A Picture of Healthy Metabolism

Why am I concerned about raising my metabolic rate? Honestly, because I long to be able to do this (see above picture) and not get hurt, nor feel fatigued and enjoy it too. Doesn't that look like fun!  In addition, the purpose of this blog is to discover how to remedy my digestive issues, get rid of my gall stone without surgery and that has led me to understanding more of how a low metabolism could be effecting these two heath issues and all the side issues that go along with them. I am reading a lot of Matt Stone's books because he found metabolism to be key to many of life's ills and I am curious why that is and how to deal with it. Matt says in His book Diet Recovery 2...

"In short, my research has led me down one consistent path.   Cellular energy production – what one could call “the metabolism” or “metabolic rate” is central or highly-connected to every known health problem.   While raising the metabolism isn’t a cure-all for everything, there is no doubt in my mind that with any health problem, the first line of action in overcoming it is getting the metabolism up closer to its ideal range.   More importantly, optimizing and guarding the metabolism is the key to preventing illness of all kinds and living life with the maximum number of optimally-functional and disease-free years."

BENEFITS OF NORMAL METABOLISM

"Here is Henry Bieler’s wonderful description of what a healthy person functions like – and ultimately what all diet and lifestyle interventions should aim to inch someone closer toward… 

“The physical energy of the adrenal type is seemingly inexhaustible, as is the nervous response of the sympathetic system, a result of perfect oxidation of phosphorous in the nerve tissue.   Oxidation of carbon in the muscular system gives the adrenal type his great warmth.   Thus, the temperature of his body is scarcely ever below 98.8, with hands and feet always pleasantly warm.   As digestion and detoxication of food poisons depend greatly upon oxidation in the liver and intestines, it follows that the typical adrenal type, with his perfect oxidation, has thorough digestion.   In fact, he may and often does boast that he can eat any and all kinds of food without discomfort.   The exogenous uric acid products as well as the indoxyl compounds are completely detoxicated in the liver, do not accumulate in the blood, nor are they found in the urine.” 

“The skeletal muscles are well developed and have splendid tone.   Fatigue is practically unknown to the adrenal type.   His muscular endurance is spectacular.   And the perfect tone of the involuntary muscles is evidenced by complete and rapid peristalsis, resulting in several bowel evacuations daily.   He can dine on the most impossible food combinations imaginable with no evil results…” 

“The quality of the blood is characteristic.   A slight to marked polycythemia (more red cells than usual) occurs; leucopenia, or abnormal white cell count on the low side, is never noted.   The blood, which is of a rich, red color, clots quickly.   Fatal hemorrhage seldom occurs.   The immunity against bacterial invasion is spectacular.   The typical adrenal type hardly ever becomes infected, even with venereal diseases…” 

“A member of the adrenal-type group has a phlegmatic disposition – easygoing, jolly, slow to anger, never bothered with insomnia, fear or “cold feet.”   He will often go out of his way to avoid a quarrel.   Customarily, he has a wide circle of friends because he is warm-hearted and surrounded by an ‘aura’ of kindly sympathy.” 

 “He never worries… His digestion is good and he is seldom constipated.   It is possible for him to stand more treatments, operations and even more lung hemorrhages than any other type of patient.   He is the patient most often discharged as arrested or cured.   All the treatment necessary for his recovery is supplied by bed rest and fresh air.”

To this long list of very accurate characteristics, you could add… 

Healthy sex drive, sexual functionality, and high fertility – both in men and women 

Soft, moist skin – including the hands and lower legs which become dry most easily 

Rapid wound healing 

Infrequent need to urinate, with a rich yellow color even after consuming large amounts of liquid

Strong, white teeth resistant to decay or sensitivity even consuming large amounts of sweets and rarely brushing 

Regular menstrual cycle with no discomforts, cramps or other symptoms, or PMS

Fast growing hair and fingernails

Steady blood sugar, with minimal spikes after meals even with the consumption of rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates 

Ability to go long periods without food without any noticeable discomforts, mood changes, energy changes, etc. 

Moist mouth with abundant saliva even after hours without fluids, and nice pink hue to the tongue 

There are many more, some that I’m aware of and many that I have yet to discover.   But that is a good overview of what life with an ideal metabolism should feel like it is a picture of health that is rapidly becoming obsolete.

All Quotes in this post come from: Stone, Matt (2013-11-24). Diet Recovery 2: Restoring Mind and Metabolism from Dieting, Weight Loss, Exercise, and Healthy Food (p. 26). Archangel Ink. Kindle Edition. 

Others who have applied Diet Revcovery to their lives and the stories of how they did it:

Critical Mass:  Michael Allen Smith's Website
The Cheese Slave: A Mother and Village Green Network founder
Butter Believer: Writes here about Nourished Metabolism by Elizabeth which is linked on my side bar, butter believer also wrote the book on the Sleep solution which I also have on my side bar. Both books rely on the same basic info found in Matt Stone's books.

Rest and Refeed

In my last post, turn ahead, I wrote about having read Matt Stone's book Eat for Heat, which started me thinking about how hypothyroidism is very similar to what he is writing about metabolism.  I can see from my temperature plotting that I am indeed not normal, I am low and need to in some way find a way to have a normal basal temperature of 98.6 F or near that. Matt is offering some different ideas of how I might do this without thyroid medication or perhaps without the use of Armour, a desiccated thyroid gland supplement. Matt is suggesting I eat for heat.

