levoxyl Archives - Page 2 of 9 - Stop The Thyroid Madness Skip to content

Tag: levoxyl

A continuing MEDICAL SCANDAL which is just too close to home and I grieve. WAKE UP DOCTORS!!

Tonight was a beautiful night to do my aerobic walking. It had poured this afternoon for 30 minutes, so the early evening air was slightly cool and very clean.

And on the last leg of my journey, I stopped and said to Carlin as she was walking out of her front door “Where you have been lately? I haven’t seen you out walking with your husband.”

Carlin and her husband Clint are probably in their late 70’s–both vibrant individuals and frequent walkers in the same area.

“Well”, she said wistfully as she glanced down the street I had just walked, “I have to go in Monday for a Pacemaker.”

Turns out she has fibrillations and other heart issues, and even walking from her bedroom to her living room can exhaust her.  I told her how well my mother-in-law has done with her pacemaker. She told me she’d be in the hospital for at least 3-4 days for the surgery and observation.

And as we were chatting over the low white fence, I couldn’t help but notice the scar on her neck–the same scar my own mother had from the removal of her thyroid years ago.  And the rest of Carlin’s story, and the reality of her story, made me want to punch the nearest electrical pole in disgust.

Carlin’s thyroid was removed over 40 years ago.  She remembers being on “2 grains of something”–clearly it was desiccated thyroid. And she says she felt really good. But she wasn’t on it long, as her doctor removed it and put her levothyroxine over 30 years ago. You know, that “new and modern” T4-only CRAP which doctors fell for like the blind following the blind beginning in the 1960’s until today. (The story behind the introduction of T4 onto patients in the early 1960’s is in Chapter One of the STTM book)

So I knew. Her heart troubles could be one of the many side effects of the inferior treatment of T4-only medications (which also include Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, Oroxine…all of them). My own mother suffered the same fate while on Synthroid her entire life. And patients chat about this all the time on thyroid groups–heart issues while on T4.

I started probing. She has had issues with high blood pressure. Another typical side effect of the crap T4-only medication, and which is removed with desiccated thyroid. She has had issues with depression–another typical side effect of the crap T4-only medication, and which is removed with desiccated thyroid. She talked bitterly about the slew of medications she’s had to be on for years to counter all her problems, and which had given her bad side effects.

And the next worse thing she told me? She had acid reflux so bad a few years ago that they did surgery on her stomach. She had surgery for a condition which is VERY common with thyroid patients who are on T4 meds–low stomach acid from a lower metabolism, which causes acid reflux. i.e. a symptom of continued hypothyroidism which is CORRECTED when on desiccated thyroid.

It was hard to contain myself. Here was this vibrant, life-loving, intelligent woman who has been on T4-only for over 30 years and has endured health problems, surgeries, side effects from all sorts of money-grubbing pharmaceutical pills, and now, has to go in Monday for a pacemaker. And in all probability, most of what she has gone though could have been prevented if some doctor had been WISE enough to keep this woman on desiccated thyroid.

I am livid and sick to my stomach.

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

  • Are you chewing up your Armour or Naturethroid? It will make the treatment far better, as it will release the desiccated thyroid from the excess cellulose.  If you are on compounded, you need to tell the pharmacist to stop using cellulose as a filler. On Erfa? You can do it sublingually.
  • If you are reading this right on STTM’s blog, and would like to be notified of each blog post, just sign up to the left and under the links.
  • Have you done labs and found yourself with high RT3? Get off Selenium for the time being, as it can help convert T4 to the RT3 along with the other reasons you make too much.
  • Want to spread the word about far better treatment? T-shirts and bumper stickers are here.
9 replies

Are online Canadian Pharmacies cutting it with US thyroid patients on desiccated thyroid?

pills2-1(Though this post was originally written in 2011, it has been updated to the current day and time. Enjoy! At the end of this post, you’ll see more updates to read on this topic.)

When the shortages hit the United States for natural desiccated thyroid in 2009, we all had to figure out which way to turn, since the 110-year-old natural desiccated thyroid has been a far, far better treatment for our hypothyroid state than levothyroxine T4-only such as Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, Oroxine, etc.

