The US gurus are getting worried that they may have been wrong, at last!

[diogenes]

This article, involving all the US gurus in thyroidology starkly reveals increasing disquiet about the guidelines for thyroid diagnosis and treatment. it is behind a paywall, but I've sent the article to Louise at TUK. This seems to be a beginning for the light to dawn and new concepts brought into the line of thought. Though of course we are carefully cut out of the paper, because after all, they "thoughtof it first" even if they didn't. I didn't see much chestbeating from these people as late as 2017, long after we'd shown the holes in the argument by 2012.

Thyroid

Thyroid

Challenges in Developing Recommendations based on Low Quality Evidence in Thyroid Guidelines

(DOI: 10.1089/thy.2020.0448)

Anna M. Sawka, Erik K. Alexander, Antonio C. Bianco, Roger Chou, Bryan R. Haugen, Peter A. Kopp, Elizabeth N. Pearce, Douglas S. Ross, Robert C. Smallridge, Jacqueline Jonklaas

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

The conclusions includes this snippet:

Our ultimate goal should be to generate clinically useful guidelines that improve the health outcomes of patients. In keeping with ATA policies, we believe that is important for CPG panels to include all relevant stakeholders, including clinicians from relevant professions, methodologists, and patient stakeholders and that representation should be with attention to gender equity and diversity.

It should be utterly astonishing that medical people could ever feel the need to state this!

[Hpbr]

I'm really , really looking forward to reading this ... when it is more accessible. Listening to patients, noting the symptoms, solving the puzzle, organising a therapy that actually works, admitting when it's not working, being honest, stop blaming patients... mainly women for being hormonal... um .. thyroid is a hormone. I just want to hear of a tidal change.

I'm doing well on t3 only living with hypothyroidism and coeliac disease. There was a time when I wasn't at all and was fobbed off with you don't really need t3, you possibly have fibromyalgia and maybe you're depressed. I'm also dio2 homozygous but a consultant said he didn't believe that evidence. I don't think there's a tablet for long standing anger. I had no control and the medics had me at their mercy. Doing it myself was a worry but I did get help from private medics and have found a GP who listens and supports me now.

Anyhoo, I decided to read, read, read and learn and now I might not be in perfect nick, but I'm able to have a life, work and study, as opposed to no life and unable to leave the house ... wtah.

And as always, thank you thyroid UK and Healthunlocked. Living with uncontrolled thyroid issues is lonely, frightening and desperate. So I'm extremely grateful to you and the fact I've got this recovery.

[linda96 in reply to Hpbr]

I too am so grateful the lovely people on here are so generous with their time and advice. I have leant much, enough to self treat, enough to learn pitfalls, enough to keep myself on track.

I just don’t understand why as Diogenes says, the light didn’t dawn on their understandIng at least 10 years ago. If I can understand it, having last had a formal education in 1967, why haven’t they?

[Suesews in reply to Hpbr]

Couldn't agree more!!

[tattybogle]

I can picture it now..... a circle of contented gurus chanting "t s h t s h t s h" allowing all other distracting thoughts to drift away ............... "Oh sh*t..shh "

Thanks to the internet it will always be evident that they didn't think of it since they'll have a job removing all the tripe they've written in support of themselves over the years.

[Jazzw in reply to tattybogle]

Love this image!

(Well, maybe not “love”...)

[tattybogle in reply to Jazzw]

i'm picturing the look on their faces ... like when it's 3 minutes to the end of the exam and you just realise you've spent an hour and 4 pages answering the wrong question !

[Jazzw in reply to tattybogle]

It’ll eventually be airbrushed out of history. Along with all the sh*te about low fat diets being the way to lose weight.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Jazzw]

One of the important uses of the Wayback Machine/Internet archive is to record what existed at a point in time.

archive.org/web/

You can add pages to it - and they will act as a third-party, dispassionate and independent record. Shame things behind paywalls cannot be added.

[RedApple Administrator in reply to helvella]

And what a great resource... until someone sabotages the servers that all the way back info is stored on. Sorry for the pessimism but the phrase 'trust no-one' comes to mind. 😟

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to RedApple]

Crikey guv! Strike a light. That makes me think of "Herman" of the successful 1960s pop group Herman's Hermits.

For anyone who is totally not understanding, and why on earth should you follow?, his full name was Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone.

[RedApple Administrator in reply to helvella]

🤣

[LindaC in reply to RedApple]

Having spent a lifetime pretty much trusting everyone, 'Time Lends To Perspective' and to switch-flipping. Trust when there's reason - it's no longer a freebie.

[lebeuil11 in reply to helvella]

Github makes paywalls transparent. Free.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to lebeuil11]

Which is of no use whatsoever unless the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) itself uses tools to overcome paywalls. It isn't my personal access which is the issue here. (Though very often it might be.)

While I can heartily agree with the annoyance of paywalls, and strongly argue about the need for openness of research papers, I am not convinced that undermining the existence of sites by interfering with their legitimate sites is legal or moral.

Can it be right for some people to pay up a reasonable request for payment when others bypass the technology? Would it be OK for us to take books and magazines and photocopy them? (Not just the odd page.)

[Gingernut44]

Thank you for this and all the other articles you’ve brought to our attention, also for all the work you and your peers have and are doing on our behalf. Without all the knowledge I ve gained since joining this fantastic forum, I would most certainly be bed-bound, or worse, by the hand of my very ignorant GP

[Tythrop in reply to Gingernut44]

Hear hear. Good for Diogenese and like minded wise people. It is scarey out here going it alone.

[DippyDame in reply to Gingernut44]

Me too!

As was my maternal grandmother.

[PaulRobinson]

The only useful outcome of thyroid treatment has to be the improved health of the patient. It is a pity that they now seem to have recognised this. Although, I bet some of them simply think it is still about getting TSH to a certain level!

I hope this is the start of their house of cards collapsing!

Thanks for sharing!

[LindaC]

There are no words to express... You Wonderful, WONDERFUL People

[london81]

thank you. I have found my health again because of the hard work of you and other admins. because of people like you giving time and effort not only am i educated for myself but for many members of my family. thank you again! here’s to more education and enlightenment of those who purport to care about our health

[dolphin5]

Hooray!!!! 🥳