His ideas are not conventional and not even what most health conscious people would advise, however, I find that there is a ring of truth to his ideas and I am curious to test them out. He recommends that if you find your temperatures below 98.6 F then you are needing some rest and refeeding because your metabolism if low.

So the two main ideas in his approach are to rest and to refeed yourself. Matt says,

                                 "simply rest and eat food.   Lots of both.   Surplus is a good word."

REST

"I wouldn’t just recommend getting some good sleep at first, but getting an abnormal amount of sleep.   10 hours will heal you much more quickly than 8.   Naps are great too unless you find them impairing your sleep at night."

You need to rest from your exercise routines, from stresses in your life, from perfectionism. Despite what we have been told Matt says that his research shows that exercise actually lowers your metabolism because it causes a stress on the body. The only exercise he recommends is walking but not very rigorously. This is only while you are refeeding mind you for once your metabolism is to 98.6 and you are feeling great again then exercise is great. One key I learned from Matt was that whether you are just beginning to exercise or are in great shape and exercising, form either place or metabolic health, your body gets the most out of a workout when you let it fully recover before you work out again.

The best way to rest is to sleep as much as your body wants to. He says that 10-12 hours is not too much and taking naps and simply lying around is just what you need to let your metabolic rate rise.

Removing stress is another way to increase your metabolism. This can be quite varied because we are all different and have different issues, but for me it is doing fewer things relieves me of much of my stress. I learned a little song recently from the movie Brother Sun Sister Moon that reminds me of this daily, it goes like this:

If you want to live life free, take your time go slowly,
do few things but do them well,
heart felt work grow purely,
day by day
stone by stone you'll know heaven's glory

Another way I have ben removing stress is to clean up the chemical exposures in my home and personal products. I have been making more of my own personal products like shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste etc. There is a catch to this however and that is  that doing it all yourself can also be stressful. I try to keep that in balance  while I love to make things and create it needs to not be too much work or again I have more stress.

"Other ways that you can achieve this “spa vacation” lifestyle during the healing process are encouraged.   Massages, calming music, meditation, light stretching, warm baths, sunbathing, curious walks in a serene outdoor setting, relaxed breathing, raging fires in your fireplace, lounging around in comfortable clothes, snuggling, laying down and resting when you get the chance, reading something (besides health and nutrition books) – whatever sounds like it would make your whole body relax and enter that state where your eyes are heavy and mind is calm is great."

I have to remind myself as I am implementing these sorts of things that it is not a new way of life that I am developing with these new habits, it is simply a change of pace for a while to let my body catch up. Once my metabolic rate is again normal or high I will likely sleep less, and do more but for now I am like the little animal who is hurt ducking into the cave to rest and refeed until I am ready to go live life fully again.

REFEEDING

"In perhaps an ironic way, the lower your metabolic rate, the more therapeutic the “junk” foods really are.   What people consider to be pleasure foods are things rich in fat and carbohydrates in a very soft, digestible, refined, and calorie-dense package with a low water content.   We’ll talk more about the significance of those qualities later.   And, as you heal with foods that wouldn’t appear on any health guru’s list of approved foods, you later graduate to eating a diet much closer to what is considered to be the quintessential “healthy diet.”   And you won’t gravitate to a healthy diet through iron will or anything like that either.   You’ll just come to prefer eating less calorie-dense foods once your body no longer needs a surplus of calories to do its repair work."

You may need to refeed yourself to regain energy and that means you may need to eat the dreaded carbs, salt, saturated fats, and maybe even to eat the SAD diet (standard American diet) for a while until your metabolic rate has risen to normal (98.6 F). To regain metabolic health he gives liberty to eat what you want, when you want, how much you want.

I find this bit of his advice to be very helpful and intuitively I think it makes the most sense. Though without the logic to back it up I have been following my intuition furtively thinking I was not disciplined enough to eat more disciplined puritanical diet and life style. With the rational now behind me reminding me why food that gives energy like dates, sugar, coconut milk, butter, ice cream, bread, pasta and salt is not hurting my chances of getting back into living a full life again, but is actually the very thing to get me on that road and keep me there long term is peace and freedom and hope.

I want to eat more croissants, more cheese, more sweet things and more salty pretzels but now I know there is good reason for this want in my body and now I know why I do not need to eat them with a furtive glance, gobbling it up quick before anyone sees it. Greasy fatty foods like pizza, steak, hamburgers and sausage not to mention a well cooked egg or french fries fried in lard of coconut oil really sound good and are good for me. I made my own apple fritter doughnuts this fall and cooked them in pure coconut oil and it was just what my body wanted as I renew my energy reserves.

"This process (rest and refeeding) is all about surplus calories for repair work.   Gwyneth Olwyn of www.youreatopia.com, a site specializing in recovering from restrictive eating patterns of varying degrees of severity, summed it up well… 

“Recovery is the opposite process of dieting. With dieting you create a calorie deficit so that your body makes up the difference by using energy stores in fat, bone, muscles and major organs.   But with recovery, you have to provide not only enough energy to replenish fat tissue, but also even more energy is required to reverse pervasive physiological damage. "

I have been eating according to my hunger for about a year now but within a Nourishing Traditions and food allergy fence (I cannot eat meat, animal fats, dairy or eggs) but I may need to allow myself to take frequent trips beyond that fence during this rest and refeeding stage. I want to lose my the extra 40 lbs. but more than that I want to live well and have energy. SO my first priority is shifting to getting my energy back, my metabolism up and then the weight can come off.

