Re: Self medicating

February 22, 2005

I was diagnosed when I was 19 years old with hypo. I was then treated by doctors

for 25 years with Synthroid and got sicker and literally lost all those years to

misery. I buy my meds online and they are the same as the prescription meds I

SHOULD have been prescribed for years. You can order your own testing online

without a doctor's blessing unless you live in CA or NY. A trial of thyroid

hormones will not in any way harm you. Even if you do not have a thyroid

problem. Your own thyroid will just lower it's production of hormones to

compensate, and when you quit it will resume production.

*Artistic Grooming * Hurricane, WV

Fat cat? Diabetes? Listowner for overweight or hypothyroid cats

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hypokitties/

February 22, 2005

From the late 1800s up untill about 1975, they had no good tests for

determining how much thyroid was circulating in the blood. So, the

only way thyroid doses were adjusted were by symptoms. Doctors used

clues like body temperature, muscle reflex speed, pulse, physical

appearance of the patient and the patient's own assessment of their

condition to determin thyroid doses. Amazingly, there were no

problems at all doing it this way and thyroid patients lived long

and healthy lives. The first two patients that started their

treatment in the late 1800s lived to be 79 and 91 and were in good

health most of their lives. I have not yet been able to find one

study done during that time on osteoporisis and it is rarely even

mentioned in old papers. You can look for yourself at

http://www.thyroidhistory.net

Thyroid doses prior to about 1975, when the TSH test and other

sensitive tests were developed, were 2 to 3 times higher than they

are today with no problems whatsoever. In the mid 1970s a few very

influential endocrinologists decided that everybody had been

overtreated for over 75 years, just based on the then new TSH test.

They convinced doctors that doses needed to be lowered. No studies

were ever done to look at the long term heatlh of patients on these

lower doses. Quite a few doctors wrote into journals complaining of

the new ideas and stressing that the carefull assesment of the

patient took precident over tests. But, the new lower doses stuck

and I think the main reason is that it keeps the patient mildly

undermedicated and therefore he/she is in constant need of the

doctor's care for the myriad of problems that result. In the past

patients found their best dose and rarely in their lifetime needed

to change it. It resulted in a healthy person with lower rates of

cardiovascular disease, reproductive problems and cancer than the

general public. They had little need for the doctor, but for

occasional check-ups and new prescriptions for thyroid.

Doctors today will not tell you that the healthy thyroid makes 3 to

5 grains a day and that due to pituitary regulation, you cannot

overdose untill your dose exceeds what your healthy thyroid would

make. Today's thryoid doses are much less than the healthy thyroid

would make. But, the thyroid patient can actually take a lot more

hormone safely and have little impact on circulating thyroid levels.

If you take 1 grain of Armour, the pituitary will know this and drop

production of TSH to drop production from the thyroid by 1 grain.

Thus, the pituitary keeps you protected from overdose untill the

dose exceeds what your heatlhy thyroid would make, where it can no

longer drop TSH enough.

So, my point is that thyroid therapy done carefully with small dose

raises over enough time between more raises and with careful

monitoring of symptoms is really quite safe. You can easily know if

you are hyperthyroid by your body temperature, pulse and symptoms.

On top of that, it is not all that dangerous to be mildly

hyperthyroid for a few months. It takes about a year of being

hyperthyroid by a significant amount to develope any kind of

permanent damage. The body is very adaptable and can increase

breakdown and removal of excess thyroid and so mild overdoses are

not the huge danger that doctors like to scare patients with.

Studies done with heatlhy people found that they could tolerate up

to 9 grains before they exibited symptoms of hyperthyroidism.

So, thyroid treatment is not rocket science. You simply go slowly,

keep an eye on your symptoms and adjust your dose up untill you feel

good and once there, you should rarely need the change your dose.

This worked quite well for over 75 years, in fact I think this

method works better than tests. Tests have so many flaws and many of

the smarter doctors and researchers have written a lot about the

problems with tests. Tests only tell you what's in the blood and not

whether your tissues have enough thyroid. The ranges make everybody

have to be at the same levels, when in fact people have huge

differences in what are normal thyroid levels for them. At least 20%

of heatlhy people fall outside test ranges.

So, to get to your questions, I have been self treating for over a

year now and have been using body temp, pulse and my symptoms as a

guide for adjusting my medication. I am doing so much better than I

did under the care of my last doctor. I do not want to do it any

other way anymore.

As for adrenal support, this is a much more complicated issue and

about 95% of doctors have absolutely no knowledge about this and

have done no reading on the topic of adrenal support or

physiological treatment of low adrenal function. It is complicated.

The vast majority will not give adrenal support when starting a

patient on thyroid. The results of this are disasterous for many and

has probably resulted in the death of patients. It was disasterous

for me. Thyroid medication literature gives dire warnings about

adrenal problems and thyroid treatment, yet amazingly doctors don't

read this or believe it. This is definitely one area where you have

to really look hard for a doctor who has any knowledge or where you

have to do a lot of your own research. So, doing your own adrenal

support is very complicated and not doing adrenal support with

thyroid treatment when you need it can be dangerous.

Tish

February 22, 2005