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Very sad news: Dr. Gordon P. Skinner of the UK has passed away!

skinner TPAStop the Thyroid Madness is saddened to report of the passing of Dr. Gordon P. Skinner of the UK on Tuesday, November 26th due to a stroke. Skinner was a champion of thyroid patients, plus a medical practitioner who was beloved for his willingness to look outside the box in the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. 

Dr. Skinner was a man of high education and esteem. He “graduated in Medicine at the University of Glasgow in 1965 and following house jobs in Glasgow and Midlands of England specialized in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and later in Virology and in 1976 became Senior Lecturer in Medical Microbiology at the University of Birmingham with Consultant status at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Dr Skinner’s research portfolio for which he was awarded the prestigious Doctorate of Science by the University of Birmingham can be found in his CV”.

Dr. Skinner was brilliant about the connection between ME/CFS and hypothyroidism. Years ago, he was one who saw the association between the condition of Myalgic Encephalopathy (which is also a term for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and hypothyroidism, in spite of so-called normal ranges. This was huge information and the same association was also seen by some thyroid patients around the turn of the century when they were moving over to natural desiccated thyroid (NDT) and doing so much better than they did on T4-only like Synthroid. Read about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome right on STTM.

Dr. Skinner was sadly challenged by the GMC. In June of 2005, Dr. Gordon Skinner, who was 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.”  I mentioned this in October 2006. i.e. Dr. Skinner dared to listen to thyroid patient symptoms over what is deemed “normal” labwork via the TSH.  He also dared to use natural desiccated thyroid, aka porcine thyroid extract, to treat his patients until they saw the removal of symptoms. He began to receive restrictions in his ability to practice.

Dr. Skinner was now prohibited from seeing new patients unless they had been referred by a General Practitioner, and his decisions were to be reviewed by the GMC every six months for the next three years.

In 2007, I heard from Lyn Mynott, chair of Thyroid UK about Dr. Skinner being brought before the General Medical Council (GMC) because he dared to treat his patients with thyroid hormone when they have so-called “normal” blood lab test results. The GMC attempts to dictate what is “a good standard of practice and care” for patients and the “proper standards in medicine”. I spoke about this folly in the July 2007 blog post. His restrictions continued.

Dr. Skinner was appalled by the belief that a TSH up to 10 was normal. The Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners had implied by 2010 that patients should not received a diagnosis of hypothyroidism if their TSH was less than 10, and Skinner found it senseless. They had also stated that the thyroid extract called Armour was a bad medication (in spite of the fact that millions of us worldwide have had our lives change thanks to NDT).

Dr. Skinner was free to practice fully again in November 2011. i.e. his restrictions were lifted and his Fitness to Practice was restored. But in May 2012, he was forced to appear before the GMC once again, where conditions were imposed on him, including being supervised by a particular Endocrinologist

Dr. Skinner was the creator of the World Thyroid Register. This was created to “address the parlous situation of patients who are hypothyroid and have yet not been diagnosed and indeed patients who are being managed with an unacceptably low level of thyroid replacement.”

Dr. Skinner wrote the book “Diagnosis and Management of Hypothyroidism” about the symptoms of hypothyroidism and issues with getting diagnosed.

Thyroid UK summed it up well: “He will be sadly missed by his family, friends and thousands of thyroid patients whom he has helped to regain their lives through his diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. Many patients became firm friends with Dr Skinner, enjoying his quirky sense of humour and it is so sad that we will never be able to hear his lovely Scottish lilt again.”

SkinnerYou will be missed, Dr. Skinner, and remembered by Thyroid Patients worldwide with admiration! We send our condolences to your family and closest friends, as well as to all your patients who will miss you greatly. Rest in Peace!

**Photo on top from the TPA UK site; below from Thyroid UK 

 

 

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More Spring 2013 Thyroid Tidbits!

Yellow FlowersOn the heals of the bat-guano Thyroid Tidbits just a few days ago, here are more for your reading pleasure and enlightenment:

Well, well, well…Endocrinology underscores what we already know!

In a March 2013 article titled “Subclinical hypothyroidism predicts cardiovascular mortality in NHANES”, it states “Subclinical hypothyroidism is a strong independent predictor of cardiovascular mortality in a healthy population at baseline, a national study indicated.”

