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TWO NEW BOOKS: Hashimoto’s: Taming the Beast & Updated Revision STTM book.

One of the most important steps we have to do, as hypothyroid patients no matter the cause, is to be INFORMED, which the Stop the Thyroid Madness books aka STTM books, provide you.  

We have to look at the experiences and wisdom of patients before us who GOT WELL, which STTM gives you!

And we have to be prepared to guide our doctors with the information in the Stop the Thyroid Madness books…or fire them. 

Why? Because 1) the medical profession simply doesn’t get it 2) their training is awful  3) they accept the dark-ages bad information they are fed without questioning.

Thyroid treatment should have NEVER been about…

  1. putting us on only one of five thyroid hormones like T4-only (backfires sooner or later with growing problems)
  2. the insane use of the TSH lab test and range for diagnosis or treatment (keeps us hypothyroid)
  3. falling anywhere in those ridiculous “normal” ranges (keeps us hypothyroid)
  4. “doing nothing” and “letting it run its course” for those with autoimmune Hashimoto’s (which increases inflammation and the risk of other autoimmune diseases)

And all the while we have had continuing problems, we are told…

2019 updated revision of the classic Stop the Thyroid Madness

You are normal
It’s not your thyroid
You need to eat less
You need to exercise more
You need to see a therapist
You need to be on an anti-depressant, or this med, or that med

PRESENTING…..

1) The “updated revision” of the world-renowned STOP THE THYROID MADNESS BOOK (info below)

2) HASHIMOTO’S: TAMING THE BEAST (a companion book to the above updated revision) See below.

About the updated revision STOP THE THYROID MADNESS: A Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Thyroid Treatment, @2019

Same chapter titles. A continuation of former good info. Yet now, you have updates throughout the book. 

  1. This world-renowned “bible of patient experiences” which is now updated, continues to have the life-changing information that it always has had with the same chapter titles…no matter your cause of hypothyroidism…
  2. …but it now has numerous updates throughout where needed, and out-of-date information removed. 
  3. Both adrenals chapters 5 and 6 have been updated, and there’s now details about the use of Adrenal Cortex (ACE), while still having info about hydrocortisone (HC). Chapter 6 now mentions what information applies to either ACE or HC, or BOTH.
  4. The T4 chapter now mentions Tirosint, but continues to explain the problem of forcing the body to live for conversion alone. T4-only is T4-only.
  5. There are now light gray rectangular boxes throughout the book, meant to highlight certain important sentences. 
  6. Emphasis is now on serum iron. i.e. the former book would mention both iron/ferritin, but we now know that it’s far more about serum iron as far as what to make “optimal”. The emphasis about ferritin is more about its ability to reveal inflammation, but can reveal a methylation issue when low with good or high iron.
  7. There is updated information about
    1. different kinds of iron products
    2. better explanations in areas alongside those which were already good
    3. some new tidbits at the end of some chapters
    4. some updates to the list of thyroid meds, etc.
  8. Throughout the book are many more mentions about being “optimal”, not just “on” NDT or T4/T3. It’s also explained often what optimal means in those several places in the book.
  9. There are great additions to the list of supplements as well as certain foods. 
  10. The chapter on Natural Desiccated Thyroid now has a little photo of an antique bottle of NDT--that’s to show that having T3 in our treatment has been helping patients a long time and safely! This book also mentions the alternative treatment with synthetic T4/T3. Plus various updates throughout while keeping what was always IMPORTANT.
  11. And there is more.

