On September 10, 2014, I had an appointment to see my cardiologist After enduring the usual tests (echocardiogram, electrocardiogram), I finally got to see my cardiologist. I asked him if he had access to my blood tests results from the previous month, and he had a look.
"This is not good." he said, "You are now Hypothyroid. Your TSH is very high and your Frees are both low."
Frees refer to Free T3 and Free T4 - the 2 main types of Thyroid Hormone freely available in the blood.
"Well that explains all the weight gain I have had lately." I said.
I was quite annoyed with my family doctor, He should not have prescribed that last Tapazole raise.
I resolved to start taking Natural Desiccated Thyroid immediately.
Over the last 4 and a half years ever since I was first diagnosed with Graves disease, I have been reading up all about the Thyroid, thyroid illness, how it is treated and what the research says.
I don't like taking synthetic drugs. I prefer to take natural substances as much as possible.
Now 100 years ago in the early 1900's, thyroid illness was treated with Natural Desiccated Thyroid which comes from pigs. Many women who were hypothyroid, and who had put on weight, were treated with this porcine thyroid and after losing the weight, their thyroids went back to working normally - as long as the patient continued to take the porcine thyroid.
The below proof comes from an article dated 1915 - almost 100 years ago.
In the 1960's a new drug was made in the labs - Levothyroxine. This is a T4 synthetic hormone. The idea behind its use is that everyone naturally converts T4 into T3 which is what the body uses.
On a good day when the thyroid is not compromised, yes that is what should be happening.
BUT if the body is out of whack and is now either Hyper active or Hypo active, the body no longer does what is normal. This is NOT the time to be making the Thyroid work even harder to do its job. This is when we should be helping the Thyroid to do its job better by giving it what it can no longer make.
This is why Natural Desiccated Thyroid works so much better than Levothyroxine (aka Synthroid or Levoxyl or Eltroxin etc).
Since the 1960's Big Pharma have been steadily telling lies about NDT's - and pushing their synthetic drugs instead. Basically they tell the Medical school students that the only way to fix HYPO-Thyroidism is to give the patient Levothyroxine.
The reason for this is because Big Pharma have patents on the various T4 drugs. They cannot take out patents on pig thyroid because it comes from nature - the drug companies did not make it. Big Pharma makes huge amounts of money from Synthroid. It is now the biggest selling thyroid drug of all time.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson. When I finally got to see my family doctor a week after the cardiologist visit, I confirmed the results and waited for him to offer me some Synthroid. He did not do that., Instead he told me to go off the Tapazole, (which I had already done immedoately after the cardiologist visit) and then he said, "Lets wait 6 weeks and see what happens, and test again."
What? He's going to do NOTHING - and leave me in this hypothyroid state? No Thank you.
Sure I can stop taking the tapazole. I had already done that. He didnt even apologise for putting me into this HYPO state in the first place. I was only following his instructions.
So as of Sept 11, 2014, I have been taking one capsule of Thyrogold - a dietary supplement containing 150 mcg of natural desiccated thyroid - and also one 200 mcg Selenium tablet. why selenium? Because the research says that Thyroid usually works better in the presence of Selenium. Two weeks after that start date, I will increase the NDT from 150 up to 300 mcg and continue at that level also for 2 weeks. Staying at one level for 2 weeks allows the body to adjust slowly and for you to see how your body reacts. When the next blood tests are done in 6 weeks time, then I will know just how well this works.
Other patients taking Thyrogold said that they were feeling their optimal best, taking as much as a total of 750 mcg of NDT daily.But every person is different.
The doctor did also tell me sometime ago - It's up to me whether or not I follow his instructions, but when I don't, that's when he could get into trouble for not giving me medically sound advice.
My problem is that for him to tell me why I should be taking T4 is NOT medically sound advice.
The remainder of this blog will be my journey with Natural Desiccated Thyroid, how much I am taking and how I feel on it, and how the doctors react as well. In the 9 days I have been taking it already, I have lost 10 pounds, so I know it is working already.
Oh and if you wondering why I have not gone to see a naturopath, - well here in Canada, their fees are very expensive, and I simply dont have any health insurance to cover their costs. And they cannot prescribe drugs either.
