Re: Need Private doctor/endo list please.

[Guest guest]

,

I'm a bit lost.... why would it be assumed that looking after your husband and

teaching your little boy would make you depressed? Not all

nurses/carers/teachefrs are depressed, indeed many of them love their jobs and

get a lot of fulfilment from their work. Next time he tries to tell you you

are depressed put him straight.

If you have low T3, you may well feel down, or low B12, D3 or iron can all make

you feel low......

It would be really usful to see some test results..... Have you got any?

I would go and post the letter you were going to hand over through the door.....

at least that way you'll get the message over....

Remember not to take your thyroid meds on the morning of a blood test....

x

>

> I've just been to my doc's. He is a lovely doc, its a shame he knows diddly

squat about T3 and T4 implications. I did get out of him that there can be no

referrals to Endo's ect without a TSH level of 5 or more (range 0 -5) because

the County Hospital Endo will not accept a referral below that level.

>

[Guest guest]

> If you have low T3, you may well feel down, or low B12, D3 or iron can all

make you feel low......

>

Someone else reminded me that thyroid problems can cause depression too. The

Doctor based his diagnosis of depression on 4 things... No Libido, mental fog,

inability to lose weight and tiredness.

Luckily I have a wonderful hubby, he reassured me instantly that I am not

depressed, he has seen me depressed (when we were running a business, 3 kids at

home, one Aspergers, one Autistic and the other Dyslexic) hubbies health failing

and holding down a second job to keep the food on the table whilst the first

business was dying. Now THAT was a recipe for depression.

Life now is rather O.K. except I would really like to WANT sex, and lose weight

and think straight again (a bit hard Home Educating when you can't even keep a

paragraph or writing in mind), plus the tiredness I could do without. The

'crash' is not pleasant.

Bloods from March, not actual thyroid tests, more to check on low libido were,

TSH 2.4 (range 0.25 - 5.0 )

White cell 8.6 (4 - 11)

Red blood cell 4.09 ( 3.8 - 5.8)

Haemoglobin estimation 13 (11.0 - 16.0)

Haematocrit 0.378 (0.36 - 0.47

Last three days basal temperatures have been 36.4 ; 36.4: and 36.3 if that's any

help? (Brand new digital thermometer)

There doesn't seem to be anything else that I have seen asked for on this list

that are on my bloods. I have all the gynae/sex hormone results as well and I

think those are what the doc wants to check.

But, this appointment was partly to check his attitude and knowledge and to

confirm in my eyes whether I would have to abandon the NHS over this as well as

some other aspects of my life. It just knocked me for six having the same speil

yet again when I had enough evidence to show him. " Lose weight and take some

antidepressants " , that's all I get.

2

[Guest guest]

Someone else reminded me that thyroid problems can cause depression too. The Doctor based his diagnosis of depression on 4 things... No Libido, mental fog, inability to lose weight and tiredness.

Hi 2,

Yeah – Before I got properly diagnosed my GP had asked me to fill in a stupid NHS form with very misleading questions and told me that I was clinically depressed because I had scored accordingly.... So I blazed at him and told him I was NOT depressed and I don't want nor need Prozac. I was hypothyroid and would he please order a full thyroid panel and not just a TSH (which previously had been normal). Low and behold, the test finally came back positive for Hypothyroidism and he apologized to me. I was lucky.

What you need is a full thyroid panel, including TSH, FT4, FT3 and – most important of all – a TPO & TgAB antibody check. I you had positive thyroid auto-antibodies, that in itself would be diagnostic for Hashimoto's – regardless of the other parameters.... although your GP might not know or accept this... but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

A diagnosis for Hashimoto's is frequently missed, because thyroid auto-antibodies can lead to wildly fluctuating thyroid results. Your TSH can jump up and down like a yo-yo and show perfectly "normal" looking results at times. I had been lucky at the time, as at the eleventh hour my TSH suddenly jumped up to 7.6, having been 2.5 a few weeks prior...

If your GP refuses to check the AA's, you can do it privately with Genova – but you should not have to.

Hope this helps,

Best wishes,

[Guest guest]

I would print out the following and take it to your doctor to

show him how wrong he is. It really is up to us to re-educate our doctors and

get their minds to open to other possibilities of why sufferers of

hypothyroidism may have other causes for their symptoms. Not everything is as

straight forward as they would try to have us believe. They think we have no

brains: The following is taken from the rebuttal I wrote to the British Thyroid

Association's Statement on T4/T3 vs. T4-only:

DEPRESSION/HYPOTHYROID/REFERENCES

Whilst considering the costs of medication for

hypothyroidism, we must consider the cost to the NHS of other medicines

prescribed because the T4-only monotherapy does not fully resolve the

patients’ symptoms. Hypothyroid patients chronically used more

prescription drugs, especially for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and

gastrointestinal conditions.1 These are of great financial burden to the

NHS and an overwhelming burden to the quality of life of the tens of thousands

of hypothyroid sufferers in the UK alone.

