Re: new doctor search--long

[Guest guest]

Hi, Sandy!

In the Austin area, Dr. lin is well-liked, and I am told that

his prices are good. I don't know how he feels about the 's

protocol. You might have to go to the 's site to find a doc who

is willing to do that.

But I am not convinced that a full-blown 's protocol would be

the best thing to do at this time. I would consider adding a little

Cytomel to a reduced dose of Armour first.

It would be good to see your Free T3 and Free T4 results together

with their ranges and what dose of Armour you were on at the time.

You are most likely trying to lose weight too soon, and in the

process, inhibiting the conversion of T4 to T3 and also causing much

of it to convert to rT3.

Hypothyroidism causes tissue damage. It takes time for the damaged

tissues to heal: I have heard 18 months after your thyroid levels

have been optimized.

(((Hugs!)))

jan

[Guest guest]

Hi Jan--

It ended up working out OK with Dr. Manzanero. I seem to periodically

flip out about him and then re-discover that he's really quite

willing to work with me.

As of two days ago I'm taking Cytomel only--no Armour. I'm starting

with 12.5mcg twice a day, with instructions to raise it in a week by

5mcg at each dose, and a week after that raise it again--provided I

haven't had any hyper symptoms of course. He wants me to self-adjust

the dose and stay in touch with him.

He doubts it's full-blown 's too, based on my initial TSH when

I first saw him, which was 3.1, which he considers high and an

indication that my thyroid gland is playing out. So he says that I

have primary hypothyroidism as opposed to being " sick euthyroid. " But

he also says that he does have patients who do best on Cytomel alone.

I believe that I may have been sick euthyroid long before I saw him,

and that my thyroid slowing down came later. I'm coming to find out

in my therapy that the amount of stress I lived with was quite high,

since childhood even. The feeling of high-adrenaline was never absent

from my life, and in all honesty I didn't know that that was not a

normal state until I started taking Cortef last year at age 39 and

felt for the first time what it was like for my adrenaline levels to

be regulated. Nor did I know that I didn't have to live with severe

insomnia.

So all of that has contributed to my weight problems, plus I've been

reading some about how pregnancy or the pill can throw off the

hormonal balance, and I'm beginning to wonder if I need to look into

estrogen dominance too. Not pregnancy for me, but they put me on the

pill when I was 18, and it instantly made me gain weight. I mean

overnight. I remember the nurse saying, " Well there's certainly

nothing wrong with your boobs getting bigger, is there? " and I

remember thinking that I would've preferred the smaller ones.

Anyway--about trying to lose weight to soon: I started Armour 23

months ago. I haven't had to make an effort to get my caloric intake

down for many years, because I naturally only want about 1200

calories a day--that's when things are the very best they can be.

I'll stray up occasionally to 1500-1600. Right now I'm still trying

to get back up over 1000.

So when I talk about trying to lose weight, well, if the word " try "

is in there, it's going to mean that I'm working out a lot at the

gym, which I'm not doing right now. Last fall I spent 4 months

working out A LOT, including weight lifting six days/week

(alternating top and bottom halves of my body), a swimming class

twice a week where we really swam lots of laps, yoga three times a

week, and cardio 6 days a week. I didn't lose a single pound, nor did

I gain, which would've been great because it would've shown that my

body is still capable of building muscle. That was the worst news of

all--after four months, I had exactly the same fat percentage in my

body. My diet was in the 1200-1400 calories range.

Honestly, that was so discouraging that I haven't been able to muster

the courage to go back. I'm still working on that.

Other than that, trying to lose weight for me means trying to figure

out which medications will work best for me. As far as my diet goes,

I stay away from processed foods, I eat red meat, chicken, not enough

fish but I try, a lot a lot a lot of spinach salad, plenty of fruit,

right now cherries, blueberries, oranges, and carbs very judiciously,

although I don't try to keep them way low because apparently too few

carbs signals the body to convert T4 to reverse T3--the " starvation

mode " phenomenon. My main principle is to not eat empty calories--for

instance, I do sweeten a thing or two here and there when I'm in the

mood because it's depressing to restrict oneself so much that the

world becomes a place where nothing is ever sweet, but I use grade B

maple syrup because it does have some vitamin and mineral content to

redeem it.