Additionally, Armour thyroid by Forest Labs was reformulated in early 2009, and patients worldwide reported a return of symptoms as well a stress on their adrenals.  So patients started an exodus away from Armour.

Luckily, the FDA loosened restrictions and allowed us to order the Canadian brand by Erfa Canada Inc, called simply “Thyroid”.   Erfa’s Thyroid proved to be an excellent desiccated thyroid for most, especially if they raised high enough once again to rid them of symptoms.  And since it contains sucrose, patients have been able to do it sublingually–a method which is not necessary for benefits, but is preferred by many.

I gathered a list of known Canadian online pharmacies, which you can view on the Options for Thyroid Treatment page.

And just recently (2010), I sought opinions from patients about the pharmacies they have used:

Universal Drugstore aka Canadian Pharmacy Online: This pharmacy received the greatest kudos from US patients and with the best prices.

  • Awesome – good prices and fast, friendly service. Will call your drug store and get your Armour script transferred.
  • Faxed my prescription and it was mailed the next day. I believe it took a week and a few days to arrive to Florida.
  • Great customer service, easy ordering, and was cheaper than paying the co-pay with my insurance. It takes about 10 to 14 business days to get your prescription, according to the company, but mine came sooner than that and it was the holiday mail rush season!
  • Rapid service, excellent customer service, email reminders to refill, coupons
  • They had the best price and were very professional and efficient.  My order arrived within ten days.
  • I paid $43.25 for 200 60 mg pills (2010)
  • Online forms were easy. I faxed my prescriptions and received my Thyroid in twelve days for $7 shipping

Pharmacies Online:

  • Easy to register and the customer service was excellent. I faxed my prescription. A pharmacist called me to see if I had any questions. I paid $45.63 including shipping for 100 60mg pills (2010)

Cross Border Pharmacy:

  • Excellent customer service, great prices, two week arrival from date of order, wish pharmacies here were this good.

Canada Online:

  • Good experience, prompt (7-10) days service getting my Erfa thyroid

What has been your experience with online Canadian Pharmacies? Do I need to remove any from the Options for Thyroid Treatment for any reason? Do I need to add any?

UPDATES TO ALL THE ABOVE:

Check out how Canadians felt about their healthcare situation as well as thyroid treatment on this October 2015 blog post: //www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2015/10/20/canadian-thyroid-patients/

Though written in Sept, 2014, comments continued through 2016 about BAD batches of Erfa: //www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2014/06/12/part-ii-erfa-canada-says-new-thyroid-pills-are-fine-thyroid-patients-worldwide-exclaim-hog-wash/

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

Other blog posts worth reading:

Read a guy’s email to me about his experience with doctors being afraid of HC, which patients know is safe and WORKS!

Will the FDA be more transparent for thyroid patients on desiccated thyroid with their new initiative?

Listen to the second interview, Episode 9, I had with Dr. John C. Lowe. What a brilliant man!

63 replies

Suffering on Synthroid: imagine how horrific it was before the internet

Elizabeth Alexander 1959(Though this post was originally written in 2009, it has been updated to the current day and time and still applies!)

I think back about my mother.

At age twenty-one in 1939, she had most of her thyroid removed due to Graves disease and hyperthyroidism. Because a small part remained, hyper set in once again by 1960 complete with bugged eyes.

So Radioactive Iodine I-131 was the next step to once-and-for-all annihilate the thyroid and hyperthyroid symptoms.  Not long after, as her thyroid hormone levels fell, she was one of the early victims of the “new and modern” T4-only medication called Synthroid.

And all hell broke loose.

Depression enveloped her everyday life—one of her worst lingering symptoms of hypothyroidism due to the shoddy treatment of a T4-only med. I remember her moods, her frequent anger and lack of patience, and her constant counseling appointments.

Why all the counseling appointments? You can imagine that the doctor had no clue that her problems was being on Synthroid with nothing more than T4-only. No direct T3….something which a brain needs.

