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Tag: thinning hair

What is going on with the Texas Medical Board?? Potentially worrisome.

This 2008 blog post was updated in 2015 here: //www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/2015/07/28/medical-boards-and-the-tsh-how-they-fail-thyroid-patients-worldwide/   Enjoy!!

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I was informed today that a very popular and well-liked doctor in Texas, who treats many hypothyroid patients, was disciplined recently.  And for what?  Under the column titled NONTHERAPEUTIC PRESCRIBING, it states:  The action was based on Dr. Launius’ prescribing Adipex, Adderal and Armour Thyroid to patients when such medications were not indicated. www.tmb.state.tx.us/news/press/2008/101608a.php

Adipex and Adderol are both central nervous system stimulants, and I can’t comment one way or the other. But the mention of Armour thyroid as “not indicated” is potentially worrisome, especially with similar disciplinary actions brought upon well-liked and wise doctors like Peatfield and Skinner of the UK, Derry of Canada, and  Springer in the US–all who dared to make obvious symptoms more important than ink spots on a piece of paper.

Take Kymm, a 45 year old woman.  She has manifested hypothyroid symptoms for 15 years since the birth of her daughter.  Yet during those entire 15 years, her TSH lab result has been completely “normal”…i.e. hypothyroidism has never been “indicated” based on the typical and widespread gold standard of diagnosis: the TSH.  But she has never, ever been normal with 15 years of easy weight gain, chronic depression, thinning hair, rising cholesterol, and other clear hypothyroid symptoms. And she has in fact started on Armour…and is soaring.

Kymm is not an oddity.  Thyroid patients on internet groups report going years with a normal TSH, no diagnosis, yet clear symptoms which are ignored by their TSH-obsessed doctors.   So their doctors may have avoided disciplinary action, but did they truly practise the art and science of healing??

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The tortoise and the hare: the STTM movement is the tortoise, but we’re winning!!

Hardly a person hasn’t heard Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the all-too-confident hare, running their I’ll-prove-to-you-who’s-boss race. The hare was FAST and certain to win the run. But the ever-so-committed tortoise, even if slow, slower and slowest…was steady…and won the race.

Until recently, I thought our thrust and determination to change the Big Pharma, zombie-doctoring medical system in the treatment of hypothyroid would be like the hare. We’d get the attention of the mass media through our great determination, shout the message of a FAR better thyroid treatment, and create huge change.

But I think I was wrong. Change has occurred, but we have been doing it like the tortoise…slow and steady.

Slowly but steadily, we are seeing more and more doctors starting to “get it”, even if they still have a way to go. Slowly but steadily, folks are finding out why they have less stamina than others, or depression, or rising cholesterol, or fibromyalgia, or thinning hair in the face of the dogged “normal” diagnosis…all due to an inadequate medication called T4, aka Synthroid, Levoxyl, Eltroxin, et. al. and a lousy lab called the TSH.

Slowly but steadily, folks are finding out about desiccated thyroid to treat their hypothyroid, and cortisol to treat their adrenal fatigue.

Even the STTM book has been like the tortoise. Literary agents didn’t get it, nor did huge publishing companies. I finally stopped counting, but I bet I had over 200 rejections. They all thought it was simply “another” thyroid book. So the fruition of the STTM book came out of true sweat and tears, and a lot of cuss words as I squirmed through my frustrations. Yet, the STTM book–a PATIENT-TO-PATIENT book of which I was only the messenger, is not only a steady seller like the tortoise was steady, but sales keep growing every month, reviews are excellent, and lives ARE changing. How can you criticize a message, whether the STTM site or the book, that is based on the positive and critical experience of thousands of patients around the world!!

Change IS happening! Like the tortoise, we’re winning the race and creating change, bit by bit, whether it’s via STTM, various internet thyroid groups, other good books, or just word of mouth. We’re all a part of it. But we can’t be complacent, because it’s truly obvious by blogs and websites I read that there’s still a huge body of hypothyroid patients still suffering on T4 who need to find out what WE have found out. But it will happen, bit by bit. 🙂

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Wear a Thyroid Advocacy T-Shirt!

Because so many of you asked….you can now order a THYROID ADVOCACY T-SHIRT. And let me tell you–it works!! I did a test run. Wore it to several places over several days to see what reaction I would get. And reactions I got. Sure, it was a person here or a person there. But you are planting seeds in each person who asks. And they will carry those seeds into their own better health…and tell others.

And if you think that because you are on a large thyroid forum or group, it means the word is getting out–it is! But we’ve only scratched the surface. There are still millions out there who don’t know why they gain weight so easily, feel tired, have rising cholesterol, hair is thinning, or have depression. They need to hear about this.

We have to change the current LOUSY thyroid treatment protocol from the bottom up by spreading the word. It’s WE who will go to our doctors offices and demand change! It’s WE who will stop putting money into the pockets of those doctors who won’t listen to what patients have learned and go to those who WILL.

Enjoy the shirt! And feel proud for the part YOU can play garnering attention and spreading the word! p.s. Right now, orders are from the US only. As soon as Bidpay updates their checkout, I’ll add International. STTM is not just MY website: it is YOURS.

ALSO REMEMBER: if you use Bidpay, you’ll need to use the CONTACT ME form at the bottom of the page to let me know which size. The Bidpay function has no place to designate size.

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