Hypothyroid and sleep Apnea

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis syndrome a few years ago, and the doc started to talkt o me about starting with meds. Instead, I went to a highly trained acupuncturist, took Chinese herbs, and now I'm back well within the normal range -- 3.3

Then, about 2 years ago I had elevated blood sugar and the doc started to talk to me about meds. My A1C was at 6.7 -- too high. Changed my diet, started a more consistent exercise program, and went back to acupuncture. I was last tested a month ago, and it's down to 5.9

And now I've been dealing with sleep apnea for about 6 months, and I've been on cpap for the past 3 months.
While I'm not the model of perfection of cpap results -- AHI hovers between 3.5-4.4 -- I'm so much better than before... it's astonishing.

Best of all: I've got so much more energy. And memory is so much better than before. Simply put, it's astonishing.

Conclusion: Western medicine is incomparable for many problems. But with many conditions -- especially hormonally related ones such as thyroiditis -- Western treatment options are limited. If you live in an area where you have access to talented acupuncturists, it's an excellent approach for many ailments.

araminta wrote:I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis syndrome a few years ago, and the doc started to talkt o me about starting with meds. Instead, I went to a highly trained acupuncturist, took Chinese herbs, and now I'm back well within the normal range -- 3.3

While I am glad you are feeling better, and I myself have had good results from acupuncture, I would be terribly deficient in thyroid with a TSH of 3.3. My TSH stays at below .5 to keep my thyroid hormone levels high enough to be effective. In fact, 3.3 is the very top of what is considered the normal range now. Most doctors who treat thyroid properly look for a TSH of under 1.

If someone has Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, and it has progressed to thyroid destruction, then acupuncture and herbs cannot heal it. If it is caught early enough, then they may be of help.

I ain't no expert. But I understand that "normal" is relative. And that various test cites use different standards for "normal". In any event, I just grabbed my test results from the file, and it states:
TSH standard range: .01 - 5.50 uIU/ml

So I'd say 3.3 is rather normal.
Prior to that is was 7.2

Ariminta wrote:
I ain't no expert. But I understand that "normal" is relative. And that various test cites use different standards for "normal". In any event, I just grabbed my test results from the file, and it states:
TSH standard range: .01 - 5.50 uIU/ml . . . So I'd say 3.3 is rather normal.

The normals for TSH recently changed. Many physicians don't know about the "new" normals. This is a quote from Mary Shomon's website regarding this issue:

Until recently, the standard was that the normal range for TSH at most laboratories has fallen in the 0.5 to 5.0 range, with hyperthyroidism being below .5, and hypothyroidism above 5.0.

The new guidelines, however, the range for acceptable thyroid function, and thyroid treatment should be considered for patients who test between the target TSH levels of 0.3 to 3.0, a far narrower range.

http://thyroid.about.com/cs/testsforthy ... bs2003.htm

Like Riverdreamer, my physician & I like to keep my TSH below 1. I feel best when my TSH is between 0.3 and 1 AND when my "Free T3" is in normal range.

Joy

araminta wrote:I ain't no expert. But I understand that "normal" is relative. And that various test cites use different standards for "normal". In any event, I just grabbed my test results from the file, and it states:
TSH standard range: .01 - 5.50 uIU/ml

So I'd say 3.3 is rather normal.
Prior to that is was 7.2

I'm not an expert, either. If you are feeling well, that is fine. I just said that I don't feel well in that range, and I have heard others say the same. And, as Joy mentions, the new range for normal is now lower, though not all labs report that range. Since so many people get inadequate treatment for thyroid issues, I wanted to be sure people knew that. You are right, normal for thyroid is very relative, and people need to find the treatment that works best for them.

It is kind of interesting to me that some people who are into natural treatments resist thyroid treatment. I used only natural treatments for my health for many years, and still prefer them whenever possible. Especially if you use dessicated thyroid hormone, it is one of the least invasive and aggressive treatments around. The potential risks with treatment are extremely low, and the worst one seems to be that you will not be treated sufficiently. Its even pretty cheap! I just picked up three months of Armour thyroid for $17.50!

Hey Riv,

I'm glad you posted the question about why someone would be resistant to the notion of using meds that are seemingling innoculous, to fix a simple problem like Hashimoto thyroiditis. You offer us the opportunity to talk about a bigger question than what's deemed a "normal" range for the thyroid.