About HASHIMOTO’S: TAMING THE BEAST…
A “companion book” to the updated revision Stop the Thyroid Madness above

  1. “Taming the Beast”, a companion book to the updated STTM book shown below, has purposely been put together as concise, yet comprehensive. That means it purposely gets to the point about key information related to Hashimoto’s, while avoiding chattiness or long pages of stories to help those of you with brain fog and concentration problems. 🙂
  2. Some of the information you may have read before, while some is very unique to this wonderful book! 
  3. FOUR chapters fully pertaining to reported patient experiences and wisdom which can help change your life and reveal that you are NOT alone as a Hashi’s patient!
    1. Why and how Hashimoto’s patients go years without help or awareness of what is going on
    2. Patient-reported foods which were and are problematic for some and all the symptoms
    3. 43 most frustrating aspects of having Hashi’s as expressed by patients (especially about doctors)
    4. 95 short testimonies on what patients are using or doing to successfully lower their antibodies!
  4. Like research? You will see a total of 241 footnotes throughout this book that will send you to research articles, or just good information for further reading. Additionally, one chapter simply summarizes 46 research articles pertaining to Hashi’s in one (or two) sentences. And as intended, YOU can choose what you want to further read…or not.
  5. You will be made aware of, or reminded about, a variety of environmental triggers that can either birth autoimmune Hashi’s in the first place, or make one’s current antibodies worse. (Chapter 4)
  6. There is a chapter totally focused on Hashimoto’s inflammation--what it can do to you, inflammation labs, what to do about inflammation, supplements and foods to consider to counter inflammation, and short summaries of three ways to eat to counter inflammation. (Plus of course, good footnotes, and added URL’s in the body if needed)
  7. Two excellent and informative chapters on different gut health problems to explore, or be reacquainted with, including symptoms, types under each category, ways to treat, and more.
  8. Other examples of patient experiences inserted throughout many chapters
  9. Different lists of patient-reported symptoms within different chapters to help identify your issues, for example:
    • a chapter with symptoms from the autoimmune attack
    • another chapter highlighting symptoms of adrenal problems
    • more about hypothyroid symptoms that appear while on T4-only or being underdosed due to a doctor’s reliance on the lousy TSH lab test,
    • inflammation symptom list…etc.
  10. Each chapter has a lighthearted small drawing, pertaining to the subject, to send a friendly message about a serious topic, all drawn by Janie A. Bowthorpe, who is an artist.
  11. There is a blank “NOTES” page at the end of each chapter where you can put page numbers to remember, or additional information you have gleaned in this book or others! That way, you don’t have to flip through all the pages to find what was important to you.

AND SO MUCH MORE!! This book encourages you to underline, highlight, dog-ear, paper clip, and use the NOTES page at the end of each chapter. This is YOUR book.

Laughing Grape Publishing (LGP) now has a brand new, high-end ordering system for the Stop the Thyroid Madness books!! 

ORDER: http://laughinggrapepublishing.com 

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7 examples of buffoonery from The Endocrine Society of Australia about desiccated thyroid

The Endocrine Society of Australia (ESA) came out with their final position paper on Natural Desiccated Thyroid. Ready to throw up at what many hypothyroid patients will state is overt ignorance and condescending arrogance?? Are we not surprised??

Below are 7 excepts from this position paper.

Please note: the following terms are referring to the same product: desiccated thyroid, thyroid extract, NDT, natural desiccated thyroid. By prescription, it’s usually porcine, but there are over-the-counter bovine versions. Thyroxine refers to T4-only, aka levothyroxine, one of five thyroid hormones and a storage hormone alone. In Australia, common brands are Oroxine, Eutroxsig and/or Eltroxin. 

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1) “Desiccated thyroid or thyroid extract is not a pure product, not approved by the TGA [Therapeutic Goods Administration], not available on the PBS [Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme], not produced by a pharmaceutical company, not subject to existing TGA regulations, has limited quality control, and is marketed as a “bioidentical hormone”, while “bioidentical” has been determined by the FDA in the USA as a marketing term.”

Now who wouldn’t want their meds to be pure?? But wouldn’t you love to know what their definition of pure is in their swipe of desiccated thyroid?  But ultimately, this negatively pudgy paragraph is only a set up for the rest of the paper, which is full of baloney statements.

2) “Is the reason some people fail to have complete relief of symptoms when tests show normal levels simply because there are other causes of fatigue, depression, and weight gain that are mistakenly attributed to the thyroid? Could a placebo effect explain the better relief of these symptoms from thyroid extract?”

