Hi, I have a mixed bag of replies from my first post this morning and to add a bit of clarity to my message Ill try a second, I hope this works this time. !!
What I am trying to say is:
I have been told in no uncertain terms by the NHS drs is that T4 is the holy grail of getting better if you have to take Thyroxin. (I know this is rubbish). I have been threatened to a withdrawal of treatmen, banging on the table and NHS Drs telling me that Armour is no good, its dangerous as there is a risk of cross contamination, it unstable etc.
And Yet people feel better on it and now we have Hillary Clinton being prescribed this by her Dr. It doesn’t say she has an under active thyroid in the report or did I miss this.
All I can add to this and excuse the pun, If I was on pure NHS T4, I could not run for president all I would want to do is sleep and Trump would walk away with the election.
I think we should sign Hillary up to our site and get her to support NDT for the NHS and or stop those of us that buy from pharmacies over seas ,not to be paying VAT for something that I need !!!! or to even open up my meds to examine them.
Yours John , being tortured since I had my thyroid removed in 1999.
I hope that gets my point across better.
Written by
stockman27
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Some lucky ppl are prescribed NDT here. Some lucky ppl are prescribed T3 here. Those who prescribe alternative meds for hypo are rare and often hounded by the BMA in this country. The US, with its larger population and perhaps more flexible, albeit more expensive health provision may be more inclined to be patient centric as the patient effectively, pays in a more overt way than we do in the UK.
Here in the UK we have an intransigent often misogynist science driven endocrinology discipline which does few favours, excepting perhaps the navel gazers at its apex. IMO, you understand.
Thus studies showing many respond better when their regimen includes some T3 are often dismissed as inappropriate, unreliable and wrong...after all we are only the freaking patients. A pox on them all
I think Hilary Clinton most definitely does have a thyroid problem. She would be pretty stupid to take Armour if she didn't! And I don't think she's stupid.
But, I for one, am really not sure what point you're trying to make. Or are you asking a question?
The reason doctors say that levo is the best, is because that's what they were told in med school. That's what they learnt to deal with, they don't know about anything else. Most of them don't even know what T3 is!!! And this stance is re-enforced by drug salesmen who are a doctor's only source of information, in most cases.
So, why would that be? Because Big Pharma says so! That's why. It is in Big Pharma's interests that we do not get well. They manufacture synthetic levo, and they manufacture all the other drugs that doctors prescribe to 'treat' our symptoms : antidepressants, beta-blockers, PPIs, etc. And they control the purse strings of all the med schools. So the med schools teach what BP wants them to teach - i.e. NDT is poison/unreliable/unstable/insert your adjective of choice here! - and, of course, levo is the best, the only way to go; nobody needs more than just T4 because everyone is a perfect converter; and, in any case, patients are all lying, moronic hypocondriacs, anyway, so no point in listen to anything they say.
And, for a doctor, what he learns in med school is sacred. He doesn't need to know anything more than he learnt in med school because everything he learnt in med school is obviously right - and if he does need to know anything more, a sales rep will tell him! And, should he by any chance, get ideas above his station, and start thinking for himself, the powers that be (paid by Big Pharma) will come down on him like a ton of bricks, and hound him to within an inch of his life - or even further. Because, the last thing anyone wants in the NHS, is people getting better! Where's the profit in that?
Hillary Clinton probably takes Armour Thyroid because she is in the USA where it seems that some doctors have a better grasp of thyroid treatment than most do here, and where NDT is more available and not paid for by a state run health system. She also has the money to be able choose whom she goes to for medical treatment and keep trying until she finds a doctor she likes. I told my GP that she takes Armour and I got a sort of smile in return and the comment that this country (UK) will catch up one day. The GP clearly didn't realise that Armour is not a new treatment!
As regards comments about stability, safety etc., these illustrate the lengths to which pharmaceutical companies have tried to disparage NDT in favour of synthetics and the inability of so many here to think outside the box and consider anything which isn't in the 'guidelines'.
I think that Hillary has been approached in the past, possibly by Mary Shomon, to become and advocate for NDT but she probably thinks if she can get it so can anyone. Wouldn't it be interesting though if she did decide to take on the pharmaceuticals companies about this
However how to you expect one doctor to stand up to the entire NHS? Any doctor who does is reported by one of their peers and dragged in front of the GMC for not following the party line. This is done again and again until they resign or go abroad.
An example of this was Dr Chandy who realised there was a problem with vitamin B12 deficiency in his practice population similar to what he remembered seeing growing up in India, so he prescribed vitamin B12 injections at a quantity that went against NHS and NICE guidelines. He was told to conduct research to prove his findings that would be unethical to conduct and would not be supported by any institution due to this. (Some drugs are tested on populations in developing countries to get around ethical guidelines.)
If you know any medical professionals socially most will reveal they are p*ssed off with the NHS in many ways. In fact younger doctors especially GPs who are into things like nutrition and sports medicine don't stay in the NHS, as they know what the NHS states and what the discipline they are interested in conflict and if they did things on research they would be hounded out of their NHS jobs. However even if they only work privately they have to be careful as nearly all the doctors who write blogs and books about research based medicine and only work privately have "controversial" opinions so have been reported to the GMC.
And this is ignores nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, dentists etc who are all degree qualified and can be disciplined by their regulatory body if they rock the boat.
While I would agree with that the majority of doctors won't make ripples on the NDT/Levo front there are a few that do. The endo I see privately prescribes NDT as he acknowledges that around 10% of patients with hypo don't do well on just levo. However he has said that he is prevented from prescribing NDT when he works in the NHS.
My NHS GP (who had never heard of NDT) merrily gives me private prescriptions for NDT after my private prescription was 'signed off' by an NHS endo. He said the first time he saw me after 3 months of taking NDT that he could see that I was better on it just by the way I walked into his office. Since we've had a couple of chats about T4/T3 conversion etc and I know from that he's done additional research.
My point being that I don't think it's individual doctors as some of them are happy to buck the trend of 'thou shalt only take levo' but it's a failure of the system to recognise the (according to Thyroid UK survey) approx 12.5% of us that don't fare well on Levo only for whatever reason. There are people out there for whom levo only is the answer (I know a few of them and they didn't understand why I wasn't fully well on levo as they are); however what we need is a system that recognises that there is a small but substantial minority for whom levo only won't work and that they need individual treatment whether that be levo/T3, T3 only, NDT or some other combination.
There also needs to be more education of GPs with respect to the vitamin issues; when I was first diagnosed my GP did consult the local endo and gave me Vit D. We just need to get the ferritin, B12 and folate on the radar (plus selenium etc) as well....
So, I think we should be expending energy to change the mind of the BTF/NICE etc rather than blaming individual doctors for being told that levo is the wonder pill......
No thanks, she supports mandatory forced vaccinations (and is currently quite ill), so not a good advertisement for a site that supports individual choice.
Another problem is many failing with Levo arent put on the correct dose either, often we see they should be on more but doctors either don't understand that or think they may be harming the patient.
Hi, the NHS has a gold standard of the TSH, if you are not with in limits then you are not well. We all know this is rubbish but that is the Clinicians and how they are trained.
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