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From: Marilyn Bachmann on 8 Dec 2005 22:27
For a number of years now, I have been trying to educate myself on all
aspects of hypothyroidism. Every now and then, I think, "am I dense, or is
it the doctors?".

In my particular case, my TSH was about 3.45 and when finally a doctor
decided to run free T3 and free T4 tests, both were in the basement,
especially the free T3. Now in my understanding of things, when the TSH
rises, the pituitary is basically sensing that more thyroid hormone is
needed, so it releases the thyroid stimulating hormone, trying to prod the
thyroid into upping its production of thyroid hormone.

In my case, the thyroid stimulating hormone was increasing, but the thyroid
was obviously not producing the needed hormone levels. I.e. my free T3 was
2.5 in the reference range was 2.5 to 4.2., T4 was alxo just a tad above
bottom reference range... So now the doctors still want to treat according
to TSH... so I am taking 70 ?g a day of slow release liothyronine. My TSH
is down to ~1, my free T3 is 3.9 in a reference range of 2.5 to 5.2. The
free T4 is virtually undetectable.

I was trying to figure out why even a tiny amount of Synthroid made me
worse, much worse. I recently read that even small amounts of T4,
[Synthroid] suppresses the pituitary. When I take Synthroid along with the
time release liothyronine, I get horribly hypothyroid, and my TSH all but
disappears. I am talking 25 ?g. Taking the Synthroid does nothing to raise
my free T3... anyway the conclusion was to drop the Synthroid, and just go
with the free T3. The problem with that, I have found, is that I still have
all the symptoms of hypothyroidism, including feeling cold, muscle aches and
pains, the seeming inability to hang onto magnesium, hypoglycemia,
fluctuating energy levels...

As I have written on here before, I turned myself into a guinea pig, and
upped the time release liothyronine, to 110 ?g a year ago, and had an
amazing reduction and in some cases complete remission of symptoms of MS.
Raymond Peat states that people normally produce "several micrograms of T3
an hour". If there are 24 hours a day, and one was conservative and chose
the number 4, then one would need 96 ?g of T3 to cover the 24 hours. My
guess is you need more like 5... meaning you would need 120 ?g of T3 per
day, which magically enough dovetails with the findings of Dr. Lowe, that
his patients needed on average 118 ?g of T3 to get rid of the symptoms of
fibromyalgia.

So back to me. So we bring my TSH down to ~1, and give me 70 ?g of time
release liothyronine. My assumption is that at TSH of ~1, I will not really
be producing any thyroid hormone, and it shows up on my tests in that there
is no T4. T3 of course suppresses T4, but if I was not producing hormones
when my TSH was 3.45, why would I be producing hormones when my TSH is down
even lower at around 1 even if I were not taking the T3? Which is a
roundabout way of saying that the only hormone replacement I am getting is
the 70 ?g of T3..... going back to the above paragraph, 70 ?g of time
release would not be full hormone replacement.

A while back, I had mentioned on here that I was going to work with a
Naturopath and just take T3 until I felt better, completely ignore lab
tests, and not worry about the T4 as I don't seem to be converting T4 to T3
anyway. So I got a prescription for time release 5 ?g caps of liothyronine,
with the intention of having them mailed to Canada. I.e. my doctor in the
US wrote a prescription to a US pharmacy, and they would mail the drugs to
Canada. Well, there turned out to be at glitch. It seems that pharmacy
labels trigger Canadian Customs and they then hold the drugs until Health
Canada releases the drugs depending upon whether they are approved for use
in Canada. My drugs were mailed out on October 7, and I did not receive
them until last week. So I can finally!!! begin to increase the T3....
actually, I had some old 30 and 35 ?g capsules of time release liothyronine,
and I am now up to 85 ?g of time release liothyronine/day. I have noticed
some small improvements, but when I did this the last time, I did not get
large improvements until I hit 100 ?g of T3.

Anyway, I just don't get the TSH thing at all. To me, it is like flogging a
dead horse. If you have a corresponding rise of thyroid hormone to go along
with the rise of the TSH, then fine. But if you're TSH keeps going up, and
there is no corresponding production increase of thyroid hormone, does that
not indicate that the thyroid is incapable of producing the thyroid hormones
that the pituitary is sensing one needs? I hope I am being clear enough in
trying to explain why I am confused...



From: Kevin G. Rhoads on 9 Dec 2005 08:05
> Every now and then, I think, "am I dense, or is
>it the doctors?".
>Anyway, I just don't get the TSH thing at all. To me, it is like flogging a
>dead horse.