Condescending ignorance to the max, say patients. For one, we know that “falling in the normal range” has nothing to do with it–it’s about where we fall in those ridiculous normal ranges that does have something to do with it.

And gee, funny that with an optimal amount of desiccated thyroid or T3 (along with good iron and cortisol levels, which is crucial), that “fatigue, depression and weight gain” goes away as reported by patients for YEARS.

And the TSH lab test, which we know is one of the labs being referred to, is useless while on desiccated thyroid–i.e. optimal, life-changing amounts of desiccated thyroid nearly always push the TSH quite low, which has NOT caused bone loss or heart problems (as a low TSH with Graves disease does). To the contrary, the right amount of desiccated thyroid has REPEATEDLY been known to improve bone and heart health in measurable outcomes.

Finally and more egregious, to use “placebo effect” as a way to explain the numerous and common positive effects patients get on desiccated thyroid is the height of condescending arrogance, many patients would exclaim.

3) “Despite claims of proponents that desiccated thyroid or thyroid extract are superior to thyroxine or combinations of T4 and T3 for most people with hypothyroidism, no controlled clinical trials have been published, and most endocrinologists are concerned that superiority is due to a placebo effect or an effect of overtreatment.”

Claims?? Since when are CLEAR and MEASURABLE health changes on desiccated thyroid by Australian thyroid patients (and worldwide) simply “claims”?? They include lowered cholesterol, better blood pressure, improved bone density, less weight gain (and in some, weight loss)…besides the obvious reported improvements in depression, better energy, softer skin and hair, removal of pain and so many more results.

And once again, the condescending conclusion that if one feels better on thyroid extract, PLUS has measurable changes, then SURELY it has to be in their heads and nothing going on physiologically. Let’s see, I’ve been on NDT for 15 years now, and if this logic is maintained, I have somehow continued to simply “delude myself” for a decade and a half that I have felt much better in my thyroid treatment THAT long…andddd somehow manipulated the measurable results in my health.

4) “Thyroxine is “Monitored; accurate and consistent “; Thyroid Extract is “Monitored; may be inaccurate or inconsistent” “

Yawn. The same weak and unfounded conclusions about desiccated thyroid we’ve heard before. Since when is giving us back all five thyroid hormones “inaccurate” or “inconsistent”? If it’s inaccurate or inconsistent, why have so many seen their lives change on NDT as they find their unique optimal amount, and for years?? If thyroxine is so wonderful, why do millions report continuing or worsening symptoms on the “accurate and consistent” thyroxine?

Oh wait, all of you whose lives have changed are just fooling yourself with placebo outcomes….

5) “The controversies surrounding the safety and efficacy of “bioidentical hormones” such as desiccated thyroid or thyroid extract illustrate the need for further scientific and medical scrutiny of these substances. Until such studies are completed, physicians should exercise caution when prescribing “bioidentical hormones” and counsel their patients about the controversy over the use of these preparations.” 

Really?? Is it SAFE to be on only one of five thyroid hormones when there are numerous reasons why the conversion to T3 can be blocked, either from the beginning or the longer someone is forced to rely on conversion alone??  See those reasons on this page.

Is it SAFE on thyroxine when so many see rising cholesterol, rising blood pressure, bone thinning, heart problems, and/or a lowered immune function?? The “controversies” are those manufactured by clueless Endocrine Societies, NOT by thyroid patients who worldwide have had lives changed on desiccated thyroid if they are allowed to find their optimal amount (which has to have good iron and cortisol levels).

And by the way, there is ALREADY science about the efficacy of NDT or T3 in one’s treatment…BESIDES that fact that a huge growing body of thyroid patients are reporting lives changed in totally positive ways.

6) “In general, desiccated thyroid hormone or thyroid extract, combinations of thyroid hormones, or triiodothyronine [T3] should not be used as thyroid replacement therapy.”

