29Sep 2012 by Marjorie 3 Comments

My second alterna-doc disaster

diagnosis and testing, doctors and practitioners
When I was unable to convince my regular alterna-doc that I was hypothyroid, I made the mistake of returning to the only other major alternative medicine practice in town, a Den of Incompetence I had sworn never to visit again. Dr. Dumbass had left the practice and I convinced myself that my earlier experience was just a fluke. Desperate for help for tanking thyroid My thyroid symptoms had worsened significantly and I had made the startling discovery that my healthy diet was the culprit. It turns out that drinking raw kale juice every day for a year is a bad idea, even for healthy people. I printed out the articles I had found, including the one from a British running association's website that said one should only drink raw goitrogens…
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19Jul 2012 by Marjorie 3 Comments

If iron interferes with your thyroid function or thyroid meds, you might need zinc

interactions
After I started taking the Armour Thyroid to treat hypothyroid symptoms -- including that lovely one where your hair feels like there's an electric current going through it -- I quickly realized that the 50 mg of iron I was taking every day for my abysmally low ferritin levels was making things worse. (Armour is a prescription medication of desiccated pig thyroid, a type of preparation that has been used since the 1890s.) Even if I separated the doses by the requisite four hours or stopped taking the Armour altogether, I got more hypo-T symptoms -- low mood, cold, fatigue, and insomnia. Taking the Armour only fixed the symptoms to a certain point because of the low ferritin (which was at 6 for several years before any so-called health practitioner…
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