Showing posts with label hypothyroidism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypothyroidism. Show all posts

Friday, August 20, 2010

Another Giveaway and Miscellaneous

Wow! I opened my email today, and there it was… Berroco sent me a notice about their newest giveaway, a kit for the Northampton Kerchief. This is much prettier than it sounds like it would be.


The photo doesn't have a link in it, you have to click the link in the paragraph above.

Pretty, isn't it?

I entered immediately! You might want to do the same, since entries have to be in by the 26th. You might also want to sign up for their newsletter, because the winners will be announced there.

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More knitting content: If you design your own knitting patterns and/or would like to chart your own designs, here's some information about three knitting chart fonts! I haven't tried the fonts yet, but they sound like the best solution to charting yet. And I chart things all the time.

My previous best solution has been graph paper and pencil. Although that's probably the best while you're developing something, I really want to keep a permanent, and reprintable solution on my computer! Not to mention that you can publish it that way!

I'm seriously considering frogging almost all of the Celtic Sweater and redoing it! There are a few things that I'm just not totally happy with. I'm still thinking about it, but you may suddenly be hearing a lot more about it on my blog (with photos, I do have a new phone, after all).

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If you use antibacterial soap, you might want to reconsider.

The ingredients that provide the antibacterial effect for these kinds of product can pose a severe threat to your endocrine and reproductive systems. Please click on the link to find out more.

There are millions of people in the US with hypothyroidism who have not been diagnosed due to the misinformation spread by drug companies to doctors who hang on their every word. I see people around me all the time with hypothyroid symptoms that are so bad that I notice them just from sharing a bus ride with them. And their doctors not only don't know enough to recognize these symptoms, but are actively testing those people with inaccurate tests and telling them that they don't have a thyroid problem!

And, by the way, if you have high cholesterol you do have a hypothyroid problem! Not maybe, not possibly, you DO! And I can almost guarantee that your doctor is unaware of this connection.

If you have high cholesterol and you do happen to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism by your doctor, make sure he prescribes natural desiccated thyroid (Armor Thyroid, Naturethroid or West Throid), which he probably won't want to do. This will fix the cholesterol problem (along with a lot of other problems) whereas Synthroid or other T4 medication won't fix those problems. But the drug manufacturers have told doctors to prescribe T4 medications so that they can sell lots of other drugs for cholesterol and more. Check this link!

I'm glad to hear that it's the FDA that's being sued. Maybe they'll learn to stop rushing dangerous drugs to market so that drug manufacturers can save money on the testing and start making money on drugs that are going to kill thousands. The drug companies won't learn. They make so much money on drugs that they feel they'd rather pay out some of it to the people they harm than miss all the profits. Unfortunately, the episode of Leverage that dealt with this problem is all too accurate! It's called The Double Blind Job, and I'm sure they'll rerun it. Watch for it! TNT (I think) has been airing reruns of Leverage on late night/early morning.

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I was going to post this earlier, but we had a power outage last night, and somehow, it damaged the elevator. I was just about to start the post earlier today, and my computer went off. I panicked for a moment when it wouldn't start up again, but then thought to check the printer, which also wouldn't start, and after a bit of investigation realized that the stove didn't work, either.

I tried resetting the circuit breakers with no effect, and then they made an announcement about the problem with the elevator and said that they'd turned off the electricity in part of the building while they fixed it. It seemed confusing, because the TV and some other stuff, like the microwave and refrigerator, still worked.

Everything's back to normal now, though.

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I love my local library, and read lots of books that I borrow from them on a regular basis. There's just no way that I could afford to continue reading without them.

But I ran into a bit of a problem with them this week. There are some books that are very popular, and I ran afoul of that this week with Meg Cabot's Airhead series. There are three books in the series: Airhead, Being Nikki, and Runaway, in that order. They have plenty of copies of Airhead, and I got that with no problem, but they don't have many copies of the other two books. Unfortunately, Airhead doesn't have much of an ending, it just segues into Being Nikki, so it's kind of like getting half of a double-length book. I picked up the first book, which my local library had on the shelf a week or so ago, and read it. I had the other two books on order, but had to wait because of the demand.