In other words, as the most damning, cruel and ignorant part of this statement, it’s saying that we, the Australian Endocrine Society, don’t give a damn if you are suffering on thyroxine…don’t give a damn if you have genetics which prevent the conversion of T4 to T3 and thus might need T3-only to reclaim your health and well-being…don’t give a damn if you have high RT3 on thyroxine that being on mostly T3 would lower…don’t give a damn if there are a huge growing body of thyroid patients whose lives have changed on thyroid extract (of which many changes ARE measurable)…and don’t give a damn that a healthy thyroid also gives people direct T3 and does NOT force people to live for conversion alone.

Oh and remember the reasoning above that desiccated thyroid is not pure–implying that thyroxine is…yet now we have a widening of the cruelty by lassoing in triiodothyronine (T3) as a product which IS approved by the TGA, yet now is also not recommended??

7) “A registry of adverse events related to the use of bioidentical hormone preparations, including desiccated thyroid or thyroid extract, should be supported by the TGA and could be managed by an external organization, as the TGA does not regulate or monitor these compounds.”

At face value, registering adverse events to any drug is a good thing.

Yet, we KNOW for a fact that most “adverse events” with desiccated thyroid are due to the FAILURE of doctors or research studies to understand that patients have to have the right amount of iron levels or cortisol when raising NDT to avoid those “adverse” reactions….just as patients should NEVER be dosed by the TSH “normal” range, which leaves patients underdosed and thus, continued or growing symptoms of hypothyroidism which could be termed “adverse events”.  Other situations which can cause “adverse events” with NDT include Lyme disease, chronic inflammation, and high heavy metals, of which of course, clueless organizations would simply blame the NDT instead of understanding the results of Lyme, inflammation and/or high heavy metals.

To see this position paper in its entirety: https://www.endocrinesociety.org.au/ESA_Position_Statement_%20Thyroid-Extract.pdf

Rattle, thyroid patients!! Speak loud and clear. Send the URL to this blog post to your private Facebook pages. https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/2017/06/27/7-examples-australian-endocrine-buffoonery/ Make this information even better by your informed comments here. Don’t be silent!!

BEST LIST OF HYPOTHYROID SYMPTOMS on the net (of which many occur while on thyroxine): http://stopthethyroidmadness.com/symptoms 

WHY T4-ONLY HAS RUINED MILLIONS OF LIVES over the decades: http://stopthethyroidmadness.com/t4-only-meds-dont-work

WHY DESICCATED THYROID or even T3 added to T4 has changed lives and how: http://stopthethyroidmadness.com/natural-thyroid-101

TWO MOST WIDELY READ and LIFE CHANGING THYROID BOOKS: http://www.laughinggrapepublishing.com 

43 replies

The Scandal: Thyroid Patients are Speaking Out, Wall Street Journal, and a new video!

STTM photos of people from video UPDATEDThe push continues, fellow thyroid patients.  And it’s getting louder and more widespread.

This week, Wall Street Journal columnist Melinda Beck, who writes a weekly health column, hit an important gong with her wonderful attention-getting article titled “Doctors Hear Patients’ Calls for New Approaches to Hypothyroidism.”  

“Doctors and patients have been at each other’s throats for decades over how to treat a little gland in the neck–and patients may be gaining ground.” ~Melinda Beck

Beck underscored the sad reality that doctors have been relying “on a single form of treatment for hypothyroidism”, aka T4-only like Levothyroxine or Synthroid.  And it’s been travesty.

Why T4-only as a sole treatment is a scandal

As I explained in detail in the revised Stop the Thyroid Madness (STTM) book, a healthy thyroid produces five hormones: T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin, with T4 being the storage hormone, and T3 being the powerhouse of all the thyroid hormones. In that healthy thyroid, T4 will convert to T3, but the gland also produces “direct” T3.  That is an important distinction.