In fact I have been letting my body decide what I eat since I heard Dr. Natasha McBride say much the same thing when she explained the GAPS diet. Her idea was that the body knows what it needs so it will tell you via cravings, or hungers just what you are to give it and when. First thing after I wake in the morning I begin to listen to my body to know just what to eat that day, if it is bread as it was yesterday I make the kind of bread that sounds the most delicious whether it is a soft delicately crumbed bread or a hard sourdough bread.

Rarely do I want something outside the fence but if I do, like when I was walking on the beach all morning in the sun and found that at lunch there wasn't a kombucha on the menu where we ate lunch so I really wanted to drink 7-Up and it tasted great, revived me and I had no ill effects from the sugar, in fact it gave my body the energy to needed after my mornings doings which used up the little reserves I had saved up. The body knows best, it has served me well in maintaining a steady weight up till now but my energy and other symptoms of a low metabolic rate has me thinking I might just want to up the amount of calories I eat by letting myself eat anything that sounds good until I can get my metabolism to normal again.

"I started referring to the protocol as “The High Everything Diet (HED).”   Yeah, names are fun and acronyms are even better.   I mean, there’s a real shortage of acronyms out there.   I have felt compelled over the years to add to the pool. But the HED was as the name implies, high in everything.   In a world obsessed with low-calorie, low-carb, low-fat, low-this, and low-that – the concept here was pretty obvious.   Don’t restrict anything.   Eat it all.   Eat all the carbs, fat, and protein you want.   Sure, you’ll have your favorites and tilt the balance a little one way or another (I recommend tilting it towards carbs if possible, but I think, really, that what’s most therapeutic is tilting it in the other direction in relation to where you have been on your most recent diet escapades), but don’t limit or restrict.     Eat salt.   And sweets.   And meats.   And veggies.   Root vegetables.   Grains.   Dairy products.   Eat all the things you could ever want.   Fill all those tanks, especially the ones that you have left empty in your dieting career. And most of all, eat a lot of calories.   Some people I’m discovering, still don’t succeed when they just eat as much as they want, or even eat a little bit more than they want.   With a really low metabolism, and with a history of eating disorders, calorieality is often skewed."

ALL quotes in this post are from: Stone, Matt (2013-11-24). Diet Recovery 2: Restoring Mind and Metabolism from Dieting, Weight Loss, Exercise, and Healthy Food. Archangel Ink. Kindle Edition. 

Turn Ahead

This past week and a half I have been plotting my temperatures and drinking a salt water solution to do a sort of pre-wash on my kidneys. I am still plotting my temperature but I am no longer drinking the salt water solution.

The salt water solution contained:
90 oz. of mineral rich water we filter ourselves.
4 T fresh squeezed lime juice
1 1/2 t sea salt
1/2 t. green stevia

 I am taking a 90 degree turn in regards to my protocol because of Matt Stone's book Eat for Heat and what I discovered when I started drinking so much water. You have to realized that the 90 oz. of water is half my body weight in oz. and I had not been drinking this before. I still drank the fermented beverages (kvass. kombucha, etc) at meal times and rarely prior to this trial did I drink between meals, so it was a lot more water than my body was used to, and as I learned needed.

 I mixed up two 45 oz. jars of this salt water solution to drink between 9am-noon and from 2pm-5pm, that way I would have a good chance of getting the water out of my digestive system before I ate and then my HCl would not be diluted. My HCL is low as it is. SO I began in good faith....little did I guess what would happen.

 At first I noticed good things happening, I peed less often, I felt more balanced mentally and emotionally, and my temperature readings showed that my adrenals were leveling out. These were not the things I had done the salt water cure for, I was aiming at flushing out the kidney's thus diluting the glass like crystals that form there that are supposedly causing my lower back to be perpetually weak. (this may not be so but it is worth the try. the flush that Daniel Forsyth used on his journey and that did heal him of chronic lower back pain was an herbal flush) But these other good side effects of rehydration I was thinking was a good sign whether or not the  kidney's and my lower back were being helped just yet or not.

But a few days later and I noticed that my hair was drier, stringy and limp. The eczema on my face became worse than it had been in a long time. I had spots of it around where my nose meets my face, by my mouth, and along my hair line, to boot I had very bad dandruff and an itchy scalp. and oddly I was having trouble with constipation which I thought would have been much better by rehydrating. I was puzzled by these symptoms because I had read that dandruff is caused by dehydration and there was no chance I was dehydrated I drank upwards of 90 oz. of water a day, it is winter thus cold and I am not exercising rigorously. So what was up? I also began to bloat in the upper tummy region and be cold all the time especially in my hands and feet. But after all it is winter, the weather must have dropped in temperature so I'll take more hot baths and snuggle up in my alpaca wool sweaters and wear my alpaca wool socks more during the day. Odd though when my grade school aged boys and my dh are brandishing soccer shorts only no shirts and sleeping without blankets at night. Hmmmm.

I happened upon a favorable link to Matt Stone's book Eat for Heat and as it was only $2.99 on kindle so I bought it, what could it hurt. Where I found the link he was said to know about low metabolism (or hypothyroidism), salt and what...He was telling people to not drink so much water. I was intrigued and dove into his book with interest. I was sure I was ok doing what I was doing because I was not drinking filtered dead water only, I was drinking mineral rich water with added electrolytes and salt.

But, I was wrong. The research Matt Stone had been doing showed that drinking when you are not thirsty is not healthy. In fact my dry hair, eczema, and dandruff, the cold hands and feet plus a few other things I learned were all caused by diluting the extra cellular fluid that makes up the bodies 98% water which in lowered my metabolism and caused these symptoms. Whoa! could what Matt dug up be true? I wasn't sure but I kept reading and applying some of his ideas and I think he has found some thing worth trying out. Thus my 90 degree turn off of water and back to listening to my intuition and my bodies own voice, bio feedback.

You see the dry hair, eczema, cold hands and feet plus the constipation, insomnia and other hypothyroid symptoms are bio feedback or the body telling me I am not working with it. So I started to listen, I stopped drinking the 90 oz. of water a day. Instead I have been learning how to recognize bio feedback, track it with my temperature chart as I was doing before and then how to tweak a few things to keep it steady. I'll write more about the tweaking in the next post. But to date I am seeing the symptoms I mentioned above disappear and I have hopes I can turn around my low thyroid/metoabolism simply by eating to heat.

NOTE: Matt Stone is not the only one out there writing about helping the metabolism he has inspired Elizabeth Walling with the ideas he dug up and she has thus written The Nourished Metabolism which can be purchased by clicking on the image of her book on my side bar.

The Adrenal Connection

In this post at the way bottom I wrote,

"Daniel wrote that he had read somewhere (Dr. Peatfield's book Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy) that if your thyroid and your adrenals are working under par then you should begin strengthening the adrenals first. He likened the thyroid to the gas pedal of a car and the adrenals to the engine in a car. If you press down hard on the gas pedal (thyroid) you could blow your engine (adrenals). So always begin FIRST by strengthening the adrenals then strengthen the thyroid."

I know now where Daniel read about this thyroid adrenal connection I am learning more about it and it is so very practical and helpful to understand the working of a system rather than the function of the organ all by itself. Dr. Peatfield says this about the connection between the two glands,

"We must now consider the adrenal connection to hypothyroidism. The first point to make is a repetition of what I said earlier: if thyroid hormone is not being produced as it should, nothing works properly – including of course the adrenal glands. And this situation is compounded by the fact that low thyroid output is a stress inducing situation. To enable the system to cope with low thyroid output, the adrenals are obliged to produce an increased level of cortisol. This may work well, for a considerable period of time, if the thyroid deficiency isn’t too bad. But it slowly worsens and the adrenals are called upon to further compensate for the stress this produces. Eventually, of course, the adrenals begin to cope less well; and the continued strain causes adrenal exhaustion. The syndrome of low adrenal reserve is now present."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1603-1609). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

To make up for the thyroid's poor performance the adrenals get extra work and could become overloaded. If the overloaded adrenals are also subjected to a bad diet, environmental toxins, prolonged stress etc. then they will not be able to keep up with the extra of work of support a low thyroid and then this happens.

"We saw earlier that the thyroid hormones have to be processed in the body to work; the chief one, thyroxine (T4) has to be converted into the active thyroid hormone tri-iodothyronine (T3), under the action of the 5’-deiodinase enzymes. With a low adrenal reserve this reaction doesn’t proceed as it should, and the body may become toxic with unused and unusable T4. The problem doesn’t end there; the T3 has to be taken up by the receptors within the cell wall, to be passed into the cell. This uptake is degraded in adrenal insufficiency; the receptors become dormant or may disappear or may become resistant. In this situation, even if T3 is available, the system can become toxic if it cannot be used properly. You can see how desperately important the adrenal glands are, and equally how important it is to provide adrenal support when low adrenal reserve is present. "

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1615-1621). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

Ideally at this point the hypothyroid patient should be given something (like desiccate adrenals) to support the over worked adrenals which gives these hardworking glands the building blocks to do the work asked of it. In addition to that, a good look at ones diet, toxic load from the environment and stress levels etc. will relieve the adrenals from their toxic load. Once the adrenals are thriving again THEN thyroid help can be administered. By using the metabolic temperature chart and by monitoring your pulse (see more about this below) it is easy to see how your body is responding to the dose of thyroid supplement (like desiccated thyroid glands) you are giving it. However if you fail to monitor it and rely only upon blood tests the result may be this,

"Thousands of people suffering from hypothyroidism are never quite well since, using the blood tests as a guide only, the endocrinologists with few exceptions oblige their patients to lurch from one dose to another. The patients may have windows of feeling better, but may feel either under-active, or toxic for much of the time. The great sadness is that when they say to their doctor, ‘Look, I really don’t feel right,’, they will be told, since the blood tests show that they are at the correct levels, they must therefore be right and perfectly well – whatever they may say. The patient is then probably offered Prozac (or other antidepressant), or counselling, or becomes labelled a ‘heart-sink’ patient, and you can see now why the blood tests may be completely misleading. If the thyroid supplementation isn’t being used properly and is not being processed into the tissues, it will cause the blood levels to be normal, or even raised. In this situation, which is likely to affect all hypothyroid sufferers sooner or later, if this is not taken account of the patient will never be well. Along with a number of other workers in this field, I have pointed this out many times to the deaf ears of the establishment."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1624-1632). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

If one makes the mistake of treating the thyroid first Dr. Peatfield has a few suggestions to rectify the situation and get the bodies metabolism back on track.

