I've just started my journey with trying to understand this stuff and I wondered if it were possible make my own hormones from an animal thyroid from the butcher. I looked it up and it seems that's what used to be done before industrialised medicine. Has anyone tried it? Is it better to use a sheep or a pig? I'm a bit worried about parasites from raw pig.
The reason I'm considering this is that the Drs won't prescribe anything except antidepressants with my test results (elevated TSH, 'normal' free T4, antibody positive). They just want to wait and retest every 6 months presumably till I develop Hashimoto's. But I've been sitting on my couch struggling to do anything for the last 2 years. I don't know that my symptoms are anything to do with my thyroid but I'd like to try it to see if I feel better. Also, I have read that treating at my stage prevents Hashimoto's, but that's not NICE guidelines.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
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As I understand it slaughterhouses are required to remove thyroid glands to ensure they don't enter the food chain.
"QUOTE" The preservation of edible offal requires different conditions: -1°C rather than 0°C and a relative humidity close to saturation to avoid surface blemishes. Organs intended for therapeutic purposes, such as thyroid, pancreas, ovaries, pituitary and so on, must be frozen immediately to preserve their active principles.
No you can't do that. Creating Natural Dessicated Thyroid (NDT) isnt just a case of eating another animal's thyroid, although when it was first considered, before a treatment for underactive thyroid was created, it was given in solution to people and was certainly better than nothing. But modern NDTs are combined with various excipients in exactly the same way that other drugs are, and more importantly, are tested and measured to achieve consistent levels of active ingredient - you have to know how much exogenous thyroid hormone you are consuming. Truly, if it was as easy as eating bovine or porcine thyroid gland, many many would be doing so.
The CKS NICE guidelines make it clear that Drs actually can initiate treatment in the case of subclinical hypothyroidism, so if you'd like to post your recent test results and their respective ranges, folks can advise. However, you really need to know what your FT3 level is, as that is the active hormone we need to be well/euthyroid, so it might be, that to make your case for treatment, you have to have more comprehensive testing carried out privately.
There are, at present, NO NICE guidelines for hypothyroidism.
(There are Clinical Knowledge Summaries - CKS - which appear on the NICE website. They are a potted summary of current practice but have not been developed according the the strict and comprehensive rules required of formal NICE guidelines.)
Even if you had an unlimited supply of fresh animal thyroids, what would you do with them?
Let us assume the simplest possible approach. Mince and freeze. How would you dose? A teaspoonful every day? You have absolutely no idea how much thyroid hormone is present. It varies by species, by individual animal, by season.
(And that completely ignores the issues of disease transmission.)
Mmm. Well that's exactly why I wrote it as CKS NICE guidelines because they are Clinical Knowledge Summaries made available to both clinicians and the public, on the website/under the banner, of NICE, for the purpose of "Providing primary care practitioners with a readily accessible summary of the current evidence base, and practical guidance on best practice". If best practice and current evidence base can't, in normal-speak, be interpreted as guidance, I don't know what can; and if it isn't validated by NICE then it either shouldn't be presented on the NICE website, under the banner of NICE, or it should have a disclaimer to the effect that "this is not validated nor supported by NICE", which it doesn't. On the contrary, the guidance on CKS is:
Developed on behalf of NICE
-CKS topics are developed by Clarity Informatics Ltd but commissioned and funded by NICE.
- Topics are written by an expert multidisciplinary team with experience of primary care, supported by a network of over 6000 specialist external reviewers.
- The development process is accredited by NICE to ensure the highest quality.
So whilst this evidence base and best practise wasn't born with the specific intention of being 'NICE Guidelines', with a capital 'G', it it is accepted as valid guidance in the interregnum, whilst we wait for the 'real' NICE Guidelines.
I really don't think that the CKS should be presented as they are.
Full NICE guidelines are developed under procedures which have themselves been formally agreed. Whether we like the way they operate or not, we do see the processes occurring. We were, to some extent, invited to contribute to the guidelines currently being developed. There are real, named people responsible.
Further, there is an expectation the full NICE guidelines will effectively be trumps. Whereas CKS can be ignored or sidelined by "local" variations.
I note the following.
The CKS for Hypothyroidism references:
Association for Clinical Biochemistry, British Thyroid Association, British Thyroid Foundation (2006) UK guidelines for the use of Thyroid Function Tests. British Thyroid Association.. ww.british-thyroid-association.org [Free Full-text]
This has several problems: The document itself says it should be reviewed after three years. Still being referenced thirteen years later is not acceptable. The link to the document is broken. There is no process for getting egregious errors corrected in that document. I know. I have tried.
And yes, it does link to ww.british-thyroid-association.org - which should, of course, be
It's actually very hard to get animal thyroids as butchers don't get them (not legal), so it would have to be an animal you killed yourself (legally) . Then I think it would be very difficult to work out how much thyroid you needed to eat or liquidize and drink.
You can legally butcher your own pig if it is for your own use. You do need a licenced person to actually slaugher the pig though, or a vet watching while you do the business. Slaughter houses remove the thyroid, and in over 500 pigs over the years I took to the slaughter house, I did not see one thyroid in the whole pigs I took home and cut up in a licenced butchery unit. I always looked in hope!