Yet this “single form of treatment” with simply a storage hormone, which was thrust upon thyroid patients by 1960 (see Chapter 1 in the revised STTM book for excellent historical details), has forced us all to live for conversion alone…and hundreds of millions of us over the past five decades have a paid a hefty price. There are simply too many reasons why the conversion of T4 to T3 can be impaired, ranging from genetic factors, to diet, to stress, to illness, to age.

That is exactly what compelled me, in 2002, to start what is now the largest active thyroid group still on Yahoo, and later, the largest “system of thyroid groups” on Facebook, called the FTPO (For Thyroid Patients Only) groups–the only system of patient groups endorsed by Stop the Thyroid Madness.

How patients are dismissed

In addition to quoting a few doctors, Beck interviewed thyroid patient/advocate Mary Shomon, who stated “It’s so much easier to tell a woman to get up off the couch or hand her a prescription for antidepressants.” Also interviewed was thyroid patient/advocate Dana Trentini, who feels her second pregnancy ended in miscarriage due to only being dosed by the TSH, which in her case was left high–another hefty problem in the treatment of thyroid patients.

Major kudos to Antonio Bianco, president of the American Thyroid Association

When the American Thyroid Association (ATA) has been the height of disappointment for informed thyroid patients with it’s strong emphasis on “synthetic thyroxine” as well as its poor details about NDT, it was extremely refreshing to see him quoted as stating: “I credit this to patients pushing doctors and saying, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t feel fine’.” followed by Beck’s words that Bianco ‘has refocused the research to search for answers for such patients’. You give us a light of hope, Dr. Bianco.

Seven areas that patients beseech their practitioners to be wiser about…

1. Levothyroxine, Synthroid and all other T4-only medications

They have failed far too many of us. It’s not about exercising more, eating less, seeing a therapist or putting us on a myriad of other medications to treat conditions which are actually the results of that failure. Learn from us.

2. Natural Desiccated Thyroid (NDT)

What has been vividly changing lives is Natural Desiccated Thyroid (NDT), not T4-only medications. NDT has been around since the 1890’s–it worked then and it works now. Learn from us.

And to the contrary, NDT’s T4 to T3 ratio of 80/20 (as compared to the human ratio of 93/7) has not been a problem for the vast majority. Instead, problems are usually “revealed” on NDT due to a cortisol issue and/or low iron–both common problems that arise with patients who have been put on T4-only, or who have been left undiagnosed.

3. The TSH lab test

The TSH lab test is and has been as much a failure for thyroid patients as has T4-only. To be held hostage to a “pituitary hormone” has been a complete **nightmare** for thyroid patients. Even one of your own esteemed colleagues, Jeffrey Dach MD, as well as many others, know the travesty of the TSH as explained in chapter 4 of the practitioner-written book Stop the Thyroid Madness II.  Learn from us.

4. Lab tests that count, and how to read them

It’s the free T3 and free T4 lab tests which have been superior for either diagnosis or dosing, not the TSH. And a key observation noted by informed thyroid patients is “where” a result falls in the so-called “normal” range that has meaning. Many key lab tests have helped us in our journey towards feeling wonderful again. Learn from us. 

5. Symptoms that go along with hypothyroidism

To the contrary, there are clear symptoms that go along with the right lab tests to reveal hypothyroidism. Depression is overtly common in an undiagnosed or poorly treated hypothyroid state, as is afternoon fatigue, poor stamina, dry skin, hair loss, rising cholesterol, rising blood pressure, painful joints, and/or others. How do we know as informed patients? Because they go away when optimally treated on Natural Desiccated Thyroid. Learn from us. 

6. T3 added to T4

Adding T3 to T4 has proven to also be far superior to T4-only, and to the contrary, it has NOT been “difficult to sustain therapeutic levels” if practitioners will simply learn from their patients how to use T3-only with T4. The same goes for the even more superior Natural Desiccated Thyroid. Learn from us.

