T3 Triiodothyronine Drugs Improve Quality of Life for Hypothyroidism

The Bigger Picture for Thyroid Patients

This is actually quite groundbreaking research, confirming in the research environment what many patients, myself included, and some doctors, have been claiming for a number of years: levothyroxine-only thyroid hormone replacement does not leave a substantial percentage of hypothyroid patients feeling well, and these patients feel and function better when T3 is added to their thyroid hormone replacement.

Interestingly, this offers an explanation for why patients have felt well all along on alternative thyroid drugs like the natural Armour Thyroid, Westhroid and Naturethroid, which contain T4 and T3 naturally, and the synthetic T4/T3 drug Thyrolar, which is the drug that I take. In some cases, patients also added Cytomel (synthetic T3) or time-release T3 to standard levothyroxine therapy and also have better results.

For years, patients have been told that all they need is levothyroxine treatment to get them into "normal TSH range," and thyroid treatment is considered complete. Time and time again, people who still suffered with symptoms -- including fatigue, depression, cognitive problems, and more -- were told that once their thyroid range was normal, these problems were no longer related to the thyroid, and instead were now depression, stress, PMS, or simply "in your head." Patients who had done well for years on Armour, then switched to Synthroid, for example, and complained of not feeling well were told they were "getting old."

Consider this recent pronouncement in The Bridge, the quarterly newsletter from the Thyroid Foundation of America, the organization that is supposed to be on the cutting edge of patient issues and advocacy:



"TSH tests are very precise, and if your TSH is normal, then thyroid dysfunction is not the cause of these symptoms."
Douglas Ross, Medical Advisor to the Thyroid Foundation of America

It's absolutely unconscionable that patients have been ignored, denigrated, overlooked, and undertreated for as long as they have been by the conventional medical establishment, thyroid organizations and medical groups.

Meanwhile, doctors who prescribed natural thyroid drugs like Armour -- or even its synthetic counterpart Thyrolar -- were written off as quacks, or irresponsible, or in some cases, even brought up on charges by the levothyroxine-only zealots in their local medical boards.

Let's hope that this information causes the patient and medical organizations, as well as the doctor, to start listening more to patients -- and not to the pharmaceutical companies. Clearly, it's been the marketing position of companies like Knoll Pharmaceutical, manufactuer of Synthroid, that levothyroxine alone is all anyone needs. Following right behind and parroting every word have been the hordes of endocrinologists who gladly benefit from Knoll and its competitors' handouts of grant money, project funding, conference fees, and freebies galore, and are reluctant to rock the levothyroxine money boat.

Leading the parade were fellows like Richard Guttler, who calls himself a "thyroidologist" and charges patients a hefty $150 or more -- "required in advance" -- for his "Second Opinion" service on the Internet. Last year, he kept angrily dismissing patients who complained of unresolved symptoms and a desire to try these alternative drugs that are now found to work better. Last year, a website reader wrote to him to let him know that the absence of Synthroid after only three to four days relieved her of a persistent choking cough that she had been enduring for the past twenty (or more) years. She told him that she'd changed to Armour. He wrote back to her: "get a life! synthroid is not the cause of your problems." Last year, Guttler also graced me with his unique brand of "bedside manner" (lack of proper capitalization and punctuation is his):

"i'm glad all the "fringes" are filling up your e mail, not mine. it makes my life easier dealing with only the mainstream thyroid patients who would never think of taking armour or combo thyrolar or cytomel.what are you going to do when they finally take thyrolar off the market? next it will be natural designer organic bathtub thyroid personally brewed at your web site...dr.g"

Guess all the patients running fast as they can away from dinosaurs like "dr. g" will be running toward the increasing number of "fringes" -- the astute, talented doctors who have listened to patients, thought for themselves, forged ahead despite peer pressure and pharmaceutical company marketing clout, all along practicing based on their knowledge that T3 drugs work better for many of us. And those same doctors for so long condemned to the "fringes" are now proven right by one of the very bastions of conventional medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine