I've been struggling with Hashi's for two years - about the same length of time I've been stalled on my weight loss journey! And fighting an Endo who believes that what I need to be on is T4-only and STATINS. NOT!!!!! So finally have found another provider, so just thought I'd give an update to all here who are interested in thyroid issues. Most of this is already in my journal, but I'm excited enough I wanted to spread the word.
Thyroid update .... Hmmm, Well yesterday I finally had my appointment with
Elaine Hardy and so far she is everything I had hoped she would be. We spoke for an hour, going over my entire history. It was amazing and refreshing to speak to a medical professional who is *totally on the same wavelength* with me on every single issue. She completely supports my low carb eating style and called herself the "Low Carb Queen".
But the exciting news was that, as I had hoped, she wants me to go on natural dessicated thyroid. She absolutely feels it is far-and-away the best thyroid treatment for *everyone* with hypothyroid issues. She says that in some 15 years of practice she has put hundreds of patients on natural thyroid, and in that entire time she has had only *one* person say that he felt worse on the natural and wanted to go back to his Synthroid - and she wanted to work with him to try other avenues, but he insisted, so he let him go back, but everyone else has been far happier on the natural.
She said she tries to treat by the symptoms and not by the numbers, and does not rely on the dreaded TSH to determine dose, and that many of her patients feel their best when their TSH is below 1, or even below .5, or even below what is considered "normal" range - and she is fine with that as long as the patient is doing well. But if she looks at anything it is the FT3 number, and she likes to see that in the high end of the normal range.
She gave me a prescription for Armour, and says most of her patients do well on it - but if we find it doesn't seem to be making a difference we can switch or Naturethroid or Westhroid, and she even has some patients who get Erfa from Canada. So we'll see. She pulled up an online chart that was supposed to show the proper dosage when switching from synthetic T4 to natural. I was on 100 mcg of Levoxyl and the chart showed this as equivalent to 60mg (1 grain) of natural - but she thought this might be too low to start with, so gave me a prescription for 75mg (1 1/4 grains) to start with and work our way up from there. And she said that if the 75mg seems to much initially (heart palpitations or whatever) I could just eliminate the 15mg pill and take only the 60mg (had to get two different pills to get the 75 mg dose) - or take them at different times of the day.
She's also ordered blood tests with comprehensive thyroid panels, FT3, FT4, ferritin levels - and also wants to test my D3, B12...a few other things. She mentioned the information I had just come across recently, that long-term metformin usage can deplete B12 levels, so she wants to check that for possible supplementation also.
I really liked her tremendously, and of course now that I've found her I'm about to move to Florida. But she said she can certainly continue to work with me as a patient even from down there. She needs to see my physically at least once a year (and I'll happily come back up to NJ for that) but other than that she can treat me via phone and/or email. So I hope this will work.
She also said how much she enjoyed having a patient like *me* and that she loves patients who do research and try to understand the issues (how UNLIKE most doctors I've come across), and how frustrating it is to deal with patients who are basically clueless, and have come to her because of a general malaise of "I don't feel quite right" and are on Synthroid et al, but have never ever heard of Armour or natural thyroid. She says she feels obligated to tell them about it and try to get them to give it a try - since they have come to her to try to feel better - but she gets a lot of "but my doctor says" foot-dragging from them. She is completely in favor of a gluten-free diet for most people and said this is another issue that she struggles with with many of her patients.
....Anyway, two days on Armour now, must be too early to notice anything one way or the other - and indeed I don't notice anything one way or the other. But keeping my fingers crossed.
My thyroid update
I was scheduled for bloodwork after two weeks on the 75mg Armour. The tests included a lipid panel and testing of various minerals and vitamins. Here are results of the test: 
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