"A problem often arises when those of us with low thyroid seek advice, and it becomes clear that low adrenal reserve is at least half the problem. The amount of thyroid hormone replacement, usually thyroxine, has been increased, either with very little benefit, or actually worsening the situation. If the adrenal support is then given, it has the effect of so much improving thyroid uptake and processing, that in a day or so, you actually become truly thyrotoxic, with palpitations, tremor, even a temperature. 

To deal with this situation low cunning is needed. The thyroxine must be stopped for 5-10 days to allow it to run down somewhat. (Remember that it has an eight day half life in the system, so this can be quite a slow process.) After these few days, natural adrenal glandular support is introduced, at low dose – even half a tablet – and after a few days without any problems of apparent overdose, the adrenal support can then be increased to one, and later more if required. At some point, usually within a week, the thyroid hormone can be restarted at half the original dose. 

All the time you have to monitor pulse and temperature, on a daily basis, morning and evening, and then be prepared to adjust the thyroid hormone dose up or down as seems necessary. A rapid rise of pulse, perhaps into the 90s per minute or a sudden rise of temperature to apparently normal levels, is likely to mean that the thyroid supplementation is too much and should be reduced or stopped for a day or so. Low adrenal reserve commonly means that as the day progresses, cortisol particularly becomes exhausted, and with it thyroid uptake and processing. Hence as the day goes on, one can feel more tired (more so than one should) than in the morning, and the pulse and temperature will show this by dropping. It is helpful to take the temperature and pulse in the evening (say 9 or 10 o’clock), to monitor the adrenal status. If the adrenal glands are becoming exhausted the temperature will drop and the pulse rate may do so as well. This regime is effective for the majority of people with adrenal and thyroid dysfunction. Moreover, it can be used safely with the minimum of medical supervision, since we are using food supplements rather than synthetic preparations."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1697-1703). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

Things to look for to know whether or not you need adrenal support:

1. Where an abnormally low DHEA and an abnormally high cortisol show adrenal stress, or abnormally low cortisol and DHEA blood test shows weak adrenal function.

2. Many symptoms, and clinical signs, notably postural hypotension, suggest weak adrenal response.

3. The thyroid deficiency state has been present some considerable time and is getting worse.

4. Previous treatment with thyroxine has been unsuccessful or even worsened the situation.

5. There has been thyroid surgery or radioactive iodine ablation.

6. Thyroid blood tests are normal but the patient is clinically hypothyroid.

7. Previous major surgery or trauma/shock from an accident or life event.

8. If when you plot your temperatures daily and see a large variance of readings as is noted on this graph.

A= low adrenal reserve and hypothyroid state
B= improving adrenal performance but still a low thyroid
C= good adrenal performance but a hypothyroid state
D=good adrenal performance and improving thyroid state
E= ideal adrenal and thyroid performance

The Trouble With Tests

The trouble with tests is that they often don't help your find out what is really going wrong in you so you can see about fixing it. They can be helpful and in many situations they are, however, in dealing with your thyroid Dr. Peatfield in his book Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy has some enlightening things to say about tests and you thyroid.

Dr. Peatfield says,

"The problem with the blood test is that it is a bit like looking up the answers in the back, to save one the fag of thinking. Then there is the obligation to do a blood test, which has become fashionable and the done thing to do, even though it is probably not always necessary. This is the hospital specialist’s approach and it is taken to an extreme in the USA (and pretty much so in the UK). All patients in the USA carry around with them a vast battery of test results (at huge expense) and the excellence, or otherwise, of the specialist is judged by the number of tests he orders. We find ourselves in the grip of a medico-technocracy. The blood test is god, and eventually takes over the diagnostic process. I deeply deplore this state of affairs, since I was taught and have never had any reason to doubt, that the best diagnostic weapons of all are the Mark I eyeball and the Mark I earhole. Look and listen. The other excellent lesson I learnt was that if the blood test doesn’t bear out your diagnosis, believe in your own learning and experience. In no branch of medicine is this more true than that of thyroid medicine. Since 1898 doctors have been diagnosing hypothyroidism, but in the last three or four decades medical dogma has come to say, you cannot and must not make the diagnosis without THE BLOOD TEST. There have been about 40 different tests for thyroid illness because not one has been found to be reliable." -Chapter six, hypothyroidism: the signs

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1000-1006). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

This is turning out to be true with me. I have had my blood work done with emphasis on the thyroid several times in the last 4 years and I have always tested within range maybe slightly low but nothing to worry about. However I still have many signs or symptoms of hypothyroidism: fatigue, weight gain, low temperature, mental slowness or losing the mental grasp, headaches, dry skin, poor resistance to infection, anemia, and a few others (see the list below I have starred* all that apply to myself)  My metabolic temperature experiment I posted about recently shows I am well below normal. In fact one quick way to see if you even need to plot your temps is to take your temperature just as you are waking up. I kept a thermometer just beside my bed and when I was first aware I was awake I rolled over and popped in the thermometer. If you are below 97.6 F then you are likely dealing with some degree of hypothyroidism. I had temps of 97.1 F and 97.4 F. So.......hmmm.....I have the symptoms, my temperature test shows it, should I trust the blood test?

Dr, Peatfield says,

"When I was first a doctor, a blood test called the plasma bound iodine (PBI) was becoming the rage. Only trouble was it kept finding perfectly normal patients hypothyroid and missing obviously sick people. Eventually, it was decided that iodine in the apparatus, and in the air of the laboratory itself, was contaminating all the results. So the test was dropped. But not to be put off, other tests were brought out, hailed as the deus ex machina, and the fact that obviously hypothyroid patients were still being missed, ignored. This is the problem with thyroid blood tests today."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1010-1014). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

Dr. Peatfield recommends...

"With early hypothyroidism, the signs may not be all that striking, although the story should be pretty convincing. This is one reason why blood tests are turned to – especially if you haven’t time to listen to the patient. But there is another simple sign, which will virtually without exception, put the matter beyond doubt. Originally reported in August 1942 in the Journal of the American Medical Association and later described in the Lancet in 1945 – and as true today as it was then – by Dr Broda Barnes, it has the merit of extreme simplicity, and anyone can do it for themselves. It is called the basal temperature test."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 1032-1037). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

How to do the basal temperature test can be found at Dr. Rinds website and I posted about it here.

The signs/symptoms Dr. Peatfield looked for are:

*Constipation & flatulence
Depression
Anxiety
*Poor sleep
*Slow speech
*Slow thinking
Memory loss
ADHD
*Headaches
Thick tongue
*Halitosis
Hoarse voice
Thickness of neck
*Visual disturbances
Deafness & tinnitus
Ankle swelling
Puffy face & eyelids
*Bladder irritation & frequency
Painful, irregular periods
Early menopause
Low fertility & loss of libido
Frequency of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI)
Frequency of urinary tract infections (UTI)
*Fatigue - excessive tiredness
*Muscle weakness
*Weight gain
Shooting pains in hands and feet
*Muscle & joint pain and stiffness
*Breathlessness
*Gallstones
Diminished sweating
*Intolerance to cold and heat
Pallor - yellowish tinge to skin
Bluish lips
Dry coarse skin
*Brittle nails
*Boils & spots Eczema & psoriasis
Thinning hair
Loss of body hair
Loss of outer eyebrows
*Candida
Haemorrhoids
*Low basal temperature
*Soft and weakened pulse
Goitre
Umbilical hernia
Albuminuria Bruising
Cold hands and feet
Slowed Achilles reflex
Scalloped tongue
Liver tenderness & enlargement
Abdominal distension
Clinical anaemia

He also says this,

"Let it be said at once, that there may be so many symptoms that if the patient doesn’t think he or she is a hypochondriac, the doctor certainly may. As I said earlier, low thyroid can affect the working of any or all bodily systems. The particular mix of symptoms will depend on the person themselves, the severity of the deficiency and the length of time it’s all been going on. But there are symptoms which invariably occur and several of them together should arouse a high index of suspicion. Some of these you have come across already, but I will go through them again. I make no apology for the length of the list and I don’t want you skipping them."

Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 775-779). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

In the end it is your body and your life. Dr. Peatfield in his book has given great encouragement to the reader that we can do this ourselves. We can make notes of our symptoms, do the temperature tests, buy the supplements and keep a tab on how they effect us. I for one am grateful for this freedom and encouragement to manage my health by myself. It will save me time and money. Thank Dr. Peatfield I wish there were more Doc's Like you out there.

More on the Thyroid and Adrenals

In a recent post I wrote about the effects of mercury on the kidneys and other organs. I have been applying a few of the ideas from that post and from Dr. Rind's website on myself. Though it is too early really to tell for sure how it is effecting my health I think it is doing some good and giving me confidence I can monitor my thyroid and adrenal health myself. 

Dr. Rind says, 

"If you’re not feeling quite up to par, take your temperature. Not to determine if you’ve got a fever – rather, temperatures reflect an individual’s metabolic energy state. The average daytime temperature of a healthy individual is 98.6 thus making 98.6 the optimal (as opposed to normal*) temperature. Lower than optimal temperatures reflect a lower than optimal metabolic state which is usually controlled by the thyroid mechanism. Wide variability of temperature reflects an unstable or fatigued adrenal system. Thus, on the road to health, one wants to go from low and/or unstable temperatures to 98.6 and stable if possible.

The Metabolic Temperature Graph™ is an extremely valuable feedback tool that provides a roadmap with which one can see whether they are moving toward or away from a healthy metabolic state. It provides insight as to whether therapeutic efforts are working or not working, as the case may be. This feedback helps guide the treatment program on a daily basis."

This is a typical pattern graph it helps to understand just what the data I am plotting could indicate.

The first thing I did was to go to Dr. Rind's blog and get the data collection graph to plot my daily temperatures. Below are my results so far...

The 3's and 2's just indicate how many times I was able to take my temperature each day, 3 meaning I took my temp at 9AM, 12 Noon, and 3PM and 2 meaning I was only able to hit two of those times. Once all the temps are taken I average the number and place it on the graph. 

Below is a graph from Dr. Rind's website showing adrenal and thyroid correlations. Note Phase E is what you would like to see on your graph to know both your thyroid and adrenals are working well.