I checked on what books were in, and found that Runaway was sitting and waiting for me, but that I wouldn't be able to get Being Nikki for a while! Who wants to read the first, third and second books of a series in that order? And, since there are other people waiting for the last book, I can't keep it very long.

So, I broke down and bought a real, honest-to-goodness ebook copy of Being Nikki, my first ever real ebook! I got the Nook application for Android on my phone, and it seems to be working well. I'd rather have a real Nook ebook reader, though, because I can run down the battery on my phone pretty quickly when I read.

If you're interested in the books themselves, they are considered "young adult" books by the library, but a lot of adults are reading kids books these days. As I've said before, "A good story is a good story." The premise for these books is a little hard to believe, but if you can get past that, they're the usual top-notch writing that I've come to expect from Meg Cabot.

In the first story, Em dies in a freak accident, her body crushed beyond repair at the same time that Nikki Howard dies from an aneurysm. The doctors having a ruined body with a perfectly good brain and another perfect body with a useless brain are able to combine the two and create a healthy person, who is Em in Nikki's body. Obviously, Em has trouble dealing with a past that she can't remember and another that she can remember, but which is not legally her past.

The Meg Cabot series I've liked best so far is the Mediator series, and I have to say that if you like ghost stories and liked the Twilight series, this is even better!

I'm really tickled about my first real ebook, though.

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There's a new Eureka and Haven on SyFy tonight!

If you're a Harry Potter fan, ABC Family will be having another of their Harry Potter weekends, starting with The Prisoner of Azkaban tonight, Half Blood Prince Saturday night, and finishing with The Order of the Phoenix on Sunday evening! To the best of my knowledge, it'll be the first time Order of the Phoenix will be shown on non-premium cable.

Other than that, the big news on TV is that it's nearly football season, and it's squeezing almost everything else off TV! My only consolation is that it will eventually go away.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Happy Summer Solstice!

Happy Summer Solstice!

I know that a lot of people regard Memorial Day Weekend as the beginning of Summer, but Astronomically, the beginning of Summer is the longest day of the year, which (in the Northern Hemisphere) is today!

Read more about the longest day (courtesy of NASA), and see more about the human aspects of the solstice with some great pictures of Stonehenge.



From here on in, until right before Christmas, the days will be shorter and shorter, and for a while, it will get warmer and warmer before the diminishing sunlight makes it cooler.

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Here is everything you need to know about every science fiction TV show this week (and a few more shows).

Leverage premiered last night with two episodes! And, as usual, it was spectacular!

This afternoon (late), the SyFy Channel will be airing their new, very long (4 hours) movie, The Phantom. It was on last night, but I didn't get to see it due to some other shows I watched/recorded. I was going to provide a link, but the only one I could find that seemed relevant was one that was to a page that had so much data that I wasn't able to load it, and didn't want to frustrate you with it.

Tonight, we have a rerun of The Big Bang Theory.

There's also a new show that I discovered last week, thereby missing the pilot. It's called Persons Unknown, and is about people who are abducted and find themselves trapped in a small town. They don't know where the town is or why they're there, and, most importantly, how to get out. It's shaping up to be a fabulous show. You can probably find the two episodes that preceded tonight's, either on the internet or video on demand.


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If you have hypothyroidism, there is a blog post by Jeffrey Dash that you should read, print out, and show your doctor! It turns out that all the arguments doctors have been giving me concerning why they want to use Synthroid rather than natural desiccated thyroid are completely backwards. Synthroid is the one that has varying potencies and is unstable!

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Well, I saw someone at the Vet's Center on Saturday.

The day started out very early for both Holly and I. Then we ran into a bit of traffic and took a wrong turn, and arrived only five minutes late.

It was an interesting experience.

I got to talk to a nurse practitioner rather than a doctor, and she was an interesting person to converse with. She asked some interesting questions which started me thinking in new directions. She asked about vitamin D levels, and said that 4,000 IU of vitamin D might not be enough for me. It just sounds like so much! Apparently, an IU must be a very small amount, or else people really need a lot of it! If you use sunscreen, you might want to take that into account and take some supplemental D. And you might want to rethink your sunscreen use. Look it up on the internet.

Basically, since sunscreen has become available and been in wide use, skin cancer incidence has gone way up! Researchers are beginning to find that the sun isn't as bad for you as was previously thought. We always knew it actually had health benefits in the form of boosting vitamin D levels, but most people judged that they'd rather have low D (which could be boosted with supplements) than skin cancer. Researchers have also been studying the contents of most sunscreens and discovered that some of the chemicals widely used in them are actually carcinogens!

Personally, I like a bit of sun without using sunscreens. I'll only use sunscreens if I'm out for long enough to potentially cause a burn, and only use sunscreens that have an aloe vera gel base and the sunscreen, and don't have a lot of unneeded chemicals. That way, I get a bit of a tan, a dose of D, and safety! And if I do get a little bit of burn, the aloe vera gel is the best thing for it. If applied immediately after even a bad burn, it can have your skin back to normal the next day in my experience.

One thing she asked me about is joint pain, which I had, but started using Omega 3 capsules and MSM. It's been working great until this last week, when I've had more and more joint pain in my right hip. I need to go to the store today, and the pain has gradually increased over the last week to a point where I'm almost afraid to walk to the store. I keep hearing stories about women who have a bone break and fall because of it, and I wonder about what kind of shape that bone is in. 

I had a bone density scan about three years ago, and they told me my bones weren't as good as they'd like, but that I was certainly in no danger of breaking bones just by walking. But they measured it on my left hip in spite of the fact that I kept telling them that my right hip was the one in bad shape! So, I really have no idea at all.

Wish me luck on my walk!

Have a wonderful week!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

The World Has Turned to Crud!

As some of you may know, I have an underactive thyroid, and have been talking about it lately. Partly because January was Thyroid Awareness Month, and partly because the FDA and the drug companies have been having a fight over a lot of things that seem to be headed toward harming patients with hypothyroidism, while making more money for the drug companies.

The formulation of my medicine (Armor Thyroid) was changed at the beginning of last year, and although it still has the same amount of active drug, the filler hinders absorption rather than aiding it like the previous formulation did. They also added a thin film covering each individual tablet, rendering it even more difficult to absorb (I think--the coating makes it almost impossible to crush, so I think it hinders digestion and absorption).

So, anyway, for more than a year, I've effectively been taking less of the medicine that I need, and more and more hypothyroid symptoms have appeared. Here's the list so far:

  • Often cold
  • Cold hands and feet
  • Rising Cholesterol
  • Bizarre & debilitating reaction to exercise
  • Thinning outer edges of eyebrows
  • Ridged fingernails
  • Dry hair
  • Hair loss
  • Weight gain
  • Air hunger (gasping for air)
  • Swelling/edema/puffiness
  • Internal ear itching
  • Ringing in ears
  • Joint pain
  • Tightness and soreness of throat
  • Muscle pain
  • Allergies
  • Low energy/stamina
  • Long recovery after activity
  • Brain fog
And last night, I finally slid into depression.

To be fair, I had a lot of things go wrong, both for me and for friends, but I suspect that I'd be dealing with it all in a much more constructive way without the under controlled hypothyroidism.

First of all, I recounted an experience on my blog, and a family member seems to have misunderstood what I wrote, and has become upset with me. I think I've been forgiven, but now I'm upset about it anyway. I never meant this blog to harm anyone, even if it was just to upset them.

I paid my Comcast bill on the 4th of this month. I had spoken to a supervisor there, who said that the bill was $58 (I'm rounding off) and because of my complaint, he was taking off $15. 98, for a total of about for about $42. I actually paid more than that, but that's not the problem.

Last night, I was watching TV, and the screen suddenly went black, there was a long pause, and the screen said that my DVR was NOT AUTHORIZED, and told me to call a number to get service. I did call the number, and by the time I got someone on the phone, the picture had come back on. Just another of the dozens of malfunctions this piece of junk they gave me has done. I complained (again) and insisted that they make a note of the complaint. I was told that I could make an appointment and have a repairman come out and swap my DVR for a new one. They like this because they normally charge a hefty fee to do that, although because of the agreement the apartment place has with them they can't do that with me. I explained that because the box was such a piece of crud that I had bought a TiVo and was expecting delivery any day.