Yes. Every bit of objective data points to using TSH to set dose does not work well. There are
no tests "proving" that dose set by TSH is adequate, and plenty of evidence that it probably isn't.
It is all based on untested, originally plausible, assumptions.

But it isn't the doctors who are dense, it is the system. Several doctors have realized that dose
set by TSH just doesn't work well. They have been marginalized, some driven from practice by having
their license to practice suspended or revoked. So long as the "gold standard" can remain UNtested,
and other thyroid myths propagated remain UNtested, nothing can change. Anyone who attempts to change
it will be punished.

So, all we can do is try to get the care we need as patients, and keep sounding off that the present
"gold standard" of thyroid care is sh*t. That's how the AIDs sufferers finally got the FDA to stop
sitting on new drugs. THe problem is politics, the solution is politics. If the medical system
were paying attention to the science -- well there is plenty of evidence to bring the present "gold
standard" into question. That would be enough to justify designing and running trials. But it is
the politics that gets in the way.

MHOO -- YMMV
From: skipperbeers on 9 Dec 2005 11:12

Marilyn Bachmann wrote:

> A while back, I had mentioned on here that I was going to work with a
> Naturopath and just take T3 until I felt better, completely ignore lab
> tests, and not worry about the T4 as I don't seem to be converting T4 to T3
> anyway. So I got a prescription for time release 5 µg caps of liothyronine,
> with the intention of having them mailed to Canada. I.e. my doctor in the
> US wrote a prescription to a US pharmacy, and they would mail the drugs to
> Canada. Well, there turned out to be at glitch. It seems that pharmacy
> labels trigger Canadian Customs and they then hold the drugs until Health
> Canada releases the drugs depending upon whether they are approved for use
> in Canada. My drugs were mailed out on October 7, and I did not receive
> them until last week. So I can finally!!! begin to increase the T3....
> actually, I had some old 30 and 35 µg capsules of time release liothyronine,
> and I am now up to 85 µg of time release liothyronine/day. I have noticed
> some small improvements, but when I did this the last time, I did not get
> large improvements until I hit 100 µg of T3.

First, when talking about Lowe he uses Cytomel, which is probably more
potent than timed release T3. His patients only take it once per day.

My wife takes one 202.5 mcg timed release T3 every 12 hours. It works
great for her.

T4 is -0-, TSH is -0-, T3 is quite high. She feels great. She has no
signs of hyperthyroidism or osteroporosis. She fits into the group
that Wilson says it most likely to have "Wilson's Thyroid Syndrome"
which is characterized by "resistance" to thyroid hormone. That is,
she's got a lot of the Irish / American Indian mix.

Her lab readings are pretty much what Lowe says those with fibromyalgia
tend to be at when they feel better. The doctor thought she might have
fibro, but she was never actually diagnosed with it.

TSH won't work if there's a problem with the adrenals, hypothalamus,
pituitary or the thyroid. In order for TSH to work properly, the other
elements of the endocrine system must be working properly. But, you
already know part of the system isn't working properly because you've
been diagnosed as hypo.

It's also dependent on proper adrenal gland function. Too much or too
little cortisol will mess up the system, because the body needs the
right amount of cortisol to convert T4 to T3.

My wife's cortisol runs high, and I tend to think that's the reason she
needs timed release T3.

Skipper

From: John Riggs on 9 Dec 2005 12:29
That said, Kevin, why not write letters to the president? It's not a
secret the Bush family suffers from thyroid disease. If anyone had the
influence, right now, to do something, it would be them.


"Kevin G. Rhoads" <kgrhoads(a)alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:43998121.3EA3CC33(a)alum.mit.edu...
>> Every now and then, I think, "am I dense, or is
>>it the doctors?".
>>Anyway, I just don't get the TSH thing at all. To me, it is like flogging
>>a
>>dead horse.
>
> Yes. Every bit of objective data points to using TSH to set dose does not
> work well. There are
> no tests "proving" that dose set by TSH is adequate, and plenty of
> evidence that it probably isn't.
> It is all based on untested, originally plausible, assumptions.
>
> But it isn't the doctors who are dense, it is the system. Several doctors
> have realized that dose
> set by TSH just doesn't work well. They have been marginalized, some
> driven from practice by having
> their license to practice suspended or revoked. So long as the "gold
> standard" can remain UNtested,
> and other thyroid myths propagated remain UNtested, nothing can change.
> Anyone who attempts to change
> it will be punished.
>
> So, all we can do is try to get the care we need as patients, and keep
> sounding off that the present
> "gold standard" of thyroid care is sh*t. That's how the AIDs sufferers
> finally got the FDA to stop
> sitting on new drugs. THe problem is politics, the solution is politics.
> If the medical system
> were paying attention to the science -- well there is plenty of evidence
> to bring the present "gold
> standard" into question. That would be enough to justify designing and
> running trials. But it is
> the politics that gets in the way.
>
> MHOO -- YMMV


