Daily Loaf

Be aware: There seems to be an effort afoot to eliminate the most effective form of thyroid replacement, Armour Thyroid. It has become increasingly difficult to get in any dosage strength, and many patients are having to switch to more expensive alternatives.

When I started my practice, Wellness Works, back in 1994, I had a string of patients who all reinforced the same idea. They were all older ladies who came in on the synthetic alternative form of thyroid replacement, Synthroid. This drug is a form of T4, a “prohormone” that must be converted by the body to the active form, T3. Many people have a hard time making this conversion, due to genetic abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies or missing enzymes in their system. All these ladies were asking (almost begging) me to put them back on Armour thyroid, which is made from dessicated pig thyroids and contains both T4 and T3 as well as other components of the whole gland. They simply stated they felt better when they were on Armour. Since their new (young) doctor had switched them, they had less energy, their hair fell out more, they couldn’t sleep at night and they had gained weight.
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A different view of stress….

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.

“It is only in passing through the furnace, that iron becomes steel.”

The New Way of Thinking that will get us to the New World requires that we revisit and reframe our understanding of everything that touches our lives. In my last post I gave the old/new way of looking at stress, as a biochemical event that is modifiable by one’s own actions. Now I’d like to propose the radical idea that stress might actually be good for us in an epigenetic sort of way. Read the rest of this entry »

So now that the “novel H1N1 swine flu” has been proven to be a dud, what shall we be afraid of now. Actually, fear is a downer, a harmful, immune suppressant emotion that is “the only thing we have to fear”.

When fear strikes, the adrenal glands go into overdrive, pouring out stress hormones: cortisol, adrenalin, noradrenaline. The adrenals are two little pyramid shaped caps, one on each kidney. They are responsible for salt balance in the body, and represent the body’s alarm system. When cortisol is released in higher than normal quantities, blood sugar rises, insulin levels go up, the brain becomes focused, immune function reduces and digestion comes to a screeching halt. Since our stresses usually don’t go away, the adrenals are chronically on alert, leading to diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, insomnia and anxiety states (even panic attacks). Read the rest of this entry »