2007 - Page 3 of 5 - Stop The Thyroid Madness Skip to content

Year: 2007

You can now donate to the hosting fees of STTM

Screen Shot 2015-08-31 at 10.17.13 AMThis page has been updated to the current date and time. Enjoy!

Since I first started to create this Stop the Thyroid Madness site around November/December of 2005, I’ve had several of you ask if you could donate, somehow, somewhere. At first, I wasn’t sure how to do that. What I did know is that millions of patients have suffered, and still suffer…and this site was to help educate you on what we have learned…and that education, in turn, could be taken to your doctors on how to stop the madness.

And now there is a way to donate!

Your donation goes towards the hosting fees to keep this site up. No, it does NOT go into Janie’s pocket in any way. Instead, it goes towards the monthly fees that are charged to host this site. And the larger the STTM website has become over the years, the larger those monthly fees.  And since this is not Janie’s website, per se, but YOUR website of your experiences and wisdom, contributing to those hosting fees is a good thing.

At the bottom of any page on Stop the Thyroid Madness, just like this one, you will see this under the heading “Story and Support”: STTM needs your help to stay up. Please donate to the hosting fee! Under that is the icon you click on. The smaller amounts aren’t anywhere near enough to even pay for a month. But every little bit helps towards the whole. And for those who are able to give much bigger amounts, that’s very helpful, too.

Your donation assures that STTM will stay up. It’s “everyones” site. So for those of you who have really wanted to help, and to feel a part of an important worldwide patient revolution, there it is. And thanks. 🙂

JanieSignature SEIZE THE WISDOM

4 replies

The King is Naked and the GMC of the UK–brotherhood of FOLLY

Who hasn’t heard the tale of the naked king, who succeeded at making his subjects schizophrenically believe that nakedness is the norm?? That nakedness isn’t nakedness at all!

The same folly still occurs today when you view the final press release in the Fitness to Practice hearing of Dr Gordon B Skinner in the UK, sent to me by Lyn Mynott, chair of Thyroid UK. In case you aren’t up on the news, Dr. Skinner has been brought before the GMC because he dares to treat his patients with thyroid hormone when they have so-called “normal” blood lab test results. The General Medical Council (GMC) is the “big brother” of all doctors in the UK, dictating exactly what is “a good standard of practice and care” for patients and the “proper standards in medicine”.

And you don’t have to guess long to know what that “good standard of practice” is. Namely, that man-made ink spots on a piece of paper called labwork tells the truth, and your slew of symptoms do not. That your chronic low-grade depression is of “unknown origin” or imagined. That your aches and pains are from Fibromyalgia or imagined. That your easy weight gain is because you eat too much or exercise too little. That your rising cholesterol is from what you eat or your genes. That your hair loss is simply alopecia or age. That your poor stamina simply means to take naps. And they can all occur with “normal” thyroid labs.

It’s simply pure and simple crazy-making: Of COURSE you aren’t hypothyroid. Your lab work is NORMAL. You are NORMAL.

What a bunch of brainless, skunk-butt bull crap.

If what is happening to Skinner by the GMC isn’t so pitiful, it would be hilarious. History will one day look back at this and weep.

9 replies

The Walking Tired

It happened about three hours ago. She was a pretty blonde-headed gal whom I noticed sitting in a vintage oak rocking chair about 15′ from where I stood in a store. When she saw that I noticed her, she asked “Is it OK if I sit here?” “Of course!” I replied cheerfully.

And then it struck me. What is this 50ish, pretty, vibrant looking gal doing looking tired in a rocking chair?? So I asked “Tired?” “Yes!” she mouthed, with more explanation about not having stamina since she entered menopause.

Bingo. I walked over to her and asked “So you don’t have the stamina you used to?

“No!” she exclaimed with her brows furrowed.

“Tell me then” I continued. “Do you have hair loss?”

“Why yes!” she replied, surprised. “I see them on the floor constantly now”

“Do you have chronic low grade depression?”, I asked tentatively, since that’s a personal question.

“Yes”, she replied quietly, and her eyes getting wider. My questions were hitting the bullseye of her symptoms.

“Do have high cholesterol?”

“Well yes, it’s getting higher than it used to be”.

And after more affirmations about dry skin, constipation and tiredness, I asked “Have you had your thyroid tested?”

“Yes, and it was normal”.

So….I proceeded to tell her that I have NO doubt that she is hypothyroid, and that doctors do the WRONG tests. I grabbed a two-page handout, which is identical to the T4 Only Meds Do Not Work page, and explained that she needed the free T3, and if it’s low in the range, THAT is the clue she needs labwise. I also explained Armour as compared to Synthroid, etc.

The fun part of the above was that she looked at me like I had repeatedly hit the bullseye and had practically made her naked. lol

And as she left, she said “I can’t begin to thank you for this information. For once, I have HOPE.” And oh was she smiling.

