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Tag: janie bowthorpe

Why I insist we need to fire most of our doctors! i.e. mainstream medicine is keeping us sick!

The following is a Guest Blog Post by thyroid patient N.P who is active on the main Stop the Thyroid Madness (STTM) Facebook group. 

Hi. My name is N.P. In March of 2012, I started a post on the main STTM Facebook group page with the topic “How many doctors have you fired?”.  It not only ended up with over 1000 replies, but most were from exasperated and emotional patients about their terrible experiences with doctors. I even had a few who thought it didn’t belong on Janie’s site. I’m thrilled to be known for that, actually.  Anything to entertain.  Now…if you want my practical editorial of why my post has gone over the 1,000 comment mark, read on.

After 9 long years of a “wrong diagnosis” followed by wrong treatment strategies and all-too-many doctors, it took a psychiatrist to diagnose my Hashimoto’s condition.  After going gluten-free to manage the Hashimoto’s disease, the same psychiatrist was the one who suggested I had Celiac Disease as well.  What is wrong with this picture?  Why did nine years of doctors never do their jobs???  Why did they let me suffer so?

I went through the various stages of emotion over the years, from being frustrated by mainstream medicine’s poor understanding of my health, to the annoyance of not having answers, to the embarrassment of never having good explanations for my friends and loved ones. And when the only way I got answers was through Amazon, STTM/Janie Bowthorpe, Facebook and my psychiatrist, I had finally reached this familiar stage:   cynicism.  There’s not much left after that except for throwing in some humor.  That’s why I started the post.

I sensed when I started the post that I was representative of many.  Clearly, the post struck a nerve with a lot of patients and has been a great outlet for people needing to get their horror stories and frustrations off their chests.  For those who are feeling desperate, as I have and still sometimes do, there’s always a place for you on my post.

“Yeah, It’s all wrong man…we shouldn’t even be up here!” 

The post was originally meant to give people a humorous way to vent their frustrations over the outrageously inept thyroid care that they’ve received.  I quickly saw the fun in having it morph into a vehicle to ridicule all doctors who’ve told their thyroid patients “Your labs are normal.” Yes, I have an ax to grind with mainstream medicine and feel my post is fair game.

Mainstream medicine brought it on themselves by the way they’ve conducted themselves.  It’s much like the airlines have done the same with seats that force your knees up to your chin and allow the bald head in the seat in front of you to be in your face.  They think it is OK but it is NOT OK.  The many posts about the experiences of patients with doctors, and being stranger than fiction, proves my point.

In addition, I felt I was representative of many people who’ve gone through what I did over 9 years and just needed a place to vent and release their years of frustration through a little bit of humor.   Can you believe that a doctor with 20+ years of education and training on how to heal people, and who literally holds the patient’s life in their hands, would rely solely on a lab report?   Then, they send the patient on their way by saying “there’s nothing else to do — it must be in your head.”   They call themselves professionals?   For shame.  They deserve to be ridiculed.

I’m shocked by the frightening,  life-altering treatment recommendations from doctors who’ve stopped trying to heal when they say,  “Your labs are normal.”  If you haven’t read my latest summary, here’s a few.  Incompetent doctors have recommended hysterectomies, ECT , surgeries and one patient was told she should check into an in-patient psych facility.  The frighteningly outrageous part of this is that these doctors, who lull us into complacency because of their titles and stature in society are in a place in our lives where they can HARM US!!!  And they have harmed many.  I certainly feel harmed.

And the Band Plays on……………………..

What I always knew, but would never consciously admit until I started the post, was that the “only in America” pop culture bafoonery we read about in the newspaper also existed in the medical profession. The most intelligent people can also be the most dumb.  A doctor tells a patient that “your bones are probably dissolving” or that Natural Desiccated Thyroid was “made by a meat company that went out of business 10 – 15 years ago” or that “since a cause of the depression can’t be found , you might as well get a hysterectomy.”   Crazier than fiction.

