Category: Doctors

Today’s morning newspaper was repugnant. The article was titled Doctors not fans of Googling to find ailments. Oh really?? Why are we not surprised! Yes, the article began with the idea that many of us are googling our unexplained symptoms before heading to the doctor and they “aren’t thrilled.”

It then stated:

In fact, doctors used words like “nightmare,” “annoying”, “irritating” and “frustrating” when talking about the burden of dealing with patients who bring in stacks of Internet-based health information (and misinformation) according to a recent study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.”

It continues with doctors seeing it “as an unwelcome intrusion” and they “resent the new interpretive role they have been put in.”

Does that trouble you, the thyroid patient, as it does me?? In fact, I find it pompous and nauseating. Let’s turn that article around to represent the REAL truth:

Thyroid patients have found it to be a “nightmare” when doctors overtly and unanimously proclaim us “normal” because of dubious lab results (TSH and T4) in the face of obvious and ongoing hypothyroid symptoms.

Thyroid patients find it “annoying” that doctors ignore the continuing symptoms and instead, push anti-depressants, statins, anti-anxiety or pain meds on the patient rather than become educated about the role of a low free T3.

Thyroid patients find it “irritating” that doctors, especially Endocrinologists, blindly conclude that Synthroid, Levoxyl and any other T4-only treatment is the best treatment for hypothyroid patients…when it has clearly failed us for decades.

Thyroid patients find it “frustrating” that doctors don’t recognize the common occurrence of adrenal fatigue with hypothyroid, and their failure in understanding how to treat it.

And thyroid patients “aren’t thrilled” that doctors still seem to see themselves as demi-gods of their patients health, when in fact, the relationship should be a PARTNERSHIP. You do NOT live in our bodies.

So dear doctor, instead of bemoaning our use of the internet, which in fact saved ME from your incompetence as it’s doing millions of others, rejoice that your patients have had the balls and inclination to FIND answers via the internet. Because those answers are here. And the answers are not just for us, but for those of you who are open-minded and mature enough to LEARN from the internet. Because the internet is ultimately US.

For those that don’t know….in June of 2005, Dr. Gordon Skinner, a private practitioner in the UK, was called before the General Medical Council to ascertain his “fitness to practice”. And why was he called before the board? Because of alleged “inappropriate clinical practice including maintaining medication for patients at dangerous levels and failures of communication with other medical practitioners.”

And might you guess what the “inappropriate” measures really concern? Namely, Skinner DARED to listen to his patient’s clinically presented thyroid SYMPTOMS, and dose by those symptoms, rather than her TSH labwork which fell in the erroneous normal range.

Further, Skinner was going to treat the patient without a referral letter from her GP, and may have failed to contact the GP. Heaven Forbid!!

The outcome of this absurb baboonery will not occur until July of 2007.

And the entire scenario makes me pause. In my inner ears echo the desperate and miserable cries of THOUSANDS of patients I have dealt with since 2002…patients who’s TSH was “normal” while their entire bodies screamed and pulsated with hypothyroid symptoms. Yet……..the medical school educated physician who’s brilliance falls to ink spots on a piece of paper pronounces his patient “normal”, figuratively pats her on her butt, and sends his patient on her ‘merry’ way with her sample box of antidepressants.

Cough.

This patient site exists EXACTLY because physicians have sent MILLIONS of us on our merry way, pronouncing our thyroids “normal” because of a so-called normal TSH, in spite of the fact that we have lived miserable lives with miserable symptoms while having a “normal” TSH.

How many doctors does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten. One to change it by noting that it’s not emitting light, and nine others to declare the first doctor unfit for daring to act on clinical presentations of a lightbulb that isn’t working.

Hang tough Dr. Skinner. Because millions of thyroid patients are behind you.

Sing with me:

A-B-C-D-E-F-GGGGG
The TSH and symptoms do NOT AGREE
Q-R-S
T-U-V
How long will it take doctors to SEE
Now we’ve said our ABC’s
How many doctors do we have to FLEE???

Yup, sometimes even something as simple as a reworked nursery rhyme song says it all. Because as long as doctors look at the TSH as a reliable marker of thyroid function, patients continue to suffer. Why? Because the TSH lab is FLAWED, and the proof is in the pudding.

I work with numerous thyroid patients, both here and other sites, as do several other thyroid patient advocates who run the forums here. And I can’t begin to count the OVERWHELMING number of patients who come to us in desperation because they have a “normal” TSH, yet screaming hypothyroid symptoms, and a doctor who refuses to treat them because he has the myopic view that the TSH is a reliable window into the function of the thyroid.

The TSH is a reliable window into the function of the thyroid as much as a stomach ache is a reliable indication that it’s about to rain.

No one said it more aptly that Dr. David Derry in an interview by Mary Shoman: “Why are we following a test which has no correlation with clinical presentation? The thyroidologists by consensus have decided that this test is the most useful for following treatment when in fact it is unrelated to how the patient feels. The consequences of this have been horrendous. Six years after their consensus decision Chronic fatigue and Fibromyalgia appeared. These are both hypothyroid conditions. But because their TSH was normal they have not been treated. The TSH needs to be scrapped and medical students taught again how to clinically recognize low thyroid conditions.”

It’s called clinical evidence by the recognition of symptoms, not clinical evidence because of ink marks on a piece of paper!!

No wonder thyroid patients have lost so much respect for doctors! Most doctors have become akin to pilotless aircrafts operated by the mindless remote control of their medical school training and the pharmaceutical reps who tinker with their engines.

I have now heard the words of two different doctors in two different countries state the same thought: they remember the 70’s with sadness.

It was the 70’s when the TSH lab first came out–Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. It was hailed as a sensitive measure to determine either thyroid over-activity (hyper) and thyroid under-activity (hypo). Before that test was established, doctors made a diagnosis by symptoms alone. So now, doctors had a modern and sensitive test to accurately determine a thyroid problem.

Bull.

Doctor #1 stated that he was at first dubious, but decided to fall right in with the excitement of other physicians about this new test. He used the TSH test. But, over just a few years, it became clear to him that even when the TSH test was NOT showing the patient to be hypothyroid (i.e. their number was in range), the SYMPTOMS of these very patients WERE showing hypothyroid. He was not amused.

And Doctor #2 had a memory of the 70’s as the decade of the synthetics. Wistfully, he remembers not understanding why it was created when desiccated thyroid was doing the job so well. He watched desiccated thyroid treatment “just fade away”, and the synthetic T4’s take over.

And we, too, are wistful. Why, oh why wasn’t there a doctor out there who questioned this new TSH test? Why wasn’t there a doctor out there who questioned the use of synthetic T4-only treatments? Why did doctors become so dull-brained…….soaking up all that information as if it was the holy grail, and failing to ask questions when patients came in REEKING of symptoms in spite of a “normal” TSH, or in spite of being on T4 medications?

It is the MILLIONS of us who have suffered who also look at the 70’s and subsequent years with sadness.

P.S. Below this entry is a previous post titled HAHAHA. I hope everyone has read the comments.