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Tag: low ferritin

A guy’s story: scaring the hell out of him about being on HC cortisol!

FEAR

(This page has been updated to the present day and time. Enjoy!)

Several years ago, a large percentage of thyroid patients on yahoo groups like NTH were figuring out that they had adrenal fatigue, aka low cortisol, from years of adrenals working overtime due to the inadequate TSH lab test, or being on the lousy T4-only medications like Synthroid, Levoxyl, levothyroxine, Eltroxin, etc.

Not only does low cortisol keep desiccated thyroid from working well, it also causes all sorts of angst with paranoia, depression, anxiety, easy anger, sensitivity to light and/or sounds, reclusiveness, sleep issues and more.

First, patients discovered the importance of using the 24 hour adrenal saliva test rather than blood or urine. Blood cortisol measures both bound and unbound cortisol, and we noticed in some, it could cause levels to look high (when saliva proved it was low as did symptoms), or vice versa.

When low cortisol was confirmed via saliva testing and symptoms, the treatment was using cortisol, aka hydrocortisone, to give themselves back what their adrenals were no, to allow thyroid hormones to reach the cells. If saliva results showed only moderately low cortisol, adrenal cortex was used. The right amounts of cortisol was achieved via doing one’s Daily Average Temps.

And success was achieved!

When all other issues were discovered and treated, ranging from being on a better thyroid treatment, to bringing iron and B12 back up to optimal levels, to bringing high heavy metals down, to treating Lyme…on and on….patients were finally able to wean off, and be successful in their continued treatment with desiccated thyroid and/or T3! That success continues today!

But ignorance abounds in the medical profession

Yet in spite of clear success in the treatment of low cortisol with supplemental cortisol in the correct amount for each individual (which can range from 15 to 40 mg generally–men often need the higher end), as well as excellent books on the subject by Wilson, Peatfield, Jeffries and the STTM book, patients like RD below still encounter doctors who fill their minds with all sorts of fear and warnings:

I bought your book and later on I discovered your website which are both great. They are a superb source of information and support for thyroid and adrenal fatigue sufferers. Thank you so much!

Personally I got adrenal fatigue by a sustained lack of sleep for several years (crying babies).  I found a doctor who prescribed Hydrocortisone (17.5 mg/day, 5-5-5-2.5), Fludrocortisone, DHEA and Testosterone. Symptoms disappeared in about 2 weeks.

A first attempt to wean off after 6 months made some serious symptoms reappear very quickly, so I returned to the original dose.

It is very stressful that many established doctors (our family doctor, and my wife’s thyroid-endocrinologist) are scaring me like hell that I am taking HC. They are saying I am destroying my body and I will never succeed in weaning off HC.

My wife is a T4-only thyroid-patient with low-cortisol symptoms. She also has been scared about dessicated thyroid and HC. Reading your book I was however convinced she could benefit a lot from a better treatment…

Keep up the good work, as patients we are really left alone in the dark by our doctors…

And unfortunately, it’s true. Thyroid and adrenal patients are left in the dark by many doctors about either the adrenals issue so many of us face, or how to correctly treat it.

What you can do

Here’s where you can read more, and in turn, take this important information into your doctors offices:

Click on the graphic above to order an excellent saliva cortisol test.

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Dr.JohnCLowe

If you missed the excellent Part 2 with researcher Dr. John C. Lowe last Thursday evenings, you can listen to the recording, here.

26 replies

Reverse T3–do you have this problem in excess? Let’s talk!

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This blog post has been updated to the current day and time. Enjoy!

Most thyroid patients have heard about T4…the thyroid storage hormone, also called a pro-hormone. You’ll see it in literature as “thyroxine” or “l-thyroxine”–the latter as the name for a man-made T4.

And many know about T3…the active thyroid hormone which rids us of hypothyroid symptoms.

And as patients become more informed, they learn that the body not only converts T4 to T3 through what is called deodination, it also provides some of that T3 directly. That is an important distinction! The latter fact can be why thyroid patients report getting far better results with natural desiccated thyroid (NDT) like Naturethroid, NP Thyroid or other brands.