7. Listening to your patients instead of dismissing them

Finally and most importantly, though we appreciate the intense medical training that all our doctors have received, it’s time to consider that we, as informed patients, might have something valuable for our doctors or practitioners to consider and open their minds to. It’s not just about clinical trials. It’s time to RESPECT AND LISTEN TO YOUR PATIENTS, THEIR EXPERIENCES, CLINICAL PRESENTATION, AND THEIR OWN INNATE WISDOM. Learn from us. 

ANNOUNCING: A new powerful YouTube video in honor of thyroid patients worldwide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n0NfAUyOKo   Please share this video to your blogs, private Facebook pages, groups, Twitter, email. Join the PUSH!

JanieSignature SEIZE THE WISDOM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Head on over the Stop the Thyroid Madness Facebook page and Like it for daily inspiration and information!

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Read what this Eye Doctor Observed in His T4-only Treated Patients!

Matt Dixon ODThe following Guest Blog Post has been written Matt Dixon, OD who currently practices optometry in Perry, Georgia.

And not only did Dr. Dixon find himself with hypothyroidism, he made quite an interesting observation: 90% of his patients currently taking levothyroxine still have symptoms!

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So how did an optometrist (eye doctor) become passionate and obsessive about spreading the news about what Janie calls the “Madness”?

My personal journey

I don’t quite fit the typical patient profile for a hypothyroid patient.  I’m not female, no weight issues. I’ve always been very active. Yet when the symptoms started, I was clueless about where they came from or that they all could even be related. 

All eye docs are trained to recognize thyroid eye disease, but truthfully, we focus on end-stage symptoms of Grave’s disease and the ophthalmopathy that often comes with it.  And the typical optometrist does not encounter this very often.  I had no clue that in my own practice, hypothyroidism was one of the most common conditions I see. 

I suppose my first symptoms were body aches and pains.  I had always experienced annoying back issues and I presumed that deterioration was setting in as I became older (40’s).  I’ve also always been cold-natured. And by 2010, I noticed that I was struggling to make it through the work day. So by the end of the day, I was exhausted.  In fact, I was no longer exercising, but found myself buried on the couch as soon as I came home, not getting up until I forced myself to climb into bed.  Once I made it to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep and became addicted to Ambien.  When the alarm clock woke me up the next morning, my wife had to literally pull me out of bed.  If I ever forced myself to jog, I felt as if I was carrying a 25 lb. backpack.  I also began to struggle with unexplainable stress and anxiety.  

But what finally prompted me to seek answers was in fact eye-related.  I was driving my kids home one night and the road in front of me actually moved suddenly from left to right.  I hit the brakes and feared for our safety!  My 17 year old son took the wheel and we made it home.

The madness for me began

My physician at the time is a well-liked internist in my community.  I made an appointment for a checkup complete with blood work.  I had some issues that I was concerned about, but neither the assistant nor doctor reviewed my symptoms. 

I went back in a week and promptly received a prescription for Synthroid for hypothyroidism.  With little discussion about the disease, I headed to the pharmacy. After a couple of weeks I began to improve.  But I wanted to know more.  I found the vast list of hypothyroid symptoms online and could not believe how many I was experiencing.  I read enough to know that elimination of symptoms was the best way to dose the medication and focusing on TSH only would lead to under-treatment. 

More importantly, if my doctor did not know any of my symptoms, how could he know when I was adequately treated?  It was time for a new doctor.

Why do MD’s undertreat hypothyroidism?

My new doctor, unlike the previous one mentioned above, did review my symptoms and pledged to increase Synthroid until my TSH was reduced to around 1.  I made sure they were paying attention to how I was feeling.  Yes, I improved tremendously and found my happy place on brand name Synthroid.  But I did move over to natural desiccated thyroid (NDT) and was even happier. As I adjusted to the new medication and found the correct dosage, I was able to get through the day with full energy and better mental focus.  Most days I am symptom free.

In my area, I have yet to find more than a handful of docs who use NDT with any frequency.  In my patient population, I rarely encounter a patient on NDT unless I have coached them to find a way to get the prescription.  (Optometrists are licensed to prescribe oral medications but only for eye conditions) 

Synthroid is the number one prescribed drug in America!

