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Tag: lipids

How’s your weight?? 6 Holiday Facts for Thyroid Treatment from Stop the Thyroid Madness

(Though this post was originally written in 2008, it has been updated to the present day and time and still applies to TODAY’S holiday! 🙂 )

With the holidays here and all the goodies, it can make us all shudder as we deal with all that great food!

I admit it: At Christmastime, I LOVE the easy Gingerbread Boy Cookies recipe I used when the boys were little, the Microwave Fudge recipe to die for, my world famous Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies which I color red and green, my mother’s wonderful Pralines which I occasionally try to make myself,  and Grandma’s Fruit Cake–yeah an actual fruit cake I LOVE, which I order EVERY SINGLE YEAR at this time.

And it’s hard not to gain weight! Is that you, too?? So let’s go over 6 HOLIDAY FACTS about thyroid treatment with desiccated thyroid or T3:

1) WP Thyroid, NP Thyroid,  Naturethroid, T3, etc or any other excellent thyroid medication is not meant to be a Christmas weight loss pill. Desiccated thyroid medications consist of thyroid hormones: T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin. They simply give you back what your own thyroid is not giving you…the same five hormones which give you a stronger immune system, a normal body temperature & improved metabolism, better energy, healthier hair and skin, less aches & pains, emotional happiness, better lipid profiles like cholesterol, stronger bones…and on and on.  But even with all that benefit, and even though it does improve your metabolism, desiccated thyroid, or even adding T3 to that T4, is not meant to be a weight loss pill.

2) NDT or T3 can only do its holiday job if you have strong adrenals or adequate cortisol treatment. Because cortisol is needed for thyroid hormones to move from your blood to your cells, you can only benefit optimally from desiccated thyroid during the holidays if you are lucky enough to have strong adrenals, or if you are giving yourself back the cortisol you need based on stable temps, blood pressure, and removal of most low cortisol symptoms.  So don’t forget that cortisol right now, and definitely consider adding a stress dose of cortisol if things get rough with the in-laws. (See Chapter 6 in the STTM book for even more details about stable temps, blood pressure, and stress dosing)

3) Don’t drink that NDT down with Egg Nog! Calcium is a known binder of thyroid hormones in your stomach, keeping you from benefiting from some of those health-giving thyroid hormones.  So if you swallow your desiccated thyroid or T3, get the water.  Or even better, do it sublingually.

4) Don’t expect NDT to keep you from looking like Santa Claus: you still gotta exercise & watch what you eat! It’s true: the optimal use of desiccated thyroid does raise your metabolism and eats those extra calories up like PacMan.  But if you’re like me, you can still have a tendency to put on those love handle butter pounds if you eat your fill of holiday foods.  ho ho ho. To curtail the gain, add exercise to your holiday regime, or increase what you already do. I try to aerobically walk a LOT during the holidays. And when I’ve eaten a Christmas stocking full of goodies, my next meal will be nothing but high protein, like  turkey, cheeses and nuts. Or, you can also balance your intake by choosing one meal a day to be low glycemic to somewhat balance out the high glycemics you know you are going to eat later. For example, I make my breakfasts only eggs and nitrate-free bacon, or plain yogurt with berries, nuts, and Stevia.

5) Building a holiday snowman outside?  Consider an extra 1/4 grain of NDT. It’s a fact that prolonged exposure to cold increases your demand for energy, which in turn can increase your demand for more thyroid hormones. As a result, many patients find that adding an extra 1/4 grain of desiccated thyroid to one’s daily amount helps meet the demands of Frosty the Snowman or that holiday sprinkling of lights all over your house in the cold air.  Talk to your doctor.

6) Give a gift of the STTM book to a loved one. There are other good thyroid books on the market, but unlike all of them, this is the bible of patient experience on successful thyroid treatment. You’ll find volumes of information that patients all around the world have learned. A true patient-to-patient guide to feeling wonderful again.  Go here to order.  And the publishing company is extending the time you can order a book to be sent DIRECTLY to your loved one.

HO! HO! HO!