Irving Kirsch’s recent Department of Psychology at the

University of Hull study (25 February 2008) is the first to examine both

published and unpublished evidence of the effectiveness of selective serotonin

reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which account for 16 million NHS prescriptions a

year. The largest study of its kind concluded that antidepressant drugs do not

work. More than £291 million was spent on antidepressants in 2006, including

nearly £120 million on SSRIs.[2]

Depression has an association with lower thyroid hormone

levels,[3,4,6-13,15], and research has shown that improvement can be achieved

with thyroid hormone replacement.[10,13-19].

There is an association with anxiety and lower thyroid

hormone levels [20-25] and again, research has shown improvement with thyroid

treatment replacement therapy.[26,27]

Memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease likewise have an

association with lower thyroid hormone levels.[28-34]  Both

these conditions have shown improvement with thyroid treatment.35-38]

REFERENCES:

1. Lowe, . “Thyroid Hormone

Replacement Therapies: Ineffective and Harmful for Many Hypothyroid

Patients.” May 4, 2004 http://www.drlowe.com/frf/t4replacement/intro.htm

2. Kirsch I, Deacon BJ, Huedo-Medina TB,

Scoboria A, TJ, et al. “Initial Severity and Antidepressant

Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug

Administration.“ 2008, PLoS Med 5(2): e45

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045: Access full article at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045

3. Gaby AR.”Sub-laboratory hypothyroidism

and the empirical use of Armour thyroid”. Altern Med Rev. 2004

Jun;9(2):157-79

4. Pop VJ, Maartens LH, Leusink G, van Son MJ,

Knottnerus AA, Ward AM, Metcalfe R, Weetman AP. “Are autoimmune thyroid

dysfunction and depression related? “ J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1998

Sep;83(9):3194-7

5. Haggerty JJ Jr, Stern RA, Mason GA, Beckwith

J, Morey CE, Prange AJ Jr. “Subclinical hypothyroidism: a modifiable risk

factor for depression? “ Am J Psychiatry. 1993 Mar;150(3):508-10

6. Gold MS, Pottash AL, Extein I.

" Symptomless autoimmune thyroiditis in depression.“ Psychiatry Res.

1982 Jun;6(3):261-9

7. O'Shanick GJ, Ellinwood EH Jr.

“Persistent elevation of thyroid-stimulating hormone in women with

bipolar affective disorder. “ Am J Psychiatry. 1982 Apr;139(4):513-4

8.  Howland RH. “Thyroid dysfunction in

refractory depression: implications for pathophysiology and treatment.“ J

Clin Psychiatry. 1993 Feb;54(2):47-54

9.  Kirkegaard C, Norlem N, Lauridsen UB,

Bjorum N, Christiansen C. “Protirelin stimulation test and thyroid

function during treatment of depression.“ Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1975

Sep;32(9):1115

10. Bauer MS, Whybrow PC, Winokur A.

“Rapid cycling bipolar affective disorder. I. Association with grade I

hypothyroidism.“ Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1990 May;47(5):427-32

11. Haggerty JJ Jr, DL, Golden RN,

Pedersen CA, Simon JS, Nemeroff CB. “The presence of antithyroid

antibodies in patients with affective and nonaffective psychiatric

disorders.“ Biol Psychiatry. 1990 Jan 1;27(1):51-60

12. Joffe RT, Marriott M. “Thyroid hormone

levels and recurrence of major depression.“ Am J Psychiatry. 2000

Oct;157(10):1689-91 (“the time to recurrence of major depression was

inversely related to T3 levels but not to T4 levels”

13. Afflelou S, Auriacombe M, Cazenave M,

Chartres JP, Tignol J. “Administration of high dose levothyroxine in

treatment of rapid cycling bipolar disorders. Review of the literature and

14. Bauer M, Baur H, Berghofer A, Strohle A,

Hellweg R, Muller-Oerlinghausen B, Baumgartner A. “Effects of

supraphysiological thyroxine administration in healthy controls and patients

with depressive disorders.“ J Affect Disord. 2002 Apr;68(2-3):285-94

15. Schwarcz G, Halaris A, Baxter L, Escobar J,

M, Young M. “Normal thyroid function in desipramine

nonresponders converted to responders by the addition of

L-triiodothyronine.“ Am J Psychiatry. 1984 Dec;141(12):1614-6

16. Prange AJ Jr. “Novel uses of thyroid

hormones in patients with affective disorders.“ Thyroid. 1996

Oct;6(5):537-43

17.  Birkenhager TK, Vegt M, Nolen WA. “An

open study of triiodothyronine augmentation of tricyclic antidepressants in

inpatients with refractory depression.“ Pharmacopsychiatry. 1997

Jan;30(1):23-6

18.  Joffe RT, Singer W, Levitt AJ, Mac C.

“A placebo-controlled comparison of lithium and triiodothyronine

augmentation of tricyclic antidepressants in unipolar refractory

depression.“ Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1993 May;50(5):387-93