For me, it's folks like Dr. Andrew Weil who offer a reasonable understanding of the usefulness of both the Western medical model & alternative approaches to health care. When I have a broken bone, I want the medical doctor to help fix it. But for issues related to the hormonal system, I prefer to look at the situation from a different vantage point. My goal is to keep the system in tack as much as possible, with the least amount of "interference".

I'm curious about why my thyroid is starting to malfunction. And I'm curious about it in relationship to the other ailments I'm addressing -- type 2 diabetes & sleep apnea. Yes, the thyroid is the simplest problem to correct -- take a cheap pill and use it to regulated an aspect of the hormonal system. But I'd rather think about the entirety of the issues as a unit. Just because the docs are capable of shutting off the thyroid and replacing its function with an easy med, doesn't mean that it's a good thing to do. What if there's an easy way -- with early intervention -- to maintain use of the thyroid? Why not try to maintain the integrity of a system that the west isn't fully cognizant of?

But mostly, I think that a person should do whatever suits their needs. We've all learned about the amazing power of the placebo effect -- its impact felt in a minimum of 30% of patients given the sugar pill instead of the real deal...

marlina wrote:How long does it take for Armour thyroid to work?
I've been taking armour thyroid for 3 months. I started at 30mg, then 60, and now 90mg and have had no change. I have had severe, constant fatigue, joint pain, and heart palpitations for the past 10 months. None of the doctors I've been to know whats going on. All the test I've done have come back inconclusive. The only reason I'm take Armour is because my sister (and deceased grandmother) has hypothyroidism. Does anybody have a clue or a suggestion or something. I'm running out of hope.

I'm going to go against the flow, here. Are you aware that it takes between 6 and 8 weeks for the T4 in the Armour to reach a stable level in your blood after you start taking it. From what you said, you're changing doses on an average of every 4 weeks. I'm on armour, too, and I won't changes (no way, no how) unless at least 12 weeks have past since my last change. But that's my body.

How do you know nothing has changed? Have you had any blood tests that show this? Most docs use only the TSH, but we really need to know the REAL thyroid levels - the levels of they thyroid hormone in our blood. The TSH is a hormone from the pituitary. Mine is something on the order of 0.01, which would give most docs heart failure. However, my T3 level is tucked right up under the top of the reference range and my T4 is right about 75% of the reference range. And that is fine for me. But you need the tests to know those numbers for yourself. Just remember, there's no "one size fits all" in treating thyroid disease - we're all individuals. Personally, I like the general thyroid forum at about.com - it's one of a "family" of fora there.

Read through the thread called "Talked with my doctor" (or something like it) by BleepingBeauty. Several of the posts there are concerning thyroid.

Good luck!!

most lagitimate dr.'s will tell you to stay away from Armour thyroid.
The reason has nothing to do with drug companies as mary shannot tries to say. the reason is because MOST healthy people develop adrinal problems and have to go on to steriods and other harmful drugs to try to tolarate it. I say most, not all. you are NOT SWINE and a swines thyroid needs and yours are vastly different. Alternative dr. that love to charge cash only (usally 500 an hr) LOVE to perscribe Armour to hook you knowing your insurance Dr. or primary Dr.would NEVER give you something your heart can't tolarate . my wife worked for a well known alternative MD and said almost all the Armour patients ended up with heart or adrenal problems and he still kept them on the drug because why else would they pay out of pocket. the patents never cought on, just moved on once they got so sick they needed to see a real endo.

araminta wrote:Hey Riv,

I'm glad you posted the question about why someone would be resistant to the notion of using meds that are seemingling innoculous, to fix a simple problem like Hashimoto thyroiditis. You offer us the opportunity to talk about a bigger question than what's deemed a "normal" range for the thyroid.

I have always been interested in the bigger picture as regards health issues. Yes, there are many factors involved in why the thyroid might have trouble, and what a normal range might be. I seems it takes a great deal of education for the patient to be able to decide how they are responding to any particular treatment. Some do well with more intervention, some do well with less.

