Thyroid problems have become rampant.
And it’s not just in the US with individuals like Oprah, fitness guru Jillian Michaels, Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall, George and Barbara Bush, Kelly Osbourne and others. A recent article in the Daily Mail-UK highlights the saga of Clare Balding, the BBC TV sports presenter in the UK whose thyroid was gladly removed due to a malignant tumor.
Even the gal who wrote the well-written article about Clare, Pippa Jolly, reports having gone through the same removal 13 years previous due to an extreme case of Hashimotos and a nodule pressing against her trachea.
But within the informative and hopeful tone of the article are a few Rodney Dangerfield thuds of the continuing SCANDAL and idiocy of a particular thyroid treatment which even the most innocent of article writers can be fooled.
Thud #1: The very first sentence of the article says: Some good news for Clare Balding, the BBC TV sports presenter, is that her recent operation to remove her cancerous thyroid gland – a thyroidectomy – should be the end of the matter.
End of the matter? Only if she had been put on desiccated thyroid like Naturethroid, et al. Because it appears she’s on the delightfully enchanting synthetic “thyroxine“, the darling of most UK doctors and which serves to leave almost everyone with their own brand and intensity of continuing hypothyroid symptoms. You can listen to my audio here about T4.
Thud #2: Diagnostic rates are on the increase, says Professor Monson, as thyroid tests are now done routinely at GP surgeries. ‘As a result there is a higher detection rate and the disease can be tackled earlier and if necessary followed up by surgery.
Right. Those increasing diagnostic rates, some which are based on the lousy TSH lab test, are overridingly catching someone’s hypothyroid state years after it started, which leaves a certain percentage with the misery of adrenal insufficiency and host of other problems from being undiagnosed so long. And if one is treated after surgery based on the same holy TSH, you will only continue to have your brand of continuing symptoms. You can listen to my audio on the TSH here.
Thud #3: If the thyroid is removed or not functioning properly, thyroxine will need to be taken in drug form for life.
You and millions of others have been hoodwinked into thinking it’s thyroxine you will need the rest of your life, aka Eltroxine, Synthroid, or levothyroxine, et al. But those T4 meds force you to depend on conversion alone, a process not well done in many, and you miss out on what natural desiccated thyroid would be giving you as a much wiser treatment–exactly what your own thyroid gives: direct T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin. Or even at the VERY least, giving yourself synthetic T4 with synthetic T3.
Thud #4: Now I have to have my hormone levels checked every three months and make sure I take my medication, but otherwise I feel fine.
I completely believe Pippa when she says she feels fine. But I want to warn her: some CAN feel fine on a T4-only medication, but eventually and especially as she ages, she’s going to have to watch out for those pesky little demons of being on an inferior, inadequate medication, which can include rising cholesterol, chronic low-grade depression, rising high blood pressure, or a host of other symptoms which are individual to each person on thyroxine.
Here’s hoping Clare and Pippa join the growing body of patients all over the world whose lives are being changed thanks to natural desiccated thyroid.
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