19. Altshuler LL, Bauer M, Frye MA, Gitlin MJ,

Mintz J, Szuba MP, Leight KL, Whybrow PC. “Does thyroid supplementation

accelerate tricyclic antidepressant response? A review and meta-analysis of the

literature.“ Am J Psychiatry. 2001 Oct;158(10):1617-22

20. Kikuchi M, Komuro R, Oka H, Kidani T,

Hanaoka A, Koshino Y. “Relationship between anxiety and thyroid function

in patients with panic disorder.“ Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol

Psychiatry. 2005 Jan;29(1):77-81

21.  Bauer M, Priebe S, Kurten I, Graf KJ,

Baumgartner A. “Psychological and endocrine abnormalities in refugees

from East Germany: Part I. Prolonged stress, psychopathology, and

hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis activity.“ Psychiatry Res. 1994

Jan;51(1):61-73

22. Magliozzi JR, Maddock RJ, Gold AS, Gietzen DW.

“Relationships between thyroid indices and symptoms of anxiety in

depressed outpatients.“ Ann Clin Psychiatry. 1993 Jun;5(2):111-6

23. Sait Gonen M, Kisakol G, Savas Cilli A,

Dikbas O, Gungor K, Inal A, Kaya A. “Assessment of anxiety in subclinical

thyroid disorders.“ Endocr J. 2004 Jun;51(3):311-5

24. Larisch R, Kley K, Nikolaus S, Sitte W,

Franz M, Hautzel H, Tress W, Muller HW. “Depression and anxiety in

different thyroid function states.“ Horm Metab Res. 2004 Sep;36(9):650-3

25. Constant EL, Adam S, Seron X, Bruyer R,

Seghers A, Daumerie C. “Anxiety and depression, attention, and executive

functions in hypothyroidism.“ J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2005

Sep;11(5):535-44

26. Landen M, Baghaei F, Rosmond R, Holm G,

Bjorntorp P, sson E. “Dyslipidemia and high waist-hip ratio in women

with self-reported social anxiety.“ Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2004

Sep;29(8):1037-46 (Serum levels of free thyroxin (14+/-2 vs. 16+/-4, P=0.04)

were lower in subjects confirming social anxiety)

27. Venero C, Guadano-Ferraz A, Herrero AI, Nordstrom

K, Manzano J, de Escobar GM, Bernal J, Vennstrom B. “Anxiety, memory

impairment, and locomotor dysfunction caused by a mutant thyroid hormone

receptor,“ 2005.

28. Nakanishi T. “Consideration on serum

triiodothyronine (T3), thyroxine (T4) concentration and T3/T4 ratio in the

patients of senile dementia - is it possible to prevent cerebro-vascular

dementia?“ Igaku Kenkyu. 1990 Feb;60(1):18-25

29.  Ichibangase A, Nishikawa M, Iwasaka T,

Kobayashi T, Inada M. “Relation between thyroid and cardiac functions and

the geriatric rating scale.“ Acta Neurol Scand. 1990 Jun;81(6):491-8

30.  Molchan SE, Lawlor BA,

Hill JL, Mellow AM, CL, ez R, Sunderland T. “The TRH

stimulation test in Alzheimer's disease and major depression: relationship to

clinical and CSF measures.“ Biol Psychiatry. 1991 Sep 15;30(6):567-76

31. Burmeister LA, Ganguli M,

Dodge HH, Toczek T, DeKosky ST, Nebes RD. “Hypothyroidism and cognition:

preliminary evidence for a specific defect in memory.“ Thyroid. 2001

Dec;11(12):1177-85

32. Monzani F, Pruneti CA, De

Negri F, Simoncini M, Neri S, Di Bello V, Baracchini Muratorio G, Baschieri L.