A good realization about hypothyroid and heart health, but we have to wonder if they really understand what “subclinical hypothyroidism” is, because we, as informed thyroid patients, know it’s NOT waiting until the pituitary hormone TSH rises to 3 or 5 or above, since MANY of us are hypo years before the TSH rises high enough to reveal it…and some report NEVER having a raised TSH even though their symptoms scream hypothyroid for years!

And do they yet understand that thyroxine is NOT going to make that much of a difference in our heart health…as exactly happened to my Synthroid-treated mother?? *See*//www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/healthy-heart-with-t3/

B12 Dots may be a better treatment for some!

Thyroid patient Marilyn emailed me the following interesting information:

I had a B12 level of 189 five years ago. In the beginning, I tried the mega-doses of B12, but they did nothing for me, and I had to take the monthly shots. My thyroid specialist recommended B12 Dots (found in health food stores or organic sections of stores). Put under your tongue, they are absorbed into the blood stream directly. One a day and I am back to normal. No more shots and no more big pills to take. I use the 500 mcg dot, but I know they also make a 5000 mcg dot.

And by the way, an important discovery patients made years ago: mid-range B12 is not adequate. They needed to get to the upper quarter of the range to fully rid themselves of B12-related symptoms.

Costco has it ALL WRONG!

From thyroid patient Florence who emailed me:

I received The Costco Connection magazine in the mail for April 2013. There is an article on underactive Thyroid that refers to the TSH as the “gold standard” and states if someone continues to have symptoms on T4 medication when the TSH is within the desired range then the amount of medication isn’t the problem. Please contact The Costco Connection magazine and let them know why the information the author received from an Endocrinologist at the Diabetes Center at Mercy Medical Center (Baltimore) is incorrect. 1-800-955-2292

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: the world-is-flat syndrome

Have you ever been told you have CFS, ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy), or CFIDS? Because It’s past time to lay this out on the table, because Chronic Fatigue Syndrome just may be one more bungling diagnosis by our medical community for more than twenty years! So it’s time to have an open mind, carefully considering history and facts.

Yes, there are always exceptions to everything, but overall, there are strong clues as to what most cases of CFS spring from—a hypothyroid state. //www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/chronic-fatigue-syndrome

2013 study: direct evidence about the efficacy of Vitamin D!

This newest study, just reported in Science News, is said to provide direct evidence that optimizing your vitamin D levels plays a large role in improving your immune system, besides lowering your risk for a host of diseases! That is good news for thyroid patients, especially Hashimotos patients, who are always working to optimize their poor levels due to low stomach acid.

It states that the “vitamin D status of healthy adults significantly impacts genes involved with a number of biologic pathways associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases.”

Why you need to go to bed when your body says NOW!

Dr. Lam has always stated that we need to go to bed by 10 pm. Why? He explains that “This is because our adrenal glands kick in for a “second wind” to keep us going from 11 pm to 1 am. This puts tremendous stress on the adrenals.”

And we now have proof by patient reported experiences as to how important going to bed at the right time is! One gal with adrenal fatigue and low cortisol, and who was working with the T3CM, stated she went on vacation with her family. The vacation was to an area that had no TV, and definitely no stress. And the family just went to bed by 10 pm-ish…and they all slept well. Lo and behold, she stated she did SO much better with the T3CM, getting far better results.

The message was clear: going to bed at a reasonable time can do wonders for your adrenals.

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The outcome of this can affect YOU, as a thyroid patient, no matter WHERE you live!

Screen Shot 2013-02-10 at 10.22.58 AMWhat affects your neighbor can affect you. 

This is why you need to be aware of, and show support for, what is going on in Scotland. Namely, three Scottish residents….Sandra Whyte, Marian Dyer and Lorraine Cleaver…have submitted a petition to the Scottish parliament as of last week in defense of better thyroid diagnosis and treatment.