In speaking with a doctor about a paper I was helping to write following a study in our doctor's office, he made a telling point about lab ranges. We were testing a group of CFIDS patients for a wide variety of issues, including some immune markers this doctor is looking into. In our paper, we said that 36% of the patients had low numbers in a certain hormone test. This doctor was shocked, as he had found much higher numbers were deficient in this hormone. (No, it isn't thyroid. ) Then he proceeded to tell us how in the beginning of testing this hormone, the normal range was considered to be 35-81. This is a fairly uncommon hormone to test, and most of the doctors who are doing so are testing very sick people in which they expect to find deficiencies. Well, the lab decided that since so many results were coming back extremely low, they would lower the normal range from 35-81, and change it to 0-35!

This is an extremely important hormone, that controls almost every other hormone in the body. It has impacts in every body system. And they just decided it was OK for some people to have zero, when their initial testing with normal controls showed the range to be 35-81. The doctor was right, with the older range, 100% of our ill patients showed low levels, some extremely low, as in nada, zilch, zip! But just by magically changing the reported range, the lab made those numbers "normal".

The issue of thyroid normal ranges is a little different. TSH means thyroid stimulating hormone. It is a hormone produced when your body does not have enough thyroid hormone circulating, and it pushes the thyroid to work a little harder. Many people feel best when their thyroid is not having to be pushed too hard, and the TSH is very low. Other people do fine with a higher TSH. I think you have to go by how you feel. Sometimes it helps to look at lists of possible thyroid symptoms, to see if things you thought were not connected might actually be due to thyroid deficiency.

It also helps to look at your thyroid hormone levels, because in the end, that is what is doing the work. Now, araminta, I am not necessarily directing any of this at you, except maybe in the sense that you wanted the chance to talk about these issues. I'm just mentioning some of what I understand. All hormone systems are very complex, and I think you have to adjust things carefully, and then sit back and see how it does. I believe this, no matter whether you use supplemental hormones, herbs, diet, exercise, or acupuncture.

araminta wrote:For me, it's folks like Dr. Andrew Weil who offer a reasonable understanding of the usefulness of both the Western medical model & alternative approaches to health care. When I have a broken bone, I want the medical doctor to help fix it. But for issues related to the hormonal system, I prefer to look at the situation from a different vantage point. My goal is to keep the system in tack as much as possible, with the least amount of "interference".

As I said, I have used lots of alternative protocols in my life, and still do, when they are possible, and have a good chance of helping. I also had to learn, though, that I had a prejudice against conventional medicine that didn't hold up to inspection. Yes, you want to use conventional medicine when you break a bone. But sometimes you want to use it when something is critical, like in pneumonia, and you need things to work quickly. But I also think we are dealing with deeper issues here. Our water is full of chemicals. Our air is full of chemicals. Our soil no longer has the nutrients needed to provide everything we need through our food. Sometimes "natural" isn't so natural, and we are having to deal with illnesses in quantities and types that were not seen before, or not seen in people at the younger ages they are being found. BTW, did you know many soils are deficient in selenium, therefore many foods are deficient in selenium, and selenium deficiencies are associated with thyroid problems?

Plus, herbs are just as much of a chemical as a drug is. Some of the Chinese herbs given out by acupuncturists have been found to contain cadmium, lead, and mercury, some on purpose, and some due to lack of control in manufacturing. Others have drugs added in on top of the herbs "for faster action", but because of the different laws, they are not required to list them as ingredients. But regardless of whether they have additives, they are still chemicals, being used to alter your body's function. And most of them have side effects, just like drugs do.

I'm not against these as options, I just think it is important to understand that herbs, vitamins, and other "natural" treatments can be just as strong, in throwing our body out of balance, as they can be in helping it. That is the context in which I mentioned that I did not understand why some people were so opposed to Armour. It seems to me it fits right in there with the other "natural" treatments, and has as much potential for good or harm as they do.

araminta wrote:I'm curious about why my thyroid is starting to malfunction. And I'm curious about it in relationship to the other ailments I'm addressing -- type 2 diabetes & sleep apnea. Yes, the thyroid is the simplest problem to correct -- take a cheap pill and use it to regulated an aspect of the hormonal system. But I'd rather think about the entirety of the issues as a unit. Just because the docs are capable of shutting off the thyroid and replacing its function with an easy med, doesn't mean that it's a good thing to do. What if there's an easy way -- with early intervention -- to maintain use of the thyroid? Why not try to maintain the integrity of a system that the west isn't fully cognizant of?