But before I got a chance to speak to someone, the automated system informed me that I was overdue on my payment, and that I owe them $168 and change.

The payment to them hasn't posted to my checking account, at least not yet, but for some reason there are a lot of payments and charges to my debit card that haven't posted, and I don't know why.

Comcast has done this to me at least twice before. If you make a payment and they don't collect it or post it to your account, they can charge a late fee, and if they can keep you from noticing that they have prevented you from paying it, they can turn off your service and then charge a lot of money to restore service. It's a dishonest way of making more money for them.

I hate Comcast!

So, now I have to figure out what happened, and get that straightened out.

While I was checking my checking account, I found out that a lot of charges to my account haven't been made yet, and I really have to spend some time and balance my checkbook and double check everything. Until I do that, I won't know for sure, but it looks like I'm going to be out of money before I'm out of month.

Then I got a phone call from a friend who was telling me about someone else I know who is ill, and unable to work (mostly because of doctors). This person had a treatment that worked well for them and made it possible for them to work, but the doctors are now refusing to prescribe what works and are now prescribing "new" and "better" drugs that don't work. My guess is that they're doing this to help the drug companies even though it's severely harmed my friend, and on one occasion, nearly killed her. Because of it, my friend can no longer work and had applied for disability. They just found out that the disability has been denied because there are now "new" and "better" drugs that the people who evaluated the case are sure will solve all the problems. The "new" and "better" drugs are the cause of not being able to work.

I hate the American medical system!

The other news is that a friend owns the copyright to a creative work that he just learned someone else has published in Germany. And guess what? You can buy it through an American distributor on Amazon!

He knows this because the distributer called the copyright holder to ask if it was possible to dub the film in English so the distributer could make money selling it in the US! The film was originally in English.

There are lots of complicated legal issues, so I really can't talk about it here, but I'm really upset about it! A lot of money and effort went into this work, and the people involved should be getting money back on it's publication, and instead, they're being asked to help someone rob them of potential profits!

And I had a doctors appointment this morning for which I overslept, and woke up in time to pull on some clothes and rush to keep the appointment in time. I sat there for more than an hour before I was able to find out that the doctor was needed at the hospital for some kind of emergency, and had supposedly called all the patients with appointments this morning to cancel and reschedule. I wasn't one of the people called.

I really wanted to see her to get a written prescription for the thyroid medicine. I only have enough medicine to last until Monday, and I really need to get some more. I already am not taking enough, and it's bad. Taking none is not a good option!

CVS hasn't had it for two months, and I wanted the option to get it from another pharmacy, or to order it from Canada if all else fails.

The drug companies and the FDA have been staging a Chinese fire drill to try to get patients to take a more expensive medicine. The medicine I take has been on the market since 50 years before there was an FDA with no side effects or problems. It's much safer, having been proved in use for over 100 years than the new drugs, which I've tried and don't work. The manufacturers have taken it off the market for a while, and they're insisting it's because of the FDA, who are insisting that the drug companies go through testing as if it were a new drug! FDA says that, yes, they do want all this testing, but that the drug companies are just making all these problems and it's their fault!

The medicine they're trying to get people to switch to (Synthroid, etc) is really ineffective at doing anything other than making the blood tests come out right, but not really solving any symptoms! So they can claim they fixed the problem, but leave you still sick, and in need of other (expensive) medicines to fix all the problems that Synthroid doesn't fix, but natural desiccated thyroid does.

I hate the American medical system!

Because of the phone calls last night and checking my Comcast account and checking account online last night, I didn't get to sleep until 4 am, plus I was up and out by 10 am, so I'm really short on sleep.

I'm also really disgusted with everyone and everything, I feel bad, and don't seem to be able to do anything to straighten things out. So, you can officially add depression to the list of symptoms that the hypothyroidism is causing.

Maybe I'll try to catch up on my sleep. Now there's an "I'm depressed" statement if I ever heard one.

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There's a new Burn Notice on USA tonight! I'll be lucky if I can see it on my malfunctioning DVR.

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For all you knitters out there, The Yarn Harlot has put up a post with a link to a sign-up sheet for the Knitting Olympics. Check it out!

I hope you're having a better week than I am! Don't worry if you don't hear from me in a while.