Frequently Asked Questions
Thyroid
Q.) Why do you think that more horses need thyroid supplementation now than before?
A.) In the last several years, our world-wide environment has become unbelievably contaminated. For instance the huge world catastrophy of June 1998, when India and Pakistan set off 11 nuclear test weapons, contaminating the world with 11 MILLION times the radioactive iodine contamination of Chernoble. (For this, the United Nations put both nations under a world trade embargo).
The real kicker - El Nino was in effect at that time and was bringing southern air north - to the U.S.! Radioactive iodine is what is given in the hospital to people with HYPERthyroid problems, and only one dose kills the thyroid forever, making them become HYPOthyroid and at risk for thyroid cancers. Nitrate pollution affects most of the U.S. with exception only of the Rockies, and interferes with thyroid production in the body. With the world population, and especially that in the highly polluted, industrialized US, already subclinical and clinical (lesser and more severe) degrees of symptoms for hypothyroid problems, I sadly predicted then, that we would sink into a population of hypothyroids.
As of several months ago, the entire veterinary community was cut off, and still is, from the natural dessicated thyroid, for the secont time in two years, which I recommend over the synthetic, because it was endangering the human supplies. Thyroid is now the second largest prescription in the world and climbing! When I first began working with Environmental Illness, very few horses or humans needed thyroid supplementation. Now, a greater number do, and that percentage is increasing. Thyroid supplementation can make the difference between a successful and a non successful program in restoring health.
Q.) My Vet only uses the T4 test to evaluate horses and says that T3 is irrelevant, and has never found to be deficient. Please comment.
A.) I believe that the horse industry is waaay behind in thyroid research, mainly due to the fact that expensive blood tests for auto antibodies in autoimmune disease are not available for horses. Human med has the benefit of third party payment, insurance, so more research is always directed in that direction. Thyroid functions the same in all living things, even plants! Yes, there is thyroid in plants too. It regulates the functions of life in all living things. Many professionals do not even know this, but it is true. T3 is the active form in all living things. It is indeed relevant!
This is why the work that I have been doing on thyroid for 20 yrs and the applications of it are so effective where no other protocols have been...because the info I have gained CAN and IS being applied to other species of living things, and totally successful. But the vet who says that the test is irrelevant doesn't know how right she is! The testing can't distinguish between improper molecule and correct one. But the body certainly can. I believe that modern medicine has become overly dependent upon lab tests, to the degree that many clinical symptoms are ignored, in favor of "paper health". this is the major reason that there is such a mad rush toward alternative modes because the "cracks" of orthodox medicine have now opened into chasms! In the "old" days, the doctor listened to the symptoms presented by the patient, because these lab tests weren't available. Medicine worked better then, as there weren't so many disgruntled people who did not feel that they had not been helped, and only a fraction of the lawsuits too.
Years ago, Rod Serling of Twilight Zone and Night Gallery fame, saw the writing on the wall to come, as he often did, and wrote an episode for Night Gallery that is now in audio tape called "The Little Black Bag". This is a story about an alcoholic doctor in the 1940's that finds a black doctor bag from the 21st century in an alley, having been lost in a time warp. With it, he can do wondrous things, and doesn't even have to think. I won't tell you the rest as it would ruin it for you, especially the end, where the medical schools of the 21st century are severely criticized. There are so many factors that can compromise both the pathways and the molecular structure of thyroid that current testing cannot decipher, and "paper health" is the "norm" today, but true health is not.
Q.) My Vet agreed to try the thyroid at the standard dose for one week, then take him off. Will this be enough time to see anything positive?
A.) There is a misunderstanding on the use of thyroid here. Our program is to begin the dose at one sixth the "normal" standard dose used in orthodox medicine which is 2 1/2 grains. However, you DON'T take him off after the first week, you INCREASE the second 10 DAYS TO 2 WEEKS and the following 2 weeks each by just another 2 1/2 grains just until the symptoms BEGIN to resolve. Only if the horse does not respond dramatically in the first 2 to 3 weeks, to the standard Vita Royal program is the thyroid added, or if progress has leveled off.
A "standard" orthodox dose is 15 grains, however most horses on our program never end up needing that much. When the horse begins to resolve the symptoms, you stop the increases and hold at that dose.That will be your maintenance dose.
Sometimes you don't see anything at all the first week or two, because the dose is so low. We just want to supplement what the horse cannot make himself, not do the whole job for him, such as happens with the larger dose. This method of use has shown us no ill effects that can be seen with starting at the traditional larger doses, but it does NOT stimulate the thyroid, per se. It provides that which the thyroid is not able to.
If the horse has an autoimmune disease of the thyroid and is making autoantibodies against his own thyroid, he will show a low to normal thyroid level in the blood but exhibit clinical symptoms of hypothyroidism, and the temperatures tend to fluctuate all over the board, OR be continually on the high normal side, (the worst cases to deal with). Using this slow method of increase will serve to "vaccinate" in a way, to help the body become tolerant to its own hormone without attacking it. This is similar to giving allergy shots in increasing dosage to increase tolerance to the allergen. The "clinical symptoms" of hypothyroidism have been increased greatly in the last few years from the small number they were traditionally. Please refer to the latest list on my website, as it is too long to put here. I hope this clarifies your understanding. I know it's a bit heavy, but it needs to be understood to be done correctly and to get best results.