Dr. Rind says,

"If the adrenal support is working well, phases A through D can each last from one week to several months depending on the individual. In any given individual each of the phases seems to last approximately the same length of time (i.e. short period vs. long period). Some phases can blend together. For example, A and D can combine into an upwardly stabilizing pattern without C being present. I have actually seen some people go directly from A to E. To go from A to E can take as little as 1-2 weeks or as long as a few months. Hopefully, phase E will be permanent. If the adrenal fatigue is more severe (usually of longer duration), each of phases A through D tends to last longer and phase E tends to be less secure. If no progress is seen in 2-3 months, there is usually another problem present, such as toxicity etc."

If you refer back to my chart you can see my thyroid is in need a some supplementation as I am well under the target temp of 98.6 degree F and my adrenals look like they need some supplementation as as well. I plan to continue this data taking until the chart is full as I want to see how I do throughout a whole month and maybe two before I look into supplements. See the graph below...

So, more data to take and in the meantime I have also been making sure I get enough water which would be my weight (175-180 lbs.) divided in half (87.5-90) then translate to oz. So, I am needing 90 oz. of water each day in between meals. I am coupling this need for water with a sea salt flush I learned about here. to begin cleansing my kidney's and rehydrating. 

Why am I beginning a kidney cleanse? In Daniel Forsyth's book Mercury Dairies he had lower back pain for many years. In fact his story of ill health begins with him hurting his lower back on a ski trip one winter. He tried yoga for three years and the Alexander method for another three years and he still had chronic lower back pain. I too have had lower back pains for 7 years and I also have not yet found any exercise that will fix it for good. I may find relief for a small period of time, but no permanent fix. Daniel did an herbal kidney cleanse once and like magic his lower back pain was gone, for good. What? How is that! The kidney's connected with the lower back? It all sounds far fetched until you have lower back pain and long to be free. 

I read Hulda Clark's book The Cure for All Diseases and she says this about the kidneys and lower back pain.

"We have been told that lower back pain originates in an inherited weakness of the spine at its base because we humans walk upright instead of on four legs. And we have been told that the bony hooks that keep the spine aligned are flatter in some families, making it harder for them to hold the spine together. We are also told that “proper exercises” could have kept this part of our bodies strong so lower back pain could be avoided. 

These theories become obsolete when, without surgery, exercise or change in posture, lower back pain can be made to disappear quickly and permanently. 

Acupressure massage and chiropractic can bring “miraculous” relief. The most severely crippled lower back pain sufferer can shuffle lamely into a chiropractor’s office and walk out normally, without pain or painkiller after treatments. So although there has been slippage of disc or spine, apparently it goes back into place rather easily. If muscle relaxation is the clue, we must ask why these muscles spasm so easily. Any muscle will spasm if you irritate or injure it suddenly. In fact, your whole body spasms and flinches if a sliver or bit of broken glass is in your shoe. If you remove these objects, the leg can walk normally." 

"Oxalic acid crystals are as sharp as broken glass. Use the Kidney Cleanse to dissolve them and other stones. All lower back pain can be cured by removing the sharp crystals in the kidneys. It takes about three weeks to dissolve them. In some very severe cases, it may take six weeks."

"Whether you have suffered a year or 20 years, the permanent cure is only weeks away."

"Our bodies make eight or more different kinds of kidney “stones.”  The oxalic acid variety is associated with sharp stabbing pains. In its effort to eliminate this extremely vicious acid your body neutralizes it with calcium first to make calcium oxalate. Your kidneys can keep a bit of calcium oxalate in solution but not a lot. The excess hardens into crystals."

If you have severe lower back pain you probably have several kinds of stones. Some persons have all seven kinds!

"It isn't necessary to find which variety of kidney crystals is causing your muscle spasms. Different herbs dissolve different kinds. And by combining them into a grand herbal mixture you can be dissolving all varieties at the same time."

Clark, Dr. Hulda (2011-01-18). The Cure for All Diseases (Kindle Locations 1274-1276). New Century Press. Kindle Edition. 

Dr. Clark also says that the kidney herbal cleanse should not be done prior to the parasite cleanse. That is why I am merely rehydrating which is good for all the body and waiting to do the herbal kidney cleanse after I have done a parasite cleanse if I need it. The basic order of cleanse is important it goes like this:

Parasite cleanse

colon cleanse 

Kidney cleanse

Lung Cleanse

Liver/gall bladder cleanse

I have been drinking my 90 oz. of salt water daily for four days now. I mix it up in the morning and grab what I need throughout the day. I make mine with a few extras and I am adding in the sea salt slowly adding more each week so my system can get adjusted to it. I begin with this...

In two 45 oz glass jars I add: 

1/8 tsp green stevia powder

1/8 cup fresh squeezed lime or lemon juice or mint tea leaves

1/2 t + 1/4 t sea salt

after four days about 1/3 of my back stiffness and pain is gone. Time will tell if the sea salt is enough or if I need to go onto the herbs after my parasite cleanse.

Till next time...

Your Thyroid and Amalgam Poisoning

I have been reading Your Thyroid And How to Keep it Healthy by Peatfield, it is another book I am taking notes on. Written to us lay people, but not dumbed down, Dr. Peatfield gives us more than just understanding on the thyroid he tells how the whole endocrine system works and how to care for it. Cool!