Recommend you get FULL Thyroid and vitamin testing and come back here with new post once you get results
If you have high thyroid antibodies, raised TSH and symptoms then Levothyroxine should be prescribed as trial to see if it helps
For full Thyroid evaluation you need TSH, FT4 and FT3 plus both TPO and TG thyroid antibodies tested. Also EXTREMELY important to test vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12
Low vitamin levels are extremely common, especially if Thyroid antibodies are raised
Recommended on here that all thyroid blood tests should ideally be done as early as possible in morning and fasting. This gives highest TSH, lowest FT4 and most consistent results. (Patient to patient tip, best not mentioned to GP or phlebotomist)
Is this how you do your tests?
Private tests are available. Thousands on here forced to do this as NHS often refuses to test FT3 or antibodies or all vitamins
Medichecks Thyroid plus ultra vitamin or Blue Horizon Thyroid plus eleven are the most popular choice. DIY finger prick test or option to pay extra for private blood draw. Both companies often have special offers, Medichecks usually have offers on Thursdays, Blue Horizon its more random
If antibodies are high this is Hashimoto's, (also known by medics here in UK more commonly as autoimmune thyroid disease).
About 90% of all primary hypothyroidism in Uk is due to Hashimoto's.
Low vitamins are especially common with Hashimoto's. Food intolerances are very common too, especially gluten.
Surely achieving correct thyroid treatment is complex enough without considering the yuck factor of pig thyroid pate for lunch ....apart from the legal issues.
Fear not, there are better ways!
Post your latest results, with ref. ranges, (in a new post)and you will receive all the advice you need.
Elevated TSH suggests you need levothyroxine.
Normal FT4...more detail reqd.
You haven't mentioned FT3 ...
very important.
I wonder if you are not adequately converting T4 to T3...
T3 is the active thyroid hormone; it is required by trillions of cells in the body.
We cannot help much without seeing your lab numbers.
Low thyroid hormones can cause depression and anxiety but I doubt many medics are up to speed on hypo symptoms.
Come back with more details and members will point a way forward....see Slow dragon's reply here.
I've been wondering this as of late. I had my thyroid ablated 20 years ago, dependent on thyroid hormone replacement. The thyroid powder is no longer being made in the states and other patients like myself are finding our current meds to be a bit "off". It has lead me to find a backup just like other recent supply chain issues.
For the record, natural thyroid hormone is simply the dessicated gland (plus fillers to press into a pill). IF I EVER get my hands on pig thyroid, I would dehydrate it and grind it to powder in a coffee grinder. Compounding pharmacies measure that powder it the old-fashioned way, by grain. I take 1.5 grains. Already have my little scale waiting and I know how to fill an empty capsule.
If my medicine becomes unavailable in this supply-chain-interrupted world I'm in right now, you can bet I've got a backup plan.
Regarding your own symptoms/treatment, you just need a better doctor. Do they have Functional Medicine Doctors in the UK? If you're still suffering, that's where I would look for relief.
Just a quick update. I finally found a video by a Dr who had treated her own MS, which I don't have but I do have some of the symptoms (gut related insomnia), so I followed the nutrition (D and Bs at night) and suddenly I slept and slept for the first time in 20 yrs. B deficiency of the gut biota and D deficiency in me was preventing me from sleeping well which prevented recovery from other things. I'm 80% better. I returned to Australia and found a Dr/complementary practitioner who is now treating the Hashimoto's, though I don't think that was causing the symptoms. I have a gut parasite (blastocyst - maybe unsymptomatic) and fat in the stool and low bifida. I treated with Parex (not sure if it helped) and take partially hydrolysed guar gum (for bifida) which does seem to help. Still figuring it out but I now have an academic job so can pay for these expensive Drs and tests. Much better than when I did my previous post.
Well, they re called B vitamins because they are made by our Bacteria. If our biota is out of whack of D deficient we may be short, but individual diagnosis is expensive and since they're water soluble probably not too harmful to take unnecessary ones. vitamindwiki.com/Sleep+impr...
Regarding Vit D I think it’s to do with mediating inflammation. Inflammatory cytokines (CRP, interleukines associated with Hashi, etc) and the glucocorticoids are closely related to insomnia. Yet another reason to aim for a reduction in elevated thyroid antibodies. Also adequate Vit C helps enormously with oxidative stress.
All B vits are known to help with sleep except Vit B12 that can give some that ‘lift’, hence should be taken in the morning as is also a synch of our circadian rhythms. Adequate B’s are required for melatonin & serotonin production. And diet meaning not only what & when we eat but the amount. Melatonin is regulated by darkness but serotonin increases enough post christmas dinner to induce sleep due to raised substrate tryptophan caused by high insulin release, that in turn can make that sleep rubbish.
I treated my blastocystis hominis with Tanalbit, Berberine, Super Artemisinin to erradicate bugs, and then healed with glutamine, marshmellow root, & slippery elm. I now supplement ongoing Betaine HCL to ensure absorption of VitB12, folate, etc.
I'm struggling with sleep at the moment due to other reasons. It's great you are sleeping well.
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