In about 30 to 40% of EI/EPM cases, the addition of the thyroid makes the difference between a so-so rehabilitation and a truly spectacular one! In low thyroid cases, the Vita Royal supplements cannot be well absorbed as they need to be. They can't work if they can't get in there!
Q.) I am worried about using the thyroid if my horse doesn't need it. His blood tests cam back normal, but he does have symptoms that are associated with hypothyroidism and he has stopped his progress with the Vita Royal Environmental Illness/EPM program. His is at a plateau now, just holding, will he have to be on thyroid for life? Also, will it cause him to stop making his own and create a deendancy.
A.) Thyroid supplementation in the Vita Royal Program is exactly that - a supplementation of the amounts that the body SHOULD be producing to maintain true health and is not. This is why there are symptoms. The body doesn't lie. The "normals" in conventional blood tests now conform to population statistics rather than clinical symptoms any more. Some 65% of the "normals" in human populations also show clinical hypothyroid symptoms too! And, the "normals" that we do have give variations of up to 500%, to include many who are truly symptomatically hypothyroid. This is only one reason that I don't trust the blood tests any more. I would rather ask the body!
The other reason is that environmental chemicals in the body can cause reactions that will skew the blood tests to APPEAR more normal, falsely elevating the "normals" that are already out of whack!
Sometimes, in the most severe autoimmune cases, the body will produce only improper molecules that will show as "normal" in blood tests, but not work properly in the body, causing symptoms. Supplementing until the symptoms BEGIN to subside and holding there at that dose, will usually end in a dose much lower than the traditional doses even begun by orthodox medicine. We begin the supplementation at only 1/6 the traditional dose, so as not to trip a potential autoimmune response, and very slowly increase from there. This way, the program acts like an allergy desensitization program, where progressively increasing doses are given of an intolerable substance, which increases tolerance for it.
This kind of supplementation does not create any more dependancy than a person who can't see well and needs glasses. With glasses, he funtions well in life, but take the glasses off, and he simply reverts to the old level of functioning. Thyroid is like that, IF done properly. It is to be respected. Too much too soon and you can cause severe reactions and even death. This is why orthodox medicine is running so scared, as it was not used properly in years past, when much about potential autoimmune responses was not known. Many bad reactions happened with larger dose use at the beginning. Autoimmune thyroiditis was only discovered in 1952, really not so long ago! This is a long, slow program, but one surely worth the patience!
Q.) Why doesn't the synthetic thyroid work as well as it used to?
A.) The reason that the synthetic worked better in the past than it does now has to do with the levels and types of environmental chemicals to which the body is exposed, be they human or horse. Some chemicals target one or several to many of the multitude of steps involved the the biochemical pathways in the body involved in the production of thyroid hormones, as well as the receptive abilities of the receptor sites at the peripheral level in the tissues. One of the most common interferences shown by the chemicals is in the body's enzymatic ability to de iodinate T4 the storage for, to T3 the active form. So this is why the traditional T4 screening doesn't pick up the connections to clinical symptoms very well. Many of my human patients had been on synthetic T4, been blood screened by their physicians and told that even though they still manifested clinical symptoms, that they were not hypo thyroid, as diagnosed by their blood tests. I call this "paper healthy". They then ask, "Well, doc, why do I still feel so crappy?" The typical response from the doc is that it is " all in your head", possibly a Prozac® deficiency?
If the body is able to enzymatically deiodinate synthetic and degraded T4 to T3, it doesn't plug into or activate the receptor site
well, as it has a different rotation, being the mirror image of the correct molecule. Technically it is called a "stereoisomer" meaning a
different arrangement in space, like a left and right hand. In no way can you overlay one upon the other. They are mirror images too. So, in conventional testing that only measures for "hands" so to speak, every one will be counted, but not every one is equally effective.
Q.) Are the symptoms you list for thyroid in the human health section similar for animals?
A.) The symptoms of endocrine dysfunction are pretty much the same for all warmblooded species and for most living things as well, and can even be converted for plants! Yes, plants produce thyroid! Some adaptations may be necessary, however, the basics for mamalian physiology are the same. This is why they test all new drugs on warm bloodod animals first.The data is then extrapolated for humans.
The program for Environmental Illness and EPM is adapted from the one developed for humans suffering environmental illnesses, autoimmune diseases and endocrine dysfunction, and was a finalist for the Christopher Columbus Award for the best discovery for the benefit of humanity in 1998. They especially liked the horse EPM data because there is no placebo effect here. It was done on camera with taped case histories. Humans have so much in common with animals that one scientist is rewriting the tree of life to catagorize families of organisms by their common genetics. Humans are very close to cows! During wars, cow blood was substituted for human with little or no problems!
Also See:
Environmental Health Conditions Involving the Thyroid as they relate to tripod stance / environmental cow hocks, autoimmune diseases, and difficult to train horses.
Understanding Your Thyroid and How It's Affected by Environmental Illness Sydrome To simplify a very complicated endocrine pathway for your understanding, we can say that the thyroid, with help from the adrenal glands, regulates the speed of biochemical reactions at the cell level, in every cell of the body.
More on Thyroid Testing:
Understanding TSH - The Latest "Gold Standard" and It's Failures.
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