The last resort–Electric Shock Treatment

By 1963, and right before President Kennedy was shot, she submitted herself to Electric Shock Treatment in a futile effort to control her depression.  What a crock.  She was never again the bright and quick-witted woman I remembered as a younger child. Her brain was fried and she had a new dull flat reaction to life.

And for the rest of her life, she lived on her antidepressant/anti-anxiety med Elavil and had daily constant naps, weight gain, rising cholesterol, dry hair, heart surgery, stiff joints, brain fog and inability to stand on her feet long–her own manifestation of lingering symptoms while on the lousy thyroxine.  Additionally, her long-term use of antidepressants made her emotions completely flat…..

And she did the T4-only horror show…all…by…herself. No internet,  no patient groups and forums, no Stop the Thyroid Madness website, blog or book,  no good doc, no thyroid Facebook or Twitter groups, no other good thyroid books or websites. Nada. I came along as a Thyroid Patient Activist too late for my mother, who died in 2003.

It makes me shudder thinking of that lonely hell.

But then again, it’s not just in the far past: it happened to her only daughter, me, for nearly 20 years. Complete lonely hell of my own with intense and disabling Dysautonomia (an overreaction of my autonomic nervous system) induced by my continued hypo state while on Synthroid and later Levoxyl.

And today, because the mass media or any media personality refuses to speak the truth of the 55 year scandal of T4-only meds like Synthroid, Levoxyl, levothyroxine, Eltroxin, Oroxine, or the cuckoo’s nest of the TSH lab test and range, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of individuals still suffer. How stupid can they get.

This is a scandal that has effected a huge mass of individuals globally, past and present,  including those today who STILL linger with undiagnosed hypothyroidism thanks to the worthless TSH lab test or lingering hypo on the lousy T4-only medications. And all the above when we, as patients, have learned a far better way to treat our thyroid problems

Did you have relatives like my own Mom (who died in 2003) who lived the T4-only scandal alone?  Use the Comment form to tell us about them.  Have YOU suffered from a T4 med? Report it to the FDA here.

24 replies

Jane Pauley: hives, depression & bipolar may be more connected to a poorly diagnosed and treated thyroid condition?

JanePauleyThough this post was originally written in 2009, the principles and information are still applicable today!

You might have already known about her, but it was only a few days ago when I found out that the effervescent Jane Pauley, former host of the The Today Show and Dateline NBC, has had certain medical struggles in her lifetime. They have included hives (treated with steroids), depression (treated with an anti-depressant), a bipolar disorder (treated with lithium), and the autoimmune thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s (treated with Levoxyl).

Hives are sudden small raised bumps which can mass into patches, and are often itchy and miserable.  Bipolar, also called Manic Depressive Disorder, involves swings between extreme mania (excited, energetic) followed by depression (extreme sadness or lowered response to life).

And all the above four issues made me pause.  Consider the following:

1. Hives have not only been linked to hashimoto’s disease for some, they have both been successfully treated with the most brilliant medication for hypothyroidism ever created: natural desiccated thyroid. That healing connection was revealed by the beloved Dr. David Derry of Canada here.  Hives is also mentioned as a lingering hypothyroid symptom while on T4 meds which went away with desiccated thyroid.

2) Depression is all too common for those with undiagnosed hypothyroidism (thanks to the lousy TSH lab test) or undertreated thyroid disease (thanks to the lousy T4-only meds like Synthroid which promotes depression and other lingering symptoms). Many patients report a resolution of their depression with desiccated thyroid if they understood that it’s about “optimal” doses. See the green graphic here.

3) Bi-polar can often be a misdiagnosis for Hashimotos disease, since the latter can cause the same swings. Even without Hashi’s, bipolar and other mental health issues can be a common manifestation of low cortisol aka adrenal fatigue, also caused by undiagnosed hypo because of the TSH, or undertreated hypothyroidism with T4.  At the very least, bipolar can be a common manifestation of a hypothalamus-pituitary—adrenals (HPA) axis dysregulation, again common with those undiagnosed or undertreated hypothyroidism.

