From Sheila Turner of TPA-UK:
Some of you, probably the majority of you, will have heard about Edna Kyrie of ‘Thyroid History’ fame website: http://www.thyroidhistory.net
It is with great sadness that I write to you to let you know that Edna died earlier this week, following serious digestive tract complications arising from her MS diagnosis. Her condition deteriorated a lot this past year, leading to a couple of long hospital stays. She died at home in her London flat with her main carer and friend, Kieron. Edna was in her mid to late forties.
In 1985, Edna was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis — a diagnosis she still questioned, right up to the day she passed away. In 1998 Edna also found out she had an under-active thyroid, it was this diagnosis that encouraged her to found the wonderful scientific web site ‘Thyroid Research’. She said: “I read a book on the thyroid and was amazed by how much could be affected by it, I decided to follow up the references at the back of the book, and so the project began.”Today, thyroidhistory.net holds over 1,200 abridged articles on the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid related illness, photocopied from books and journals in The British Library and scanned onto her computer at home. She said: “At one point I was spending £70 a week on photocopying. I just feel so passionately about this.” What has shocked Edna most, and what she talked about most animatedly, is the medical research by long-dead doctors that has been lost over the passage of time. Edna said “In the 1880s when they wrote about the thyroid they thought they’d found the elixir of youth. There is all this incredible work that had just been forgotten about.”The website sprang from a determination that the knowledge of thyroid function in many common illnesses is made available. Edna thought at the start that if she could just help one person it would be worth it, and she soon learned that she had helped many, many more than that – and will continue to help so many more in the future.
Edna’s health had declined in recent months and she was not getting to the British Library as much as she used to, but she continued adding to the website from a backlog of copied articles. She said “I worship The British Library and I feel I have this queue of long-dead doctors and physicians looking over my shoulder encouraging me,” and “This is what I have built my new life around — before all this happened I was a singer and a psychotherapist, I just can’t believe how much things have changed.”
Edna will be greatly missed, but her work lives on. I was fortunate enough to have met Edna and we have corresponded since. I first met her at Dr Skinner’s original IOP Hearing in London. Everybody found her to be a warm, kind, funny person who was totally dedicated to thyroid research and to make this available to all who will read it. I know that without her research, Thyroid Patient Advocacy would not be where we are today.
Edna and her work has been an inspiration to me personally. Thank you dear Edna. Details of the funeral will be posted as soon as possible.
Our condolences have been passed to Kieron Deahl, a very close and dear friend of Edna’s.
Sheila
Thyroid Patient Advocate
www.tpa-uk.org.uk
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5 Responses to “We are sad at the passing of Edna Kyrie of the Thyroid History website”
Anina
Thank you for the reply.
I have already tried it before. And I have tried it again through your link.
I think that one should have direct link to each article, before it can be found at web.archive.org.
If one want to search the content via search on the already archived page, one will be taken back to the link farm which thyroideresearch.com is now.
It happens every time I try to search the archive page.
Thanks for the reply anyway
Anina
I think that Edna’s work is already forgotten.
Only a few months after Edna died, is domain Thyroidresearch.com (former Thyroidhistory.net) already expired and for sale. Content is gone. Meanwhile, the domain is used as a commercial link farms that most often refers to websites providing information which content often goes against Edna’s purpose with Thyroidhistory.net.
What can I say … Edna Kyrie, her work, her website and its content, more than a thousand articles on ancient knowledge of thyrology and desiccated thyroid in the treatment of hypothyroidism, is already gone and forgotten.
We who have not taken care to ensure, or at least, to maintain Edna’s work online, we are solely responsible for what is going to happen to us in our hypothyroid future. Because along with Edna’s work disappears also evidence that there are other treatments for hypothyroidism than synthetic T4.
We can not force the medical profession to change the treatment of hypothyroidism and take in use desiccated thyroid again without evidence. But most of the evidence is now gone along with Thyroidhistory.net because most of these lost articles are too old to be found online, and was only available digitally on Thyroidhistory.net.
I think that we deserve what’s coming to us in the future. Edna Kyrie spent so much of her hard life with MS, to gather valuable information that we so ungratefully failed to protect against oblivion. I apologize deeply for our stupidity and ingratitude.
This case was, in every way imaginable, worth throwing everything one had in hands, and immediately begin to protect the contents of Thyroidhistory.net by all means, against disappearance.
But all was apparently just a empty words, and best friends turned out not to be best friends anyway, and the result we see now: Thyroidhistory.net is gone.
Janie
Start here: http://web.archive.org/web/20090115000000*/http://Thyroidhistory.net i.e. click on the years it was active, and click on the light blue circles on the dates to see the site. It was VERY valuable.
Kit Kellison
Hey Janie,
Kit here, from ThyroidChange. I’ve been working with Denise and Michelle and hope to be able to help keep the work going now that they have to bow out for a while.
I’m very saddened to hear about Edna. Do you know if there are people at Thyroid History who will be able to keep the website up? I’d like to be able to help if there’s anything I can do, please put me in touch with someone from there.
The only contact info is for Edna. I’ll go ahead and send an email, but don’t know whether anyone will have access to it. I just don’t want the site to go offline for lack of funds, etc.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
(From Janie: GOOD point. I didn’t think about that. It’S VERY expensive for STTM, which is why there is a donation button towards the hosting. So there must have been something for her website. Hopefully someone will know. Keep up the good work!)
Dianne
Hi Janie,
I just came across thyriodhistory.net to discover that Edna had passed. I can not access any information on the thyroid.history site, but have been reading the STTM & Blog. I plan to order your revised edition of STTM. How can I access the information on Edna’s site?
Thanks.