Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of  Inferior Thyroid Treatment by Janie Bowthorpe

review by Jeffrey Dach MD

Written by a non-professional, this is the most important thyroid book to come out in the last few years.  The book is timely because of two factors:

Number one) For decades, mainstream medicine has been guilty of mismanaging the low thyroid condition.

Number 2) Patients are now empowered by the internet to collectively share notes and devise their own strategies for thyroid testing and treatment.

Empowered E-Patients

One of these empowered e-patients is Janie Bowthorpe, owner of  the Stop-the-thyroid-Madness-blog. In her book, she describes her ordeal with years of crippling fatigue, all the while her doctors told her "the labs were normal", and insisting she was adequately treated with Synthroid, the mainstream T4 thyroid medication.  Apparently she was not adequately treated.

Switched from Synthroid to Armour

Eventually after many years of needless suffering, Janie visited an internet thyroid message board and discovered information about natural thyroid medication called Armour.  Empowered with this new information, Janie switched over from the Synthroid to the Armour, and experienced a dramatic recovery, and has been well ever since.

Janie's Amazing Journey

The first section of her book chronicles this amazing journey, and later sections are the condensed wisdom from her blog and message boards. Important chapters in the book deal with the superior clinical results of Armour natural thyroid compared to Synthroid, the unreliability of the TSH test, and the issue of adrenal fatigue in relation to the low thyroid condition.  Also discussed are the role of Ferritin and Iodine.

A Very Important Book

Stop the Thyroid Madness is unquestionably a very important book which will influence mainstream medical treatment for the low thyroid condition.  Janie's activism has galvanized a revolution in medical care, with thousands of patients demanding superior  thyroid care described in her book.  I applaud Janie Bowthorpe's book,  and wish her strength and good fortune in her continuing efforts to reform the mainstream medical system.

Above Book Cover Courtesy of Janie Bowthorpe.

Related Content:

Hypothyroidism Part Two, The Thyroflex and Reflex Time by Jeffrey Dach MD

Natural Treatment of Low Thyroid by Jeffrey Dach MD

Breast Cancer Prevention and Iodine Supplementation by Jeffrey Dach MD

Other Books Also Recommended:

Hypothyroidism the Unsuspected Illness, by Broda Barnes MD

Iodine, Why You Need It and Why You Cant Live Without It by David Brownstein MD

Hypothyroidism, Type Two by Mark Starr MD

Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome  by Wilson

Jeffrey Dach MD
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http://www.jeffreydach.com/ 
http://www.drdach.com/
http://www.naturalmedicine101.com/
http://www.truemedmd.com/

Links and References:

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/
Janie A. Bowthorpe, M.Ed. is a thyroid patient activist, author of the book Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of  Inferior Thyroid Treatment, and owner of the Stop the Thyroid Madness website.

http://thyroid.about.com/b/2009/01/27/the-desiccated-thyroid-controversy-why-endocrinologists-dont-like-armour-thyroid.htm
The Desiccated Thyroid Controversy: Why Endocrinologists Don't Like Armour Thyroid Tuesday January 27, 2009 Mary SHomon

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/174931-Synthroid-Sucks-The-Rallying-Cry-of-Thyroid-Patients-vs-Clueless-Doctors

Janie A. Bowthorpe, M.Ed. is a thyroid patient activist, author of the book Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Thyroid Treatment and owner of the Stop the Thyroid Madness website.

quote from Janie Bowthorpe:

" The advent of the Internet plopped into the laps of hapless hypothyroid patients like gold by the turn of this century-the seed of a now-fervent global movement against a 50-year medical scandal.

In 1955, Knoll Pharmaceuticals of Germany developed the ever well-known Synthroid, a synthetic T4-only thyroid storage hormone pill. It was not the first time T4 was used. T4 was first isolated in 1914, then produced and used intravenously in 1926-27. But it lost favor due to its light and air instability, besides due to the fact that another treatment, desiccated thyroid, was working anyway.

When Knoll reintroduced it years later, they used strategic marketing, promoting it as a "new and modern" treatment and convincing doctors to switch nearly all hypothyroid patients to Synthroid by the 1960's. Later, other pharmaceuticals followed suit, promoting their brands of synthetic T4. Newly diagnosed hypothyroid patients followed suit.

In 2001, Synthroid was acquired by Abbott Labs through their acquisition of Knoll. By the next year, Wall Street Journal reported that Abbott was going to aggressively pitch the immensely popular Synthroid, "the fifth-most prescribed medication in the U.S." with roughly 44 million prescriptions each year. And that figure did not include those prescriptions for other synthetic T4 medications, which include brand names like Levoyxl, Unithroid, Eltroxin, Norton, and generic Levothyroxine.

Doctors all around the world fell into line with the treatment of synthetic T4 for hypothyroidism like good little soldiers.

A successful treatment?? Only in the minds of pharmaceutical-patsy doctors, say a growing body of hypothyroid patients who, thanks to internet contact, discovered they weren't alone in having lingering hypothyroid symptoms which doctors dismissed or bandaided with other pills.

I am one of those patients. And like the reported experience of a growing body of thyroid patients around the world, T4-only treatment left me with lingering hypothyroid symptoms for nearly two decades, even though a slew of doctors kept telling me "It's not your thyroid. You are adequately treated."

The lingering symptoms reported by T4-only treated patients all across the internet? Chronic low-grade depression, easy weight gain, dry skin and hair, less stamina than others, rising cholesterol, higher blood pressure, feeling cold, constipation, brain fog, low sex drive, poor exercise tolerance, heart problems, a need to nap, prenancy issues, anxiety, poor stress tolerance and a slew of other hypothyroid symptoms.

Adding insult to injury, patients report doctors being as clueless as they are rigid, denying continuing symptoms as being related to T4 treatment, and persistently prescribing it come hell or high water.

Equally as maddening is the ignorance that abounds in the medical community about a treatment that has removed those lingering hypothyroid symptoms: a grassroots return to prescription desiccated natural thyroid aka Armour, Naturethroid, etc.-- the very hypothyroid treatment that was successful for decades before it was replaced.

Natural desiccated thyroid contains exactly what your thyroid would be making: T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin.

Patients are flocking to Armour and other desiccated thyroid as fast as they can find a doctor to prescribe it, which for many, is as difficult as finding a Republican to wrap his arms around Obama's stimulus package. But a small but growing body of doctors are embracing desiccated thyroid, even though the majority still have a long way to go.

A recent three-part blog post by endocrinologist and osteopath Thomas Repas, DO, FACP, FACE, CDE on the website Endocrinology Today best represents the current struggle between doctors rigid beliefs in Synthroid and other T4-only brand treatment, and patients frustration and struggle in educating their doctors about a far better treatment.

In fact, patients will repeatedly report that Endocrinologists have been the worst nightmare when it comes to thyroxine treatment rigidity and ignorance about a better treatment with desiccated natural thyroid. On my patient-to-patient activist website, there is a compilation of statements made by doctors, especially Endocrinologists, and reported by patients, and you can multiply those statements by thousands according to patients who repeatedly report them.

This patient movement is not going to go away. Synthroid and other T4-only medications have not worked well for the majority for fifty years, and will never work as well as desiccated thyroid. Sure, there will always be some patients who claim they do fine on T4-only. But as they age, the proof will be in the pudding, because the body is not meant to live on a storage hormone alone."   end quote Janie Bowthorpe.