So, the profession that is supposed to heal us is keeping us sick.  Rather than letting one of  the most basic laws of humanity (which is  to help others) to passionately drive them  to use their training and common sense to solve our problems, they would rather dismiss any other proposed treatment strategies that might work and let us stay miserable until someone in an ivory tower tells them to do otherwise.

You’d think I’d be done after the statement above, but it gets worse.

Not only is mainstream medicine keeping us sick, but many doctors are insulting us as they do so.  For example, the complexities of thyroid problems and its related conditions cause many patients to gain weight.   What do many doctors do?  They blame the victim.  “It’s your fault you are fat “  is what they mean when they tell you to go to Weight Watchers or to start eating spinach (It’s true, a doc actually said that to a patient).   They are thinking that the patient is not educated in how to eat right or just doesn’t have the motivation.   I’m one who has heard a variation of this before. Outrageous.   The one person you would expect some empathy and compassion from does more harm and their attitude keeps us sick.

Some of you have decided to do something constructive with the problem, and through different initiatives, are demanding of the institutions that oversee thyroid treatment better care.  I applaud you for that.  Me, I’m the one who will keep insisting on firing doctors until we get well, get their attention, or both.

Fire a bad doctor for me.  Add it to my post on the main STTM Facebook page!

*******************************

*To read Janie’s 20-year agony thanks to uninformed doctors, read the detailed Introduction in the revised STTM book.

* See a collection of what many misguided doctors have said to patients over the years.

P.S. And thank you to the growing body of doctors who are LISTENING to ten years of patient experience as outlined on the STTM website and with more detail in the STTM book, all which underscores that

  1. The TSH lab test should ONLY be used to discern pituitary function (NOT to diagnose or treat by)
  2. There are far better labs that need attention.
  3. It’s “where” a lab result falls that counts, not the fact that it comes within a so-called normal range
  4. Natural Desiccated Thyroid changes lives.
  5. Sluggish adrenal function is very real and needs the right treatment.
  6. The patient-to-patient Stop the Thyroid Madness book needs to be in every doctor’s office for reference. Patients really DO know what they are talking about.
24 replies

Taking your temp, Selenium and RT3, TPA’s Autumn Newsletter, and HealthcheckUSA’s discount to STTM readers

NOTE: though this post was originally written in 2011, it can still contain relevant information for you today to consider, or do further research on. 

(Photo graphic by thyroid patient Sam Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Baku city.)

TAKING YOUR TEMPERATURE CORRECTLY?? Possibly not.

Thanks to Dr. Broda Barnes, informed thyroid patients know the importance of taking one’s temperature, especially just before we get out of bed in the morning. According to Barnes, we can suspect a thyroid problem if that temp is below 97.8. Conversely, healthy thyroid function (or adequate treatment) would  put our before-rising temp from 97.8 to 98.2. (Menstruating females would need to be aware of higher temps right after ovulation.).

Today, we favor the mercury thermometer over digitals for accuracy. But are we using the mercury thermometer correctly? Maybe not.

A discussion between thyroid patients recently underscored the need to leave it in the mouth longer than the 5 minutes we thought was adequate. Thyroid patient Jennifer states: At 5 minutes it read 97.6, at 10 minutes it read 97.8 and at 15 minutes it read 98 degrees. After that, it stayed 98 degrees.  We then discussed the fact that manipulating the muscle in the back of throat could have caused the final temp. But her experiment, as well as others, underscored that we need to be holding that mercury thermometer in our mouths no less than five minutes, and ten is probably better.

DOES SELENIUM REALLY CAUSE A RISE IN REVERSE T3 (RT3)?

The above statement about selenium causing excess RT3 has oft been repeated from group to group for a few years. But it may be very wrong.

For example, this study shows selenium did not cause a rise in RT3, and in fact, lowered  it. Here is one which shows LOW levels of selenium can result in increased RT3. This medical book states that though RT3 comes from T4, it also concludes that  low selenium increases RT3.

