to Armour or not to Armour

[dispensing]

Hi All , hope you are all having a great bank holiday .

I've had a visit from the fourth weeks Leukemia consultant today .

A lovely man and full of usefull info .

I have had the last chemo , of this first 10 day sesson today . I have been told that the next 14 days are my danger period , as my bone marrow trys to recover . Apparently 90% of patients , develop an infection in this time period ,even from within their own body . So I have to be exceptionally carefull with any visitors , eat well and drink loads . If I am one of the 10% i may be able to go home for a few days before the next chemo session .

I have had some lovely messages from you all , but i felt that I had to make something clear about the visit from the Endo DR R and my decisions about Armour .

I want to make it clear that I dont advocate taking Armour for everyone . The reason the Endo agreed to me taking my Armour here in hospital is because this is a special circumstance .

I have had Beast cancer twice 2005 and 2010 . I have had major reconstructive surgery both times , with extensive radiotherapy after the first time . I have had some bad and some good experiences with the four surgeries in all , then nipple tatooing . I considered myself fortunate . However this has meant that my life has revolved around consultant surgeons , oncologists , and later ent dept with thyroid . I tried the usual thyroxine at 25 mcg then 50 mcg then 75 mcg told eachtime that my tsh had come into line by various gps at my surgery . 75 mcg gave me massive headaches with little improvements in symptoms . I dis extensive research over a 6 month period , a lot of it on this website , but also with many books . I tried a couple of different things . Then decided to order Armour and try it myself , gradually increasing to 2 or 2.5 grains . Felt great for a few months . Then fell ill with what I know know is PRE leukemia and aplastic anemia , probably from the radiotherapy .

According to some of the messages I have had,

I think there may have been some misunderstanding over My Endo DR R .

He never advocated my taking Armour , as he says , it is unlicensed in this country .

He is very knowledgeable and does understand about this medication .

I'm sure that if anyone gets a referral to him , he will try to help as much as he can within the nhs . He seemed to be willing to prescrinbe T3 . But there is no point asking him for Armour , as he can't prescribe it .

The reason that he agreed to me taking my own Armour , is because that was what I was taking before I came into hospital .

When I came in 4 weeks ago I only brought my nhs repeat prescriptions which included 50mcg thyroxine daily . I was obviously going downhill on that as my tsh shot up from 0.01 to 14 within 3 weeks .

He offered me T3 to add to the thyroxine , but we decided that it would be too difficult to monitor with the aggressive chemo .

I sincerely hope that he will not have lots of patients asking him for Armour ,

He's a lovely man and if you go to see him , please go with , as open a mind as he will have .

Sorry about the long blog , but I thought it was worth clearing up .

Wishing you all great health

Alison

[helvella Administrator]

Alison,

I think you did make it clear before - at least what you wrote above is what I thought you had said!

It is really good that you can post so positively about your endo. You certainly need that support right now.

Rod

[dispensing in reply to helvella]

Thanks Rod , was just getting concerned over 1 or 2 of my private messages , that the poor man was going to have a queue , of people with the wrong idea . Ha Ha .

you know isolation for 4 weeks maybe making me paranoid . But then you know , just because I'm paranoid ................la la la . Sorry gone completely now .

Alison

[Clarebear in reply to dispensing]

Hi Alison - try not to worry - you need to concentrate on yourself now. Don't worry abou private messages - it's easy to get overwhelmed, when you post something positive on here.

Hope things are going well fo you and looking forward to you next update xxx

[hooper]

Wishing you well dispensing.Loads of healing hugs!

Jen x

[nightingale-56]

Love your positivity Alison and hope you manage to keep this up. Do wish you well and hope the next few weeks will se you getting better. Janet.

[belwom]

Good to hear that you have a lovely specialist. Wishing you all the best for your recovery.

[HMH65]

Just wanted to add my very best wishes to you and hope younwill be feeling better soon ! xxx

[Hidden]

sending virtual hugs and positive thoughts your way xx