From: skipperbeers on 9 Dec 2005 14:12

John Riggs wrote:
> That said, Kevin, why not write letters to the president? It's not a
> secret the Bush family suffers from thyroid disease. If anyone had the
> influence, right now, to do something, it would be them.

Always worth a try. However, it's likely the drug companies already
know the truth.

You are on the right track in that this is all political.

Bush, the elder sat on the Board of Eli Lilly. (They would have been
one of the primary beneficiaries of that bill that was attached to the
homeland security act that eliminated liability for vaccine
manufacturers, but was repealed thanks to at least one congressman that
thinks a vaccine contributed to his son's autism.)

Imagine how much less care vaccine manufacturers would use if they were
exempt from liability law. Drug companies fight a lot of law suits
because they have dangerous products, hide information relevant to the
drug, and not because the world is unfairly treating them. Knoll
Pharmaceuticals had to pay out a lot of money to the class action
lawyers who sued them for covering up the study they paid for which
concluded that Synthroid is no more effective than a generic product.
That cover up had a rather unimportant effect. People had to pay a
couple dollars more per prescription. The drug companies, I'm sure,
cover up much more heinous information about use of their drugs, that
involve not only money, but serious problems and deaths related to
their product.


Bush the younger passed the "mental health initiative" which seems an
attempt to drug every man, woman and child in America with psychiatric
drugs (maybe so they can't string together two coherent sentences
either), which seems to be rather friendly toward his friends in Texas
that were in the drug business. Fortunately, that's something that
needs to be adopted by the states to be effective, and as far as I
know, only Illinois has.

The Bush administration wants to lower potential settlements against
drug companies and doctors to $250,000 in punitive damages. That's a
pretty friendly thing for him to do. They were talking about that at
the same time they were talking about how a doctor gave a female child
a transplant with an organ of the wrong blood type.

Rumsfeld, our secretary of defense was the one who got aspartame
approved as safe by the FDA, only because of his political connections
and not the science. There were many strong objections to its safety.
I'm sure he made a lot of money from it.

I also assume as perhaps the largest shareholder in the corporation
that actually has the license to produce Tamiflu (Gilead, and Rumsfeld
has openly admitted ownership) Rumsfeld is profiting nicely from the $2
billion the government is going to pay for a flu drug that MIGHT make
the flu last 1.3 days less. Hardly worth taking the drug, and if it
has side effects likely more risky than not taking it, and in Japan
they attribute some strange suicide deaths to Tamiflu.

See all the political power there? On top of these people, drug
companies give huge amounts to candidates.

When I started to learn about how thyroid problems were treated by the
medical profession, I wondered how they could appear to have so much
power. Like the power to take away Durrant-Peatfield's license in the
UK, and then two weeks later start to work on dragging down Dr. Derry.
It was conspiracy too big to be reasonable. But then, most
corporations no longer have a reason to have loyalty to the country
they're in, as they are multi-national operations. Upjohn had reason
to be loyal to the American way of life, does Pfizer? I doubt it.

But, if you look at the policiticans and their drug company ties, it
doesn't seem so far fetched a conspiracy any more.

I believe the following is at least partly true -

http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/MEDICINE.html
" Perhaps now you understand that any true cure for cancer, diabetes,
arthritis and other diseases must be suppressed for the status quo to
continue. It's sort of like war: millions of people suffer and die
because it's so very profitable for a few at the top. Disease is
especially profitable for the pharmaceutical cartel. Using common sense
and eating right would eliminate profits of nearly a billion dollars a
week for the drug industry."

See, poor treatment is not likely limited to thyroid disorders, it's
just the one we have so we have become aware. If you treat thyroid
disease adequately, it's far cheaper than treating all the
miscellaneous conditions that are caused directly or indirectly from a
malfunctioning endocrine system. I'm sure the same is true with the
conditions listed also. It's not in the best interests of the multi
national corporations to have us treated adequately.

Also a good site -

http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/DOC.html
TEN LIES YOUR DOCTOR TOLD YOU

Skipper

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