Idea for emai chain letter.

[Guest guest]

Hi all

This is just a first draft to generate some ideas and feedback. You will see

that I have written the email so that as many people as possible can relate to

it. This does not describe a real person and yet in many ways describes

thousand.

I am open to all comments and suggestions. I also need your help to help

summarise the medical overview I wrote in the middle. It was starting to make my

brain hurt.

I have tried to keep it as simple as possible.

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Hi

You might be wondering why I have sent you this email. I need your help to

spread the word about a medical problem that is blighting the lives of thousands

of people including good friends of mine.

A friend of mine has been unwell for nearly 10 years and she is finding it

extremely difficult to get a sensible diagnosis by a doctor and more

importantly, treatment for her condition.

She has visited several doctors but they do not seem to be prepared to go the

full nine yards to find out exactly what is wrong with her. On the rare occasion

her doctor has requested a blood test that could help identify the problem, the

testing labs have ignored the doctor's request and have not carried out the

test?

This is not an isolated case. My friend told me she was so determined to get

well again that she spent many hours trawling the internet to see if she could

figure out why she was so ill. What she discovered shocked her. It would seem

that there are 10s of thousands of people in the UK in a similar position.

She found dozens of patient supports groups with many thousands of members all

desperately trying to get the world to recognise their plight.

What is this mystery illness?....... Its Thyroid disease!

I would be surprised if you do not know someone with a thyroid disorder. The

problem is, a lot of doctors either do not fully understand the disease or they

are not prepared to dip into their budget to pay for the necessary tests to

determine what kind of thyroid problem their patients are suffering from.

Fortunately there are many doctors out there that do know their job and who are

prepared to do whatever it takes to get you well again. But…. they then have to

fight the testing labs who frequently ignore their requests for specific tests.

It's a disgrace.

Now for a short layman's medical lesson about the Thyroid gland. (as I

understand things as I am not a doctor).

If your thyroid gland is overactive (hyperthyroidism) you often experience

multiple symptoms, including nervousness or anxiety, weight loss despite a good

appetite, breathlessness, palpitations and intolerance to heat.

However, if your thyroid gland is underactive (hypothyroidism) the symptoms are

usually very subtle and develop gradually often over a period of years. As every

individual can experiences different symptoms it can make the process of

accurately diagnosing the problem more difficult. It's Hypothyroidism that I am

going to discuss here (in a very simplistic form).

The Pituitary gland produces a hormone called TSH which stimulates the thyroid

gland to produce a hormone called T4. If there is a shortage of T4, more TSH is

produced which in turn triggers the thyroid gland to produce more T4. If there

is a surplus of T4, less TSH is produced which in turn reduces the amount of T4

produced.

As far as doctors know, T4 does not do that much itself but some of it is

converted by the body to a hormone called T3. This is a very important hormone.

The body uses T3 to help regulate our metabolism. People with overactive thyroid

glands tend to have higher heart rates while people with underactive thyroid

glands have slower heart rates, are easily fatigued and frequently gain weight.

It is the T4 to T3 conversion that seems to be very heart of most of the

diagnosis or to be more accurate it's the diagnosis procedures that are used

that are causing the problems.

First, many doctors believe that if your TSH level is normal then your Thyroid

will be normal too. This is simply wrong! There are many reasons why this is not

the case. The next stage would be to test your levels of T4.

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HELP SHEILA AND OTHERS - How can we cover this in a simple to understand way. If

we go into much details our readers may lose the will to live. :-)

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So back to why I am sending you this email.

There are many thousands of people in the UK suffering from thyroid disorders

who can't get an accurate diagnose and treatment.

Some sufferers are so bad they physically can't work. The low metabolism means

they frequently put on weight and many people (including some doctor's

unfortunately) simply see them as fat, lazy moaners. My friend works like a

Trojan. She eats less than I do and she would do anything to get better so she

can do more for more people.

Please help by forwarding this email onto as many friend and colleagues as you

can. The ultimate goal is to raise the profile of this problem. They say that

everyone in the world is only five steps away from someone very important. We

need this email to get to those people that can make something happen.

I can't promise you that by sending this email you will become rich and famous

or become more attractive to the opposite sex but there is a good chance you

might help make a big difference to the lives of many people.

If you would like more information about Thyroid problems take a look at:

http://www.tpa-uk.org.uk

or google " thyroid problems " or similar.

xx

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Regards

Ian