4) Lithium, ironically, is a known cause of hypothyroidism if taken in high doses, only making one’s thyroid situation worse, as well as promoting potential adrenal fatigue and low cortisol.

Now granted, Jane’s big four of hives, depression, bipolar, and thyroid disease could be coincidental.  But there’s so much connection in one way or another between them that you are left wondering if she’s been a victim of misdiagnosis and undertreatment just like hundreds of millions of us thanks to labs and medications which do not work. And she may need a good doctor to be reevaluated, besides put on desiccated thyroid and discover what patients have learned about better treatment.

And on another note: I fear it’s going to take someone just as powerful, and as stricken with health issues which could be related,  as Jane Pauley is, to FINALLY break open the profound and destructive media silence about this scandal of thyroid treatment diagnosis and treatment which has left hundreds of millions SICK with profound stories,  and is the very reason Stop the Thyroid Madness exists. Do we dare hope? We’ll see.

Do you have a similar story of mental health issues that ended up being connected to your thyroid and/or adrenal state? Use the Comment form and let’s talk. Who knows–maybe Jane will see this, ponder, and become far better educated like we’ve had to become!

19 replies

FDA’s Safe Use Initiative–think they will listen to our cries about T4-only meds?

EarplugsAs a thyroid patient who was profoundly harmed by the use of Synthroid and Levoxyl in the treatment of my hypothyroidism, and as an activist who sees this same harmful truth with potentially millions of other patients, I find this recent news interesting.

But you gotta wonder if they will be wearing noise reduction headsets and ear plugs…or not…when it comes to the scandal of synthetic T4-only medications.  Will they?

Just today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the Safe Use Initiative, “a program aimed at reducing the likelihood of preventable harm from medication use”.

Statements I gleaned from this initiative include:

1. Today, tens of millions of people in the United States depend on prescription and over‐the‐counter (OTC) medications to sustain their health–as many as 3 billion prescriptions are written annually. Too many people, however, suffer unnecessary injuries, even death, as a result of preventable medication errors or misuse.

2. Although FDA and many other stakeholders have been working to improve how the healthcare system manages medication risks in the United States, it is widely recognized that more needs to be done to protect the public from preventable harm from medication use.

3. Medications offer great benefit, but they come with risks. Whenever medications are not used optimally, risks of harm can increase significantly.

4. FDA proposes to identify, using a transparent and collaborative process, specific candidate cases (e.g., drugs, drug classes, and/or therapeutic situations) that are associated with significant amounts of preventable harm.

This initiative is actually far broader than what I gleaned above, and also involves self-abuse, exposure of dangerous medications to children, dire side effects, and more. Five areas are also specifically targeted:  Consumer medication information (CMI), Medication dosing devices, Acetaminophen toxicity, Alcohol-based surgical preps, and Medications in vials. You can read more in the fact sheet.

But if the FDA is going to do their job with this initiative, or do their job overall, you have to wonder if they will listen to and include the problems associated with being treated with a T4-only medication as experienced by millions of patients worldwide. Continuing symptoms of hypothyroidism while on this inadequate treatment is widespread and damaging for many, causing hands reaching deep in pockets to pay for numerous doctors appointments, besides antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, blood pressure meds, statins, cortisol meds for adrenal fatigue, and other medications which we would have never needed, and would have been preventable, if we had been on natural desiccated thyroid like Naturethroid or Westhroid in the first place.

Many patients on thyroxine, T4-only medications will also report actual hospital visits due to the side effects of a poor treatment.

In other words, thyroxine aka levothyroxine aka T4 treatment has been an unsafe and harmful treatment, causing millions to suffer unnecessary injuries and side effects for over 50 years of its useless and popular use.  It fits the Safe Use Initiative. Or at the very least, it calls for the FDA to listen to patient experience with this lousy choice to treat hypothyroidism.

Listen to us, FDA. Listen and be wise.

P.S. See the blog post below about a genetic reason why so many do lousy on T4.

4 replies