I've been round and round with diet and nutrition for many years, and

received my education about it when I was about 13 because for one

thing, I paid attention in my home ec classes, and also because my

mother and sister went on Weight Watchers' back then--in the mid

seventies--and the rest of the family sort of got caught up in the

tide. At thirteen I knew all about fat, carb, and protein, and how

many calories were in a gram of each, and I even knew which sources

of amino acids were best and most complete.

Then I did Weight Watchers' in my mid-twenties, which was the mid-

eighties, back when the prescribed diet for the first two weeks was

very low calorie. I had gained a lot of weight in a relatively short

period of time, and back then I thought that what I was eating was

over-eating, but in hindsight, and by exploring specific memories in

therapy, I see now that the food and calorie amounts were very normal

and if anything, somewhat suppressed. But the first two weeks of

Weight Watchers' (actually, it was just the first week, but I did the

first week diet for two weeks, which probably didn't help matters)

was ultra-low calorie, the idea being to jump start your weight loss

and ensure that you would actually lose something significant so that

you wouldn't get discouraged. And the whole time I was on WW (for a

year) I never stopped thinking about food, or dreaming about it, once

I finally managed to get to sleep. I was always queasily hungry and

high adrenaline. I habitually ate less than the diet prescribed in

order to make sure that I would continue to lose, and in a year when

I couldn't take it anymore, I gained it all back very rapidly even

though I was on the maintenance diet. And I kept asking doctors if

something was wrong with my thyroid and they kept saying no.

So that sounds like starvation mode, and in fact, my body was

probably already there before I started WW. My dorm in boarding

school was obsessed with dieting. The ice diet was big--seriously.

There were girls who ate nothing but ice and iceberg lettuce. The

girl who spearheaded all this later spent five years in a mental

hospital weighing 80lbs. It's a wonder she survived it. I tried the

ice diet too but couldn't do it--for which I felt like a miserable

failure--and instead ate somewhat more but way way less than a girl

who was a cheerleader, track runner, soccer and field hockey player

had any business eating.

Anyway, I do go on. The general point I'm trying to make about my

diet is that through long work in therapy, I have come to discover

that there is something wrong with my body that can't be fixed by

what I eat or don't eat, and the fact that the world leads us to

believe that we CAN fix being overweight if we would just have enough

will power to eat right, has done no small amount of psychological

damage in my case. Being fat in a society that places so much

importance on not being fat, going around knowing that people look at

me and think that my fat is my fault, and that being fat shows an

inability or a lack of desire to take care of myself, is a horrible

way to have to live. In fact I have a very strong opinion about the

notion that seems to be the governing principle of popular modern

weight loss rules--doctors have said it to me too many times to

count: weight loss is very simple, you must simply consume fewer

calories than you burn.

While this is basically a true statement, it's very misleading

because it over-simplifies the issue by assuming that everyone burns

calories at the same rate when in fact there are tremendous

differences between one person and the next (which renders all the

calorie burning calculators on cardio machines completely useless,

since they use a standard rate to do their calculations, plus I know

an athlete who eats and burns over 4000 calories a day, whose resting

metabolism is the highest his doctor has ever seen), and by ignoring

the fact that reducing calories by too much brings on starvation mode

and can therefore create the exact opposite of the problem you were

trying to solve.

I'll be getting new blood work in about six weeks. I can't seem to

locate right now the last blood work I got, but I do remember that

FT3 was slightly above range and FT4 was above mid-range but not out

of range, TSH was very low (and out of range, but Manzanero goes by

symptoms rather than TSH readings), and reverse T3 was above range.

At the time I was taking 3gr of Armour, so I immediately went down to

2gr to bring down my FT3. What's weird is that I never felt any hyper

symptoms. I still wish I could find something to read about that, but

I'm the only one I've ever heard of that happening to.

I'm not sure my thyroid levels have ever been optimized, so that 18-

month mark may still be 18 months away.

I can't thank you enough for listening and responding. I'd be so lost

without a way to get information and compare notes. Thank you many

times over--

Sandy

> Hi, Sandy!

>

> In the Austin area, Dr. lin is well-liked, and I am told that

> his prices are good. I don't know how he feels about the 's

> protocol. You might have to go to the 's site to find a doc

who

> is willing to do that.

