to the expe­rience of MILLIONS of patients!! Thanks Nita for brin­ging this to my attention!