Patients might also learn that there are actually five thyroid hormones made in your body, which is also what’s found in NDT: T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin.

Reverse T3

But in every individual, whether a thyroid patient or not, a thyroid can also convert T4 to the inactive RT3 (reverse T3).  RT3 is an inactive thyroid hormone, as compared to T3 as the active thyroid hormone. And converting to RT3 is a natural and necessary process, even if there are consequences.(1)  The body might convert T4 to RT3 as a way to clear out excess T4, or as a way to reduce your metabolic rate.  It can happen if you go through any of the following:

  • surgery
  • a major physical accident
  • certain heart problems
  • intense chronic stress
  • restrictive low carbohydrate diets (2)
  • chronic inflammation

When Reverse T3 is a problem

Unfortunately, many thyroid patients make far too much RT3, as well, and patients with their open-minded doctors have been making cutting edge discoveries about this fact.  Many patients have seen that their high levels of RT3 can be found with the following conditions:

  • high cortisol
  • low cortisol
  • low iron levels
  • possibly low B12
  • lyme disease
  • gluten intolerance or Celiac
  • other undiscovered and untreated underlying issues that can go hand-in-hand with being hypothyroid.

Why is a high level of RT3 is problem? That excess RT3 is making itself lazily comfortable on your thyroid cell receptor sites, preventing the active T3 thyroid hormone from doing its job on that same receptor to get you out of your hypothyroid state.  It becomes akin to a clogged up drain to your organs and cells. So you stay hypo and symptomatic, in spite of seemingly “normal” other labwork.

The solution

Informed patients discovered they needed to discover and treat all the reasons contributing to their body converting to excess RT3.

Want to read more? All the below is based on patient experiences and wisdom to share and work with your doctor:

For those with the revised Stop the Thyroid Madness book, there is also more good detail in Chapter 12 called T3 is the Star of the Show, page 155, to continue your education. This is all good information to take into your doctor’s office.

JanieSignature SEIZE THE WISDOM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem-41-6-1043

(2) http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem-42-1-197

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79 replies

Doctors still have a long way to go a.k.a. Those symptoms might just be the thyroid!

Just as I was finishing up the post below about a short summary on the Endocrinology Today website, I saw a link at the bottom of the page that interested me.  It took me to a blog post on the same site from December 10th titled “Why can’t it be my thyroid?”.

And a slew of thyroid patients around the world, as well as a growing body of doctors,  would completely disagree with this post.

Namely, a DO explains the problem of patients arriving in doctors offices with “innumerable possible symptoms of hypothyroidism” including “fatigue, cold intolerance, decreased energy, weight gain, depression, hair loss, low libido, menstrual irregularity and others.”

Yet, he bemoans, these patients have a “normal TSH” which is “well within the normal laboratory reference range.” He also refers to their normal free T3 and free T4, and states there is no history to suggest pituitary dysfunction or that the TSH is unreliable.”

He then proceeds to pat himself on the back because he 1) will treat some patients with a high-normal TSH and other clinical features,  2) he will treat to a low-normal TSH of less than 2.0, but like the good-boy-doctor, “still within the normal laboratory reference range” and 3) he will not induce iatrogenic hyperthyroidism, even if symptoms persist. (yikes)

“Iatrogenic hyperthyroidism”??  Since “iatrogenesis” refers to harmful medical procedures, he’s probably referring to a TSH below the range, which in his mind, equates to hyperthyroidism.

***Then comes the observation that has made many thyroid patients shiver, since so many doctors have said it: because he feels that adding T3 to T4 has more negative results than positive, he explains to his patients “that there may be causes of their symptoms besides the thyroid.”

THUD.

So here is my 6-point response to any doctor who might share these beliefs:

1) There’s hardly a thyroid patient around who hasn’t had a so-called “normal” TSH in spite of clear and obvious hypothyroidism.  The TSH lab test frequently lags behind what is reality in the body, and has been doing so since it’s creation in the early 1970’s (see Chapter 4 in the Stop the Thyroid Madness book for history).