JanieSignature SEIZE THE WISDOM

British Thyroid Association still thinks a TSH up to 10 is borderline NORMAL????

A thyroid patient from the UK, and a member of Thyroid UK, reminded me of the ongoing travesty in the UK concerning the TSH lab test. And I thought it was worth revisiting due to its extreme absurdity. Quoting from www.brf-thyroid under FAQ, then Hypothyroidism, then Treatment:

The most sensitive indicator of developing hypothyroidism is a rise in the TSH result. Generally a TSH result of <5 is regarded as biochemically ‘normal’, a result of 5-10 is borderline and a result of >10 (in a patient who is not acutely ill) is regarded as consistent with hypothyroidism. The biochemical results have to be considered along side clinical symptoms, and together they determine the point at which the physician will introduce Thyroxine therapy.

Yikes. 5-10 is only BORDERLINE hypo?? What planet to they live on?? I have come across MANY thyroid patients on internet groups who have had a TSH below 3 with RAGING hypothyroidism, and for YEARS being told they were normal. Never, ever has the TSH been a “sensitive” indicator until it finally rises enough to reveal it….but that can be YEARS in the making, and the patient is now living with adrenal fatigue to further complicate their ongoing hypothyroid condition. The TSH lab test does NOT work.

Then from http://www.british-thyroid-association.org/Guidelines/, and downloading the 2006 final version of the UK guidelines for the Use of Thyroid Function Tests , and reading 3.2.2, comes this:

The decision on treatment of patients with subclinical hypothyroidism should be guided by repeated TSH measurements. When TSH is elevated but <10 mU/L there is no consistent evidence of an association with symptoms, secondary biochemical abnormalities (hyperlipidaemia), cardiac dysfunction or cardiac events.

No consistent evidence of an association with symptoms?? Then what ARE those symptoms that thyroid patients have experienced over and over and over, even with a TSH as low as the 2’s??? And repeated TSH measurements?? There is a huge body of thyroid patients across the world who have had years of a NORMAL TSH yet raging hypothyroid symptoms.

They also add:
There is evidence of improvement in the lipid profile and symptoms when patients with modestly raised TSH (mean 11.7mU/L) were rendered euthyroid with thyroxine

Calling anyone “euthyroid” (normal thyroid-wise) on a T4 med, with an average TSH of 11, is so laughable that it stands on its humorous own.

The Dark Ages persist in the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. What a shameful, blind-sighted travesty! Are you from the UK and dealing with the backwardness? Talk to us by replying to this blog (and be patient–comments don’t always show up quickly.).

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The walking SILENT SUCKERS of Synthroid, Levoxyl & Levothyroxine treatment

It would make an incredible horror movie. The plot: stunningly convince at least hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide that what has always been obvious, isn’t. That leaves only look green because of alien filters in your eyes. That ripe apples fall because water pulls them down. That fire doesn’t really burn your skin; it’s just your imagination.

And about hundred more schizophrenic ying yangs. Because if those in authority say so, it must be so.

But the horror movie is a reality, and I see it EVERY TIME I come into contact with people and the subject of my thyroid advocacy comes up.

Like today. A couple saw my book and struck up a conversation. She was on Synthroid; he was on Levoxyl. They had each been on their T4-only treatment for 12 and 14 years respectively, felt their hypo was perfectly treated, believed their doctors…and were now dealing with other problems: his rising cholesterol, her depression, his fatigue, and her weight gain. BUT OF COURSE, THOSE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR T4-ONLY TREATED HYPOTHYROID AND SOME OF IT IS THEIR OWN FAULT…leaves aren’t really green, water makes ripe apples fall, and fire doesn’t really burn.

It just struck me. And it’s struck me before. There’s just a LOT of SILENT SUCKERS walking around. I was one; my mother was one; and there are obviously millions out there, still walking around trying to live with the side effects of a treatment that their doctors say are NOT caused by their thyroid.

Sad.

(Has your cholesterol and other lipids improved since you switched to Armour and raised without using the TSH? Your story of success is welcome on the blog post below!)

63 replies