>

> But I am not convinced that a full-blown 's protocol would be

> the best thing to do at this time. I would consider adding a little

> Cytomel to a reduced dose of Armour first.

>

> It would be good to see your Free T3 and Free T4 results together

> with their ranges and what dose of Armour you were on at the time.

>

> You are most likely trying to lose weight too soon, and in the

> process, inhibiting the conversion of T4 to T3 and also causing

much

> of it to convert to rT3.

>

> Hypothyroidism causes tissue damage. It takes time for the damaged

> tissues to heal: I have heard 18 months after your thyroid levels

> have been optimized.

>

> (((Hugs!)))

>

> jan

[Guest guest]

"Modern Medicine" doesn't seem to know that formal research has found genes responsible for our set weight and so-on. The old "in-put =weight theory has gone out the window a long time ago. Where have they been? You have done very well and been very disciplined (much more than I have ever been), and I think you're on the right track, as far as exercise, etc...You know, if you don't lose even one single pound, your body is benefiting from all these exercise modes. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made", each very unique in every way. What's good for one person can be literally detrimental to another. From everything I'm learning about the insulin resistant thing, it's really there long before the medical world has any way to diagnose it, if they even care to. Each little cell in our body responds to a whole chain of events, and if one of those events is off, sometimes it can be chaos trying to figure out which event is "messed up". That's why this site, and many like it, are like gold to people with special problems. It's like a brand new world to me.