I agree. It is important to understand why something is happening, IF you have the time, medically, to do so. It depends how critical the illness is, and how much time it might take to correct it, which treatment option you might choose. Sometimes it is hard to know, though, what is the initiating factor. Sometimes all you can do is start to unravel the pieces, one by one. I have actually heard of people who are able to go off thyroid medication, once the cause was found and corrected. Part of the reason I decided to start hormone treatment for my Hashiomoto's thyroid, was because there is some decent evidence that keeping the TSH low enough prevents further destruction of the thyroid gland, which means it could be there to start working again.

That was my choice, but I was pretty sick at the time. It made a huge difference in my ability to keep going with other treatments that addressed more of the core of why I was so sick. I used to have extremely low blood sugar issues, and I have been lucky it has not advanced to diabetic levels. I've wondered if that might be because I take thyroid. Three other people in my immediate family DO have diabetes, and none take thyroid hormones, even though some have symptoms. So it makes me wonder.

araminta wrote:But mostly, I think that a person should do whatever suits their needs.

Yep! I totally agree with this. Not so much on the placebo effect. Sorry, that tends to not hold up so well over time.

neverbetter wrote:most lagitimate dr.'s will tell you to stay away from Armour thyroid.
The reason has nothing to do with drug companies as mary shannot tries to say. the reason is because MOST healthy people develop adrinal problems and have to go on to steriods and other harmful drugs to try to tolarate it. I say most, not all. you are NOT SWINE and a swines thyroid needs and yours are vastly different.

Lots of legitimate doctors use Armour thyroid with no problems for their patients. I have been taking it for four years, myself, and my adrenals have not fallen apart.

However, they do need to check whether the adrenals are functioning well BEFORE they put someone on any type of thyroid medication. If the adrenals are weak, any type of push with thyroid hormone can cause problems.

Also, it is true that Armour and other dessicated thyroids have a higher proportion of the active T3 than is normal for humans. It is always important to check free hormone levels of both T3 and T4, to make sure that the levels are balanced, and also to watch for symptoms of over or under treatment. Some people do best in the middle of the range for Free T3 and Free T4, others do better higher in the range. People are variable. Having the Free T3 levels too high can cause stress on the heart, as well as the adrenals. If the level of Free T3 goes too high with a dessicated thyroid hormone, it is possible to balance it with a straight T4 drug.

Before I started on Armour, I was having lots of trouble with accelerated heart rate, anxiety, and insomnia. Those are all considered signs of too much thyroid hormone, but not for everyone. My heart seems to need the particular way Armour provides T3, because treatment with levoxyl (T4) alone, and treatment with levoxyl with Cytomel (T3) did not bring my T3 levels up, and it did not help my heart or my anxiety. Once my doctor convinced me to try Armour with the Levoxyl, my heart calmed down, I stopped having palpitations, and the anxiety disappeared. So, once again, things are individual. Other people do better with other thyroid drugs, and with other proportions. Whatever works!

neverbetter wrote:Alternative dr. that love to charge cash only (usally 500 an hr) LOVE to perscribe Armour to hook you knowing your insurance Dr. or primary Dr.would NEVER give you something your heart can't tolarate . my wife worked for a well known alternative MD and said almost all the Armour patients ended up with heart or adrenal problems and he still kept them on the drug because why else would they pay out of pocket. the patents never cought on, just moved on once they got so sick they needed to see a real endo.

I'm sure it is possible some doctors are treating improperly. I have heard theories that people should be taking extremely high levels of T3, which for most people probably are not needed. But I don't think the majority of doctors, alternative or not, are doing this. If the patients educate themselves, and insist on the labs several, including JoyD and Howkim have suggested, then that isn't going to happen.

Plus, PLEASE, your insurance or your primary would never give you anything damaging? This is not against all insurance and all PCPs, but we have heard far too many stories to buy that one.

Yo Riv,

You're amazing. Thanks for the thorough, informed, heartfelt and challenging response to my comments.
It's clear that your are not only a clear-minded thinker, but also a very strong writer.

You've offered much food for thought. I'm gonna have to sit with your comments and let them percolate...
And perhaps have a discussion both with my doc and acupuncturist.

I am grateful for the time you took in writing such a detailed response. And look forward to a continued discussion about this and probably other stuff as well.