“Preclinical hypothyroidism: early involvement of memory function,

behavioral responsiveness and myocardial contractility.“ Minerva

Endocrinol. 1991 Jul-Sep;16(3):113-8

33. Baldini IM, Vita A, Maura

MC, Amodei V, Carrisi M, Bravin S, Cantalamessa L. “Psychopathological

and cognitive features in subclinical hypothyroidism.“ Prog

Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 1997 Aug;21(6):925-35

34. Ganguli M, Burmeister LA,

Seaberg EC, Belle S, DeKosky ST. “Association between dementia and

elevated TSH: a community-based study. “ Biol Psychiatry. 1996 Oct

15;40(8):714-25

35. Monzon Monguilod MJ, -Fraile I.

“Subclinical hypothyroidism as a cause of reversible cognitive deterioration.“

Neurologia. 1996 Nov;11(9):353-6

36. Kinuya S, Michigishi T, Tonami N, Aburano T,

Tsuji S, Hashimoto T. “Reversible cerebral hypoperfusion observed with

Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT in reversible dementia caused by hypothyroidism.“ Clin

Nucl Med. 1999 Sep;24(9):666-8

37.  Monzani F, Del Guerra P, Caraccio N,

Pruneti CA, Pucci E, i M, Baschieri L. “Subclinical hypothyroidism:

neurobehavioral features and beneficial effect of L-thyroxine treatment.“

Clin Investig. 1993 May;71(5):367-71

38. Medline Plus. The MedMaster™ Patient

Drug Information database. “Liothyronine”:

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Someone else reminded me that thyroid problems

can cause depression too. The Doctor based his diagnosis of depression on 4

things... No Libido, mental fog, inability to lose weight and tiredness.

Ah bless! So obviously he knows something the researchers above

don't!

Luckily I have a wonderful hubby, he reassured

me instantly that I am not depressed, he has seen me depressed (when we were

running a business, 3 kids at home, one Aspergers, one Autistic and the other

Dyslexic) hubbies health failing and holding down a second job to keep the food

on the table whilst the first business was dying. Now THAT was a recipe for

depression.

Life now is rather O.K. except I would really like to WANT sex, and lose weight

and think straight again (a bit hard Home Educating when you can't even keep a

paragraph or writing in mind), plus the tiredness I could do without. The

'crash' is not pleasant.

Knowing that you are NOT depressed is half the battle. You

obviously need to find the medication that will set you back on your feet. Why

has your GP ONLY tested your TSH? This is not even a thyroid hormone, it is a

pituitary hormone that secretes thyroid stimulating hormone when it recognises

that there is insufficient levels of thyroid hormone in the blood. Your TSH

should normally be around 1.0, and with it being 2.4, it obviously recognises

that there are NOT sufficient levels of thyroid hormone in the blood. TSH is

secreted to nudge the thyroid gland into secreting more thyroid hormone, so

your doctor should be asking how much free t4 and free T3 is in the blood.

Another one badly taught at medical school, or more likely, not taught at all.

As your blood was last tested in March, you need a full thyroid

function test done now to include TSH, free T4, free T3 and checks to see

whether you have antibodies to your thyroid. These are TPO and TgAb. You need

also to ask him to test your levels of iron, transferrin saturation%, ferritin,

vitamin B12, vitamin D3, magnesium, folate, copper and zinc. If any of these

are low in the range, your thyroid hormone cannot be fully utilised at the

cellular level. In case your GP tries to tell you there is no connection

between low levels of these specific nutrients and low thyroid, then copy off

the attached document to show him just a few of the references to the research

and studies that show that there is. Always try to be one jump ahead of your

GP, you will eventually get much better treatment.

You need to write all of the above requests and information in a

letter and send to this doctor, with the attached document too. Don't

allow him to wriggle his way out of this. Sock it to him - gently and ask for a

referral to the endocrinologist of your choice on the list of doctors that was

sent to you. Remember that your GP is not a thyroid specialist and you need to

see one.  Ask that he confirms in writing to you that he has placed youor

letter of requests into your medical notes and see what happens.

If you have received an invitation to our Chat Forum from Lilian

when you joined this group, then go on there and ask about the hCG diet. This

is the incredible diet that really works. Lots of our members have lost stones in

weight. It really is quite amazing. It is a homeopathic protocol. You can ask

questions and read up about it on there….and NO…don't take the

antidepressants prescribed by your doctor under the circumstances.

Luv - Sheila

Last three days basal temperatures have been 36.4 ; 36.4: and 36.3 if that's

any help? (Brand new digital thermometer)

There doesn't seem to be anything else that I have seen asked for on this list

that are on my bloods. I have all the gynae/sex hormone results as well and I

think those are what the doc wants to check.

But, this appointment was partly to check his attitude and knowledge and to

confirm in my eyes whether I would have to abandon the NHS over this as well as

some other aspects of my life. It just knocked me for six having the same speil

yet again when I had enough evidence to show him. " Lose weight and take

some antidepressants " , that's all I get.

2

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MINERALS AND VIT. TESTING.doc