Dr OPQ, GP/homeopath
So, after lengthy chats with one of my students, who was a great fan of homeopathy, I thought I’d give that a go. Not much choice of doctors where I live, but managed to find one that also did acupuncture, which was a bonus. To his credit, he did say straight up that he didn’t know much about thyroid, but I said that was OK, because I did (a little jumping the gun, there!) and if he would just do the blood tests and write the prescriptions, I’d sort out the rest. As I was still taking Euthyral, he seemed agreeable to prescribe that. I let him try a little homeopathy on me, which did nothing to help – not that I thought it would but, you never know. And the acupuncture was soothing. But, he started each appointment with the asking the same apparently inane questions such as: how many pillows do you sleep with? I still can’t see the point of that. And when I asked about adrenal testing, he seemed to go into a sort of trance, and sat there frowning and whispering to himself. “Adrenals… adrenals… adrenals…” As if he was trying to remember where he'd left them. And he wanted me to take iodine and consume soy – because ‘it’s good for you’ – and prescribe lithium ‘to calm you down’ (I was a walking cabbage at that point, couldn’t get much calmer)! I declined them all. But, as agreed, he wrote the prescriptions, and I set the dose. And we jogged along nicely for a while, until…
Showdown time: I came to the conclusions that the T4:T3 ratio wasn’t right for me, so asked him to prescribed some T3 only so that I could reduce the Euthyral to one pill a day and add in some T3, thus reducing that huge amount of T4 I was ingesting. He refused to do that on the grounds that he didn’t know what T3 was, and it might be ‘dangerous’. I said that it was what I was already taking but I needed a higher dose. But, he wasn’t having it. He said, “Let’s be clear about what we’re doing here. We’re trying to kick-start your thyroid.” I laughed and said, “Well, I hope you’re good at raising the dead, because my thyroid has been dead for some years!” But, he didn’t understand that and we argued back and forth for a bit until I finally slammed out, saying that I was off to find someone that actually knew what a thyroid was, because he didn’t even seem to know that. And, I had a higher goal in life.
Dr RST, GP/Anti-Aging doctor/Hertoghe doctor
I’d read about Dr RST on a couple of French forums, a very expensive doctor in Paris who ‘knew about hormones’. I determined I would get to see him one day. And, this had to be the day, because I didn’t have a doctor anymore. It was a bit like getting into a secrete sect because you had to ring him, knowing he never answered his phone, and wait for him to get back to you. He would then send you a 40 page questionnaire which you filled in and took with you to your first appointment. Which I duly did. That first appointment was very thorough and lasted two hours. The instant I walked through the door, he said, “Madame, your thyroid is dead and your adrenals are about to follow. He asked for labs to be done, a list as long as your arm, and, I finally got my prescription for Armour!
I saw him quite a few times, and it cost me an arm and a leg! But, I finally found out about the adrenals! Something no other doctor had been able to tell me. My cortisol was very, very low, and he prescribed HydroCortisol. Which made me feel wonderful for a while. And, I did quite well on Armour, too. I also learnt about pituitary hormones and my Human Growth Hormone was very low, and he prescribed that for me, too. But, the downside was that I could get neither Armour nor HGH in France. I was able to fax my prescription for Armour to a pharmacy somewhere in Belgium, and they would send it to me by post – it still hadn’t been banned in France at that point. But, for the HGH, I had to drive to Brussels myself four times a year to buy it, because it has to be kept permanently refrigerated – I used to take a freezer bag with me to keep it cold. And, the result of all that was that I felt quite good for a while.
Showdown time: I started to feel not so good on Armour, but Dr RST insisted that it was the only way to go, and that I should give it time. I got up to 6 grains a day, but, as with the Euthyral, I think there wasn’t enough T3 in it, and far too much T4. And, then he wanted me to take iodine. I said I wouldn’t, because I’d already done that when some ignorant country quack had prescribed it for me without doing any labs, or examining me and not even asking any questions. And it had made me much, much worse. We argued, and I compromised: give me a test for iodine and if it’s low I’ll consider it. The result came back that my iodine was sky-high. And, I never heard from Dr RST again. He didn’t reply to my emails and didn’t return my calls. So, I couldn’t get an appointment nor any of my prescriptions after that.
Self-treating
So, I was on my own with it all again. And, frankly, sick of doctors. I’d heard of people self-treating, so why not. I thought I’d give it a try. Through various forums, I managed to get links to sites where I could buy Thai NDT and set about finding one that suited me. But, there was no way I could get HGH anymore. As far as I could make out, there are only three countries that manufacture it: China, Mexico and Belgium. I couldn’t find out any details about Mexican HGH. I did know somebody who knew somebody, but he refused to talk to me. I don’t know why. But did get a link to the Chinese site. I could have bought that and had it shipped to me because it came in power form and you make it up with sterile water to inject. But, the first time I tried to buy it, I got thrown off the site and banned for life! And, I don’t know why! Probably something I said, because I don’t speak Chinese. Oh, well… I’d have to do without.
I wasn’t doing well at all on the Thai NDT, and didn’t know why that was happening, either. So many mysteries. Although I’d lost a little weight with the Euthyral, I was now putting it all back on, and then some. And, by the time I was 65, I was more or less a bed-bound whale. I did some reading on a site-that-shall-be-nameless, and got interested in rT3. So, it blocks the T3 receptors, does it? Oh, ho! We’ll, see about that!
On the STSBN site, it said that the ‘cure’ was twelve weeks on a high dose of T3 only. So, now, I had to find a source of T3. I took a dose of 150 mcg daily. And, began to feel better on it. I stuck to that for 12 weeks, and then went back to NDT. And, slid rapidly back to where I’d been before. The brain-fog was very bad, but it seemed to me that I’d probably not been on T3 only long enough to get rid of all the rT3 – or maybe I just hadn’t been on enough T3… Difficult to know. But, I went back onto 150 mcg T3 only, and slowly titrated up to 200. And, then, the brain-fog cleared! And, I could think. And, I thought, what if it hadn’t been an rT3 problem after all? What if it had been a T4 problem all that time? Had I just been getting too much T4 and not enough T3? And, what if I was better off without any T4 at all? And, that’s how I decided to go T3 only, and lived happily ever after for a couple of years, until disaster struck!
And, more about that tomorrow in My Thyroid Story Part III
Rt3 experiences, studies, stories
My story 
Has my thyroid gone haywire?
Experimenting with rebooting my thyroid 