And that encounter underscored to me that because doctors are BLIND to obvious hypothyroid symptoms and overreliant on ink spots on a piece of paper, there has to be MILLIONS of the “Walking Tired” out there.

How long did you walk tired before ANY doctor had the vision to see what was going on??

15 replies

She wants to cry, and I want to cry with her!

I just want to weep when I get private emails like the below:

I have been reading this site for the last 72 hrs…I want to cry…for 12 yrs, on and off, I have been going to Dr’s thinking I was crazy..I am 38 yrs old and have not felt great in 12 yrs…I have had the nerve testings, I am on anti-anxiety meds, synthroid, lisonopril for high blood pressure…all these linked to my “normal” TSH of 5.48 and Ferritin level of 6.

I was told exercise more and take an iron supplement….I starved myself and never went below 160..I exercise for hours a day and weight doesn’t budge…my Dr told me to start exercising at 5 am and eat a handful of almonds several times a day, plus Fiber 1 cereal and salad…I told him I couldn’t live like that…he told me that I didn’t really want to lose the weight then…

I spent 2 months sleeping all day and staring at the tv at night in a constant panic attack, afraid to tell my husband because I thought I was losing my mind…I saw an Endo last Friday…she told me it was my thyroid and I found your site and I am not crazy or a hypochondriac….I can’t wait to start to feel better. Thank you….

Awful. No, dear one, you were never crazy or a hypochondriac. You just went through what we all have in the hands of doctors who don’t get it. And be aware: It’s not more Synthroid you need; it’s Armour, and dosing by symptoms, NOT the TSH. Demand that from the Endo. Don’t give your power away when you enter his office. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/things-we-have-learned Keep in touch!

13 replies

To ROSIE O’DONNELL

Aha!! Betcha that a lot of you who saw the title of this post thought that Janie was going to use her STTM blog as a political arena! Well…..I’m not. What I am going to do is speak to Rosie O’Donnell as a fellow human being.

Valerie, the mod of the Adrenal forum, emailed me this morning about a post that occurred on Rosie’s website on May 19th, 2007. The post by “Stacey” said “Rosie, have u evr had ur thyroid cked? I thought I was crazy…..anx, depr, panic….my thyroid was way out of whack. Plz ck this website out. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com Peace2u ~Stacy”

And Rosie replied “had it checked over and over .”

Well Rosie, if you didn’t check out the link to STTM on May 19th, I hope that someone sends you right here, because I want to explain something to you: Millions of women and men just like you have had our thyroids checked “over and over” and we have all been told we were normal, it’s not our thyroid, our TSH is optimal, we need to be on anti-depressants, we need to eat less, we need to exercise more…..blah, blah, blah. Ad nauseam. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/give-me-a-break

Additionally Rosie, the tests that most well-meaning but unknowledgeable doctors use are not going to give a single clue about your continued hypothyroid state. Additionally, patients have learned that “normal ranges” mean squat. You will stay hypothyroid in many parts of that so-called normal range. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/recommended-labwork

And finally Rosie, in addition to your obvious hypothyroid symptoms, I see evidence that you may have adrenal fatigue. When a person remains hypothyroid due to the failure of doctors to listen to clinical presentation, your adrenals have to take over to keep you functioning. And over time, they wear out and become sluggish. That means you don’t produce enough cortisol to help you cope with stress. And life can become an emotional rollercoaster, besides feeling like an old piece of chewed gum on a Manhattan sidewalk being stepped on by thousands of happy squishy feet daily. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info

Bottom line, to Rosie and any human being out there who might identify with weight issues, anxiety, depression, poor stamina, and/or feeling unbearably stressed out…there is hope, and it’s not coming from the majority of doctors out there, nor their labwork or being on Synthroid, Levoxyl or any other T4-only med. It’s coming from patients who finally got sick and tired of feeling like crap, having obvious hypothyroid symptoms, and being told we were NORMAL!! That’s exactly why I created this website. This website represents what thousands times thousands of us have learned, and how our lives our changing. It also represents what doctors NEED TO LISTEN TO. www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/things-we-have-learned

Here is my story. Here are stories of others. And the latter only BARELY touches the changes that are going on out there.

Rosie, there is a chaos and tumult of terrorism in the way billions of thyroid patients have been diagnosed and treated for more than five decades. We have been left sick thanks to the lousy treatment of T4-only meds, thanks to labwork and their dubious ranges which have failed us, thanks to doctors who tell us it’s all in our heads and put us on a slew of other prescription meds, and thanks to be social constraint that we must walk into that doctor’s office and give our power away. It’s wrong. It’s medical mayhem. And we are FIGHTING BACK! Stop the thyroid madness!

Janie

10 replies