8-Pound Weight Loss in ONE DAY

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I went to my knowledgeable Doctor of Osteopathic medicine (DO) this week to complain yet again about my weight gain issues. I wanted her to rule out possibilities