This is no accident and it will not be easy to battle the industry that achieved this coveted ranking.  Doctors clearly have been trained to use synthetic T4-only meds as the treatment of choice, having been convinced that it is highly effective.  Trying to change this at the medical school level will likely never happen.  Attempts to enlighten physicians who are convinced that levothyroxine treatment and normalizing TSH levels is the best care will rarely lead to change.  In fact, general practitioners and internal medicine docs will continue to get it wrong as long as endocrinologists and the American Thyroid Association (ATA) promote Synthroid religiously.  Those who have seen the light, thanks to educators like Janie Bowthrope, will laugh (then cry) when they read the preview from the ATA’s published pocket guidelines http://eguideline.guidelinecentral.com/i/521958-ata-hypothyroidism-pocket-card How could these smart folks be so misinformed and allow patients to suffer?

What can one eye doctor do?

I’ve decided to review residual symptoms with every patient who comes into my office taking any form of hypothyroid medication.  The majority of them have never reviewed such a list!  Occasionally, a patient will not circle a “single symptom”, but more often patients will have “several” symptoms.  I offer a 3-page summary of how hypothyroidism can be properly treated and, of course, I have them google STTM.  After counseling over 100 of these patients (with only one complaint), many have returned to say thank you.  Sadly, most patients get the push back from their MD and will remain on T4-only meds.  I’ve also learned that if a physician has not studied the use of natural desiccated thyroid and is only committed to normalizing TSH, even the patients who convert to NDT may still suffer due to ineffective dosing.

I treat many patients with dry eye syndrome, which is very common and sometimes costly to treat.  I am convinced that treating dry eye syndrome in a patient who is undertreated for hypothyroidism is like trying to change a flat tire on a car that is still moving.  Every eye doctor should take an interest in this disease even if for this reason alone!

What can a patient do?

Refuse to tolerate inadequate treatments.  Be passionate about your own health.  Recognize that very good doctors with good intentions have been misinformed and may be facing tremendous pressure in our rapidly changing healthcare system.  They do not quickly change deeply held beliefs when it comes to recommended treatments.

Study Janie’s recommendations.  Make an effort to help your physician understand.   //www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/doctors-need-to-rethink/  When seeking a new doctor, nurse practitioner, physician’s assistant or osteopath, ask questions before you make an appointment.  And do not assume that a board-certified endocrinologist is any more enlightened about this disease.

Final thoughts

My best analogy in attempting to drive home the importance of optimal treatment of hypothyroidism in my patients is to show them their vision as it would appear through a half-strength pair of glasses.  I ask them if they would be happy to see like this.  I ask them how quickly they would find a new eye doctor who prescribes full-strength glasses.  They get it.  I’m passionate about this disease and the patients who are literally suffering and feel uninvited to shout “I feel like crap!” to a doctor who won’t listen.  Together, we will make a difference.

Matt Dixon, OD

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Dr. Dixon has practiced in Perry and Warner Robins, GA for over 25 years.  He provides comprehensive eye care and frequently counsels patients regarding wellness.  He has written numerous articles on eye disease and the business of optometry.

He is married to Jenna and has 3 children and 2 dogs.  He is an aspiring songwriter and has recorded 2 albums.  Thanks to NDT, he is quickly becoming a CrossFit addict.  www.drmattdixon.com

164 replies

Do you love being inspired??

1-Screen Shot 2014-12-21 at 1.17.45 PM

Dear THYROID FRIENDS,

Here’s a most stunning and inspirational CHRISTMAS CARD video created by Thyroid Patient Julie! It warms your heart and gives you the most important part of the season: HOPE!!

Here’s wishing you a wonderful holiday season and may you Seize the Wisdom, Thyroid Warriors! CLICK BELOW:

https://vimeo.com/115031541

 

P.S Join in us the Stop the Thyroid Madness STTM Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StoptheThyroidMadness

6 replies