2) Having a “normal” free T3 and free T4 means nothing. It’s “where” the result falls in that range that means something. i.e. patients all around the world are noticing that having a free T3 mid-range or lower in the presence of hypothyroid symptoms is usually a BINGO lab result pointing to hypothyroidism.

3) Exactly because doctors tend to dismiss clear hypothyroid symptoms as “something else” thanks to a lousy TSH reference range, a burgeoning number of thyroid patients are falling into adrenal fatigue with its low cortisol, which serves to mess them up even more.

4) A huge body of thyroid patients who are on desiccated thyroid hormones (aka Armour, Naturethroid, etc), and who finally have a complete removal of symptoms with a normal temperature and heartrate, also have a suppressed TSH lab result, and not one iota of “iatrogenic hyperthyroidism.”

5) When it appears that adding T3 to T4 is having negative effects, the problem is most likely adrenal fatigue that needs correction, and/or low ferritin, NOT deciding that the symptoms must be from another cause or T3 doesn’t work.

6) “Fatigue, cold intolerance, decreased energy, weight gain, depression, hair loss, low libido, menstrual irregularity and others” may be shared in other conditions, but you are most likely missing CLEAR symptoms of hypothyroidism, both in the undiagnosed patient with a so-called normal TSH, or with a patient treated with the lousy thyroxine, which leaves most everyone with continuing hypothyroid symptoms.

“I’m sorry. It IS your thyroid” is exactly what patients need to hear.

Addressing folks who do well on T4 aka Synthyroid, Levoxyl, etc.

I received a reply to a post below that I was unable to approve because it mentioned someone by name. And the reply was not particularly friendly, and definitely not accurate. lol. But the reply brought up some good issues, which I have no problem addressing.

Namely, can I agree that there are some people who do well on T4-only treatment such as Synthroid or Levoxyl?? I can…sorta. I have a friend whose husband is one of those seemingly lucky individuals on T4, with no thyroid, who leads a fairly active and happy life. Considering how lousy I did, he amazes me. But I did notice something else about him: he has high and rising cholesterol and is on statins. That’s a classic symptom of a poor treatment and continuing hypothyroid, even if he does have much better energy that I ever did.

And by observing him, and knowing a few others who subjectively feel they do well on T4, I came to the following conclusion: though some may do better than others on T4, I have yet to find anyone on T4 who doesn’t have some kind of side-effect of a poor treatment, whether they are treating it with statins, treating it with antidepressants, or not treating it at all & denying it. Sure, some may do better than others, but the proof is in the pudding if you look deep enough. And, at the very least, I’m just plain suspicious that ANYONE on T4, even doing subjectively well, is going to have symptoms of a poor treatment creep up on them as they age. The body was not designed to live on conversion alone.

Can I agree that some people just canNOT tolerate desiccated thyroid like Armour and need to be on T4? Initially, that may be. The gal that wrote me stated she felt a lot better on T4, and that no matter what she did, she couldn’t tolerate Armour. I believe her. If Armour was that miserable, she should be on T4 for the time being, or even better, a synthetic T4/T3 combination. But I also believe that even if she feels she did everything to a “t” and still couldn’t tolerate it, there was more for her to learn that she didn’t get the first time around when it came to her adrenal fatigue treatment. I see it too many times. And perhaps, over time, it will become more clear.

Do some proponents of desiccated thyroid go overboard in their fervor? I don’t doubt it one bit. We’re human. And we hope you are forgiving. But once you get past however you view are communication shortcoming, do know that our fervor is based on the fact that a huge volume of individuals are having lives changed due to desiccated thyroid (and/or treatment of low ferritin, and/or treatment of adrenal fatigue). And it’s too widespread and global not to have fervor, besides common sense that a treatment that gives us back what our own thyroids would be giving us is just plain remarkable.

So, do know that if you are on T4, and feel well, I’m behind you. It’s your life, not mine, and I believe you. But neither can I stop my belief and too many observations that if you are truly hypothyroid and need treatment, desiccated thyroid is a superior choice, now or later, whether you are lucky enough to have escaped adrenal fatigue, or whether you have a challenging case of adrenal fatigue that can be adequately treated!

5 replies