ThyroidChange has provided a video about this hearing, and it’s moving. You’ll hear mention of the following:

  1. the conversion failure of T4-only treatment, leaving these women suffering with low energy, high cholesterol or blood pressure, weight gain, anxiety, fibromyalgia joint pain, suicidal tendencies or more
  2. issues related to poor cortisol levels
  3. problems with testing only the TSH and T4 lab tests
  4. stress put on marriages because of these failures
  5. how the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia seem to have risen only after the TSH came into being along with thyroxine treatment

A mind boggling and brilliant comment came from Lorraine about the National Health Service (NHS) listing of medicines, which she stated includes 82 for Diabetes, 47 for depression, 45 for acne, 16 for athletes foot, 3 for hiccups, 3 for dandruff….AND ONE FOR THYROID. “There’s something very wrong” says Lorraine, when T4 is the only medicine listed (in spite of the availability of natural desiccated thyroid, also called thyroid extract, or T3.) 

When asked for evidence as to where the problem is with General Practitioners (GPs), it was mentioned there are no guidelines for the treatment and diagnosis of hypothyroidism, and everyone defers to the Royal College of Physicians guidelines, which is inadequate and does not provide for problems with T4-only or recommend T3 or thyroid extract (natural desiccated thyroid).

Sandra asks “Why are we keeping people ill?“.  She mentions that patients are told it’s in their heads, have “lazyitis”, and antidepressants are prescribed everywhere.  Lorraine sadly mentions being told by doctors that her problems are not thyroid related (when she knows they are, and so do millions of us).

Mention was made of a Swedish study showing that 70% of thyroxine-treated patients are not symptom-free, going against the idea that taking one little thyroxine pill is going to solve the problem. 

Lorraine mentioned that even doctors, like a particular Endocrinologist she has seen, feel ham-strung themselves (by the pressures put on them from their fellow professionals to prescribe T4-only).

BRAVO TO THESE THREE LADIES FOR BRINGING THIS TO THEIR PARLIAMENT!  And I can’t help but believe that if we see the right outcome in Scotland about this, it will play a role in spreading throughout the world. Have your own T4-only nightmare to share? You can send it to the Scottish parliament to back up what these ladies have already one, here: petitions@scottish.parliament.uk

And from Janie: we see many T4-only patients who do seem to convert well, yet still have issues related to a poor treatment. I was one. There are many others. Additionally, even those who convert well eventually find themselves with problems as they get older. T4-only treatment is not a pretty picture.

For further reading:

To see research which proves what we already know as thyroid patients, go here.

To see patient-recorded symptoms from being on T4-only, go here.

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Touching message from a near-91 year old New Zealand resident who feels his government is keeping him sick…

Screen Shot 2015-08-10 at 10.38.26 AM(Though this post was originally written in 2012, it is still appropriate even today! Enjoy!)

I am impressed if ANYONE over 70 years old is active on their computers, especially because they didn’t grow up with one, nor did their own children. So when I get a message via Facebook from a near 91-year-old man in New Zealand who clearly knows his stuff, I am doubly impressed.

But this story is poignant, aggravating, and the very reason Stop the Thyroid Madness exists–to educate YOU in the face of medical and government leaders who are completely clueless! Do we have to wait for our current crop of government officials to be forced or voted out of office  before we see this thyroid diagnosis and treatment travesty stop???

Dear Janie, I am 90 years and 10 months old, and have a TSH of 3.5 . My doctor, using the range of 0.4 to 4, declared me OK and not hypothyroid. This margin is used by the New Zealand Governments Ministry of Health (M.O.H). My letters to the M.O.H. of New Zealand to read the article written by the AACE in America of  January 2003 (to bring down the margin to 0.3 to 3.04) were not taken into consideration.

I am a permanent resident in New Zealand. Because of my repeated requests, they even blocked my letters to them, and in the meantime, leaving me suffering. Have been suffering about 3 years with “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”.  Found your articles on the Internet and bought your book Stop The Thyroid Madness.

My doctor gave me Synthroid and when it didn’t work, wanted to raise the dosage. Fortunately I was in possession of the book Overcoming Thyroid Disorders by David Brownstein M.D. and refused. Indeed, I share all the “Common Experiences We All Share” as written in your book . My doctor has even referred me to a Psychiatrist—unbelievable! Of course I told the Psychiatrist who works for the N.Z. Public Health Department straight away that I will have nothing to do with him. Just to do something, he wrote me a prescription for a drug used for people who are lunatic. Gave the prescription to the doctor to throw it in his rubbish bin!