In other words,  though the enzymes that convert T4 to T3,  and convert T4 to RT3, are selenium dependent to do their job, that doesn’t mean that selenium is going to increase your RT3.  Bottom line, many thyroid patients love selenium, especially with its power to lower Hashimoto’s antibodies, and being anti-cancer. Suggested levels are no more than 400 mcg.

TPA’s AUTUMN NEWSLETTER IS OUT–many good articles!

TPA stands for Thyroid Patient Advocacy, and is a UK charity organization started by Sheila Turner. Check out the articles below in the latest newsletter.

Page 5: The Big Question – Is There an Anti-T3 Conspiracy.  Eric Prichard critically questions why those in Endocrinology need to cite numerous anti-T3 studies, in spite of many other studies which reveal the activeness and superiority of T3. Is the UK and other dark age countries ever going to get it?

Page 9:  Why I Believe T3 Should Be the Very Last Treatment that Thyroid Patients Consider.  Don’t let UK’s Paul Robinson’s title fool you. He believes in the efficacy of T3, but underscores why it can be complex to dose with just T3. Especially compelling are what follows Paul’s article, titled MEMBERS SUCCESS STORY.  Story 1 is about an individual who, when dosing T3 in the early morning hours, was able to get off all adrenal meds. Story 2 is about a gal’s successful transition from T4 to T3.

Page 15:  Thyroid Patients Have Come a Long Way, Baby….But We Still Have a Way to Go!  Though there are now numerous patient groups on the net and many lives have changed, Janie Bowthorpe (yes, me) explains how many doctors still have a long way to go in understanding how T4 and TSH fail patients, just as desiccated thyroid or T3 have turned miserable lives around.

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Yes, desiccated thyroid is making its way to pharmacy shelves!

shortage

With all the panic among thyroid patients of the last several weeks, we are now seeing light at the end of the current tunnel of desiccated thyroid shortages. More reports are coming in by patients that it’s appearing on shelves at their local pharmacies, including both Armour and Naturethroid. Sure, it’s a trickle compared to the amount of US patients that need it. But it’s a sign of hope of more to come.

On the CDT (Coalition for Desiccated Thyroid) yahoo group, where patients have been discussing the shortages and finding places to get their desiccated thyroid, patient Elenor gave just one more example:

“After losing “my” Wal-Mart’s last left-over bottle of Naturethroid to some other thyroid person (lucky him or her){wink}, I called around to pharms — and Sam’s Club Pharm two towns over had just gotten ONE bottle of 60mg Armour in yesterday. (I did also find a CVS that had a bottle and a half of the 90mg Armour — so there are some dribs-and-drabs left around… My doc wouldn’t write for me to get that too…) (YAY!) Emailed my doc’s nurse begging her to do it right away — which thankfully she did, so they dispensed it “to me” and I can pick it up today! Down to three days left in my possession, so … WHEW!”

Elenor concluded: Still gonna see my doc 5th Oct and try to order 500 tablets from Canada. I do not EVER want to be scrambling like this again — for ANY reason…

And we all agree with you, Elenor!

Clearly, our current shortages were caused by two factors: demand being greater than supply thanks to websites like Stop the Thyroid Madness (STTM), forums, groups and others, as well as the remarkably poor timing by the FDA in causing the only remaining generic makers of desiccated thyroid to cease production.

And in case you haven’t caught up with what’s going on, you can read a summary of the history about the FDA and regulations which will explain what we will have to face for desiccated thyroid in the future, which is our real challenge.

**JOIN US TONIGHT for our weekly THYROID PATIENT COMMUNITY CALL hosted by Janie Bowthorpe. We’ll have an open topic night and perhaps a surprise guest (still waiting on confirmation on that). Let’s talk about the shortages, ways to continue treating during this time, and more. NOTE that I have moved up the times by one hour. Just click on the link and you’ll see a countdown of when it starts: 6 pm Pacific, 7 pm Mountain, 8 pm Central and 9 pm Eastern.

27 replies