This excerpt from his book is from the Appnedix on Amalgams.

"The weak chemical bonding of the five metals used in dental amalgam means that the mercury may be leached out of the mixture as a result of pressure and heat, together with galvanic (electrical) interaction within the metallic mixture. The mercury vapour is taken up by the body, and it is estimated that an average amalgam filling releases about 10 micrograms of mercury daily. It turns out that two thirds of our mercury intake overall comes from this source. A further major derivation is from mercury waste. This is of great importance in dental clinics, where the waste may not be filtered and the mercury enters the food chain from sewage. "

The big question therefore is not, does it happen, but what damage will it cause? Let us make a list. 

1. Kidneys – the re-absorption mechanism is downgraded within the kidney tubules, reducing their efficiency. This in turn can lead to blood pressure and eventually renal failure. 

2. There is an increased incidence of multiple intestinal antibiotic resistance. Effectively, therefore, the immune system becomes progressively compromised. 

3. A large body of evidence has accumulated that mercury has a number of effects on the nervous system. It is now recognised that it acts as a neurotoxin, slowly weakening the nervous system. 
Mood, memory and motor function will be slowly degraded. 

4. There are significant effects on fertility, which is reduced, but worse, it has been shown that there is a correlation existing with developmental abnormalities. Further work has demonstrated that mercury is passed to the baby in the womb, and after birth from breast milk. 

5. A link has been found with cardiomyopathy, which is a progressive weakness of the muscles of the heart leading eventually to cardiac failure. 

6. Studies on the role of trace elements in Alzheimer’s disease have suggested that the raised levels of mercury could well be an important factor. 

7. Thyroid and adrenal glands. Studies have shown that the thyroid/adrenal axis is down-regulated by mercury poisoning. The consequent symptomology will extend from mild to severe hypothyroidism and with adrenal involvement will have most if not all the features of the chronic fatigue syndrome. Many patients of my acquaintance have been much improved by the removal of their dental amalgam.
Durrant-Peatfield, Barry (2012-10-04). Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: Second edition of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Avoid It (Kindle Locations 3054-3062). Hammersmith Books Limited. Kindle Edition. 

Note point #7, mercury can often lead to hypothyroidism or an under active thyroid. I wonder if this is why I have been so tired all my life? Because there is mercury in my body form my amalgam fillings my thyroid and darnels are something I am keeping my eye on and now I have a brilliant way to do it and for FREE. I can track how I am doing with my handy thermometer and Dr. Rinds instructions here. I printed out his chart and take my temperature three times a day; 9AM...12PM...3PM because I awake at 6AM. The rule is to begin 3 hours after you wake up in the morning. I write down the average of the three temperatures onto the chart.

I am also plotting how my adrenals are working using the same data and chart. Cool! I used to check my adrenals by doing a salvia test which is over $200 each time one does it. Ouch! As my chelation may take awhile if I go about it slowly as I have been doing then I would want to check periodically to see how these glands are working throughout out the process and that is a lot of money spent on tests. The money I save by testing myself I can spend on supplements if I need them.

Mercola also recommends the basal temperature for diagnosis.

If I discover I find I have hypothyroidism or my adrenals are weak I prefer to take the desiccated adrenal or thyroid glands of animals. Here is what Daniel Forsyth says about them.

"During my saga of addressing my thyroids and adrenal glands, I declined the use of synthetic man-made hormones that drug companies have separated, formulated, masticated, and marketed. Very often they are individual hormones that you must some how mix-and-match to levels that change as the body's requirements change. The idea that a man-made chemical is better, or even the same, as natural in-nature made alternatives is wildly deluded. The only reason synthetic is available is because people or companies can make money out of selling them....Natural hormones from nature are better every single time without exception, and without a shadow of doubt. Why would I want to take individual synthetic hormones when I can take whole animal hormones in on pill that directly replace everything that I lack? Replace them all in the right balance for humans. That strengthen and rebuild my body's glands. And, on top of all that, have no nasty side effects. The animal thyroid glands are the same as ours and importantly they have a 100-year-old history of working perfectly well. You don't need to muck about adjusting the dose to two to five different branded synthetic hormones. You take Amour and adjust that dose to a level that suits you, and it provides all the hormones your body needs at the correct levels. The down side is that it takes a bit of time to get it right. The upside is you get no side effects, you get better and it's almost guaranteed to work, eventually. "

Mercola also recommends Armour here in his protocol for addressing hypothyroidism.

So I did a little search online to discover where to buy these handy little crushed up, dessicated glands and here are some links to products that look viable.

Thyroid:
Thyroid Glandular from Swanson Vitamins
Thyroid Glandular from Pure Formulas
Armour Thyroid

Stop the Thyroid Madness has a good post about there different Thyroid Glandulars out there on the market.

Adrenal:
Adrenal Cortex from Pure Formulas
Adrenal Cortex from iherb
adrenal desiccated from Standard Process

NOTE: Daniel said he read somewhere that if your thyroid and your adrenals are working under par then you should begin strengthening the adrenals first. He likened the thyroid to the gas pedal of a car and the adrenals to the engine in a car. If you press down hard on the gas pedal (thyroid) you could blow your engine (adrenals). So always begin FIRST by strengthening the adrenals then strengthen the thyroid.