Am now looking for a knowledgeable N.D. but have not succeeded yet . They are either not knowledgeable enough about thyroid disorders or too expensive for my pensioner income. Have obtained dessicated thyroid from a compounding pharmacist, but don’t dare to take it without guidance. In the meantime, I have to eat frequent small meals just to prevent awful anxiety attacks or to feel reasonably well ..and the doctor calls me euthyroid?

Well Janie, that is my story. Am so glad that you have written your book, thanks, and that I just today received it by mail order on the Internet. With my best regards – ****

P.S. Of course you can publicise my letter to you. Hope that it will help a bit in our struggle to get proper treatment and that people all over the world will know how indifferent governments can be.

THINK THIS PROBLEM IS ONLY WITH NEW ZEALAND? PATIENTS AROUND THE WORLD SHARE THE SAME STRUGGLES!

Sheila Turner, a Thyroid Patient Advocate in the UK and creator of TPA-UK, has worked tirelessly to change the DARK AGE medical treatment protocols that UK thyroid patients have to endure. Here is a letter she wrote July 2012 to the President of the Royal College of Physicians in one of many attempts to change the inane poor practices: http://www.tpa-uk.org.uk/Report_RCP_et_al.pdf

DR. JOHN C. LOWE’S WEBSITE “THYROID SCIENCE” BACK UP!

http://www.thyroidscience.com/

JanieSignature SEIZE THE WISDOM

New to this?

* Read why the TSH lab test can be a huge failure. 
* See why Synthroid or any other T4-only med can be a problem, sooner or later.
* To read what happens when your brain doesn’t get enough of the thyroid hormone T3, go here.

* To have the Stop the Thyroid Madness revised book in reach for reference, go here.

* To get more tips, inspiration and information, Like the STTM Facebook page.

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A clinical trial in progress to investigate T3 in the treatment of fibromyalgia

Oh the heels of my last blog post (see right below this if you are reading right on the site) comes something VERY interesting, and which thyroid-patients-in-the-know have already known about for a good ten years!

Namely, Dr. Ian Carroll, MD, MS, and Dr. Jarred Younger, PhD of the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Lab are currently enrolling patients for a clinical trial investigating T3 for the treatment of fibromyalgia. (Fibromyalgia is a chronic syndrome which causes widespread musculoskeletal pain and debilitating fatigue, also aching, twitching, burn sensation, joint issues).

Of course, patients who switched to desiccated thyroid the past ten years (or have used synthetic T3 in their treatment) already KNOW the truth from experience (which is usually always pooh-poohed by clinical-trial-worshipping, clinical-presentation-ignoring, medical professionals.).

Namely, fibromyalgia is usually the result of undiagnosed hypothyroidism (due to the inane TSH lab test) and undertreated hypothyroidism (due to the worst medication ever thrust on patients, aka T4-only, or Synthroid, Levoxyl, levothyroxine, Eltroxin, Oroxine, etc.) i.e. you need direct T3, the most powerful thyroid hormone, to adequately treated hypothyroidism.

i.e. we’re all kinda going duhhhhhhhh here.

But, if a clinical trial is needed to prove what we already know (and so has Dr. John C. Lowe known it for many years), it’ll be just one more underscore of the truth. Go to the following to read more and/or enroll:  http://snapl.stanford.edu/t3/

P.S. the Bobbsey Twins of the failure of the TSH labs test and treating with T4-only:  Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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Does your inner ear itch?? Got an email from a gal who was on Synthroid for 7 years, and for the last 5, had torturous deep inner ear itching. And guess what?? It went away just two days after switching to desiccated thyroid. Yup, another long and pathetic symptom of a poor treatment. (If you still have it on desiccated thyroid, see what mistakes in your treatment you need to identify and change, which is also Chapter 11 in the STTM book with a little more details added.)

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Yippee!! Direct Labs is the third lab facility to partner with STTM in offering the kind of labs that patients who frequent STTM know are important in their quest to feel better and educate their doctors.  Unfortunately, they don’t offer saliva like the other two, which are Healthcheck USA and MyMedLab, but they have all the other labs you may be interested in. You can view them by going to STTM’s Recommended Labwork page.

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