In 2011, The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine published a short series of papers about thyroid replacement. We might beg to differ in some parts, nevertheless there might be some interest, especially from those who have so far not read anything of the history.
The discovery of thyroid replacement therapy. Part 1: In the beginning
Thank you, how interesting for a number of reasons
- the historical value (not that easy to read in some ways)
- the historical ridicule of doctors by colleagues on thyroid matters (how little times have changed)
- seems to provide evidence for the effectiveness of NDT (yet my CCG knows nothing of it)
- identification of hypothyroidism and improvement following treatment identified from physical symptoms (what a novel idea, why did the medical profession depart from this)
- not a TSH test in sight (the articles are helpful in identifying where it may have all gone wrong)
- treatment for hypothyroidism has been slow to move forward for all time and we are fortunate to live in these and not earlier times
Glad you posted helvella as it shows in many ways we are not listening and learning or rather our doctors aren't! I've always been Impressed re the chat that asked to test people in a lunatic asylum. Whist I'd kept the link but it was after thyroid meds go going he got permission to test the inmates was either 60 or 80 but all but one were found to have a thyroid problem. Some were able to walk out and take medication, some the same but weren't capable to take it them selves but family stepped in but a few had been in there so long they couldn't safely have been sent out. Can't help but wonder about progress!
Ya its amazing how many processes of the body that have a connection to thyroid function, directly or in directly. I have never understood why greater importance isn’t associated with "individual thyroid functioning" at a healthy state apposed to being in the proper parameters range (good not great). I also don’t understand why; even though they know everyone is different, metabolism and such, they attach this very strict rigid list of criteria that encompasses all thyroid disfunction (one size fits all). I wish they were more willing to learn something new and improve thyroid treatments. I am very thankful for my treatments!!!! We at least have thyroid medication and treatments. Something that not too long ago didn’t exist.
I used to work with medical students and unfortunately the tendency is to put the body into defined compartments. The staff tried to pose questions to think outside that box as you need to be able to do that to be a good doctor but it's
very difficult to do aslectures etc are done under subjects as one topic follows the last. I don't know if anything is done differently now as it's some time since I stopped work but I feel that clinitions should address this more fully but I also wonder how many thyroid patients actually end up as in patients to provide an example for the clinician to talk about. I don't expect there are many com paired with other health problems especially as we don't, on the whole, get much support from our GP's.
A big plus would be to have our FT3 tested but we are told it is too expensive. I took this up with someone in a testing lab as to why.
Apparently it's not really much more expensive but it works out more due to being infrequently used.
I know knothi g of the exact costing so I've made up the actual figures to explain my point.
This person looking after the machines told me that both FT3 and FT4 testing could be a very similar test. Each testing machine uses a medium to work so let's say the medium for setting up FT3 costs £50. as I say I have no idea of the actual costs, just been told how it works. So this medium has a limited shelf life so if set up to test T3 and only 2 tested in this period then it's costing £25 a test. But if say 50 are tested then it's £1 per test so in essence more costs less per person. Plus and a huge plus, we would be much better treated. Testing only T4 does not show whether we are converting well or not as we can't compare the FT4 with the FT3 to do this and in the infrequent times we get members quoting both results then that is often where the problem lies. If what I have been lead to believe is true then thats a shocking state of affairs.
Hello Helvella
Thank you for the links to the papers. It is always good when someone manages to find interesting articles / sources of information and post them on Healthunlocked. Every bit of info, is another iron in our fire against the fight to get thyroid problems properly recognised and treated.
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Universal thyroid screening in pregnancy ? .... stumbled across this accidentally , it might be an interesting read. ( i havent yet)