Re: new doctor search--long

Hi Jan--It ended up working out OK with Dr. Manzanero. I seem to periodically flip out about him and then re-discover that he's really quite willing to work with me.As of two days ago I'm taking Cytomel only--no Armour. I'm starting with 12.5mcg twice a day, with instructions to raise it in a week by 5mcg at each dose, and a week after that raise it again--provided I haven't had any hyper symptoms of course. He wants me to self-adjust the dose and stay in touch with him.He doubts it's full-blown 's too, based on my initial TSH when I first saw him, which was 3.1, which he considers high and an indication that my thyroid gland is playing out. So he says that I have primary hypothyroidism as opposed to being "sick euthyroid." But he also says that he does have patients who do best on Cytomel alone.I believe that I may have been sick euthyroid long before I saw him, and that my thyroid slowing down came later. I'm coming to find out in my therapy that the amount of stress I lived with was quite high, since childhood even. The feeling of high-adrenaline was never absent from my life, and in all honesty I didn't know that that was not a normal state until I started taking Cortef last year at age 39 and felt for the first time what it was like for my adrenaline levels to be regulated. Nor did I know that I didn't have to live with severe insomnia.So all of that has contributed to my weight problems, plus I've been reading some about how pregnancy or the pill can throw off the hormonal balance, and I'm beginning to wonder if I need to look into estrogen dominance too. Not pregnancy for me, but they put me on the pill when I was 18, and it instantly made me gain weight. I mean overnight. I remember the nurse saying, "Well there's certainly nothing wrong with your boobs getting bigger, is there?" and I remember thinking that I would've preferred the smaller ones.Anyway--about trying to lose weight to soon: I started Armour 23 months ago. I haven't had to make an effort to get my caloric intake down for many years, because I naturally only want about 1200 calories a day--that's when things are the very best they can be. I'll stray up occasionally to 1500-1600. Right now I'm still trying to get back up over 1000.So when I talk about trying to lose weight, well, if the word "try" is in there, it's going to mean that I'm working out a lot at the gym, which I'm not doing right now. Last fall I spent 4 months working out A LOT, including weight lifting six days/week (alternating top and bottom halves of my body), a swimming class twice a week where we really swam lots of laps, yoga three times a week, and cardio 6 days a week. I didn't lose a single pound, nor did I gain, which would've been great because it would've shown that my body is still capable of building muscle. That was the worst news of all--after four months, I had exactly the same fat percentage in my body. My diet was in the 1200-1400 calories range.Honestly, that was so discouraging that I haven't been able to muster the courage to go back. I'm still working on that.Other than that, trying to lose weight for me means trying to figure out which medications will work best for me. As far as my diet goes, I stay away from processed foods, I eat red meat, chicken, not enough fish but I try, a lot a lot a lot of spinach salad, plenty of fruit, right now cherries, blueberries, oranges, and carbs very judiciously, although I don't try to keep them way low because apparently too few carbs signals the body to convert T4 to reverse T3--the "starvation mode" phenomenon. My main principle is to not eat empty calories--for instance, I do sweeten a thing or two here and there when I'm in the mood because it's depressing to restrict oneself so much that the world becomes a place where nothing is ever sweet, but I use grade B maple syrup because it does have some vitamin and mineral content to redeem it.I've been round and round with diet and nutrition for many years, and received my education about it when I was about 13 because for one thing, I paid attention in my home ec classes, and also because my mother and sister went on Weight Watchers' back then--in the mid seventies--and the rest of the family sort of got caught up in the tide. At thirteen I knew all about fat, carb, and protein, and how many calories were in a gram of each, and I even knew which sources of amino acids were best and most complete.Then I did Weight Watchers' in my mid-twenties, which was the mid-eighties, back when the prescribed diet for the first two weeks was very low calorie. I had gained a lot of weight in a relatively short period of time, and back then I thought that what I was eating was over-eating, but in hindsight, and by exploring specific memories in therapy, I see now that the food and calorie amounts were very normal and if anything, somewhat suppressed. But the first two weeks of Weight Watchers' (actually, it was just the first week, but I did the first week diet for two weeks, which probably didn't help matters) was ultra-low calorie, the idea being to jump start your weight loss and ensure that you would actually lose something significant so that you wouldn't get discouraged. And the whole time I was on WW (for a year) I never stopped thinking about food, or dreaming about it, once I finally managed to get to sleep. I was always queasily hungry and high adrenaline. I habitually ate less than the diet prescribed in order to make sure that I would continue to lose, and in a year when I couldn't take it anymore, I gained it all back very rapidly even though I was on the maintenance diet. And I kept asking doctors if something was wrong with my thyroid and they kept saying no.So that sounds like starvation mode, and in fact, my body was probably already there before I started WW. My dorm in boarding school was obsessed with dieting. The ice diet was big--seriously. There were girls who ate nothing but ice and iceberg lettuce. The girl who spearheaded all this later spent five years in a mental hospital weighing 80lbs. It's a wonder she survived it. I tried the ice diet too but couldn't do it--for which I felt like a miserable failure--and instead ate somewhat more but way way less than a girl who was a cheerleader, track runner, soccer and field hockey player had any business eating.Anyway, I do go on. The general point I'm trying to make about my diet is that through long work in therapy, I have come to discover that there is something wrong with my body that can't be fixed by what I eat or don't eat, and the fact that the world leads us to believe that we CAN fix being overweight if we would just have enough will power to eat right, has done no small amount of psychological damage in my case. Being fat in a society that places so much importance on not being fat, going around knowing that people look at me and think that my fat is my fault, and that being fat shows an inability or a lack of desire to take care of myself, is a horrible way to have to live. In fact I have a very strong opinion about the notion that seems to be the governing principle of popular modern weight loss rules--doctors have said it to me too many times to count: weight loss is very simple, you must simply consume fewer calories than you burn.While this is basically a true statement, it's very misleading because it over-simplifies the issue by assuming that everyone burns calories at the same rate when in fact there are tremendous differences between one person and the next (which renders all the calorie burning calculators on cardio machines completely useless, since they use a standard rate to do their calculations, plus I know an athlete who eats and burns over 4000 calories a day, whose resting metabolism is the highest his doctor has ever seen), and by ignoring the fact that reducing calories by too much brings on starvation mode and can therefore create the exact opposite of the problem you were trying to solve.I'll be getting new blood work in about six weeks. I can't seem to locate right now the last blood work I got, but I do remember that FT3 was slightly above range and FT4 was above mid-range but not out of range, TSH was very low (and out of range, but Manzanero goes by symptoms rather than TSH readings), and reverse T3 was above range. At the time I was taking 3gr of Armour, so I immediately went down to 2gr to bring down my FT3. What's weird is that I never felt any hyper symptoms. I still wish I could find something to read about that, but I'm the only one I've ever heard of that happening to.I'm not sure my thyroid levels have ever been optimized, so that 18-month mark may still be 18 months away.I can't thank you enough for listening and responding. I'd be so lost without a way to get information and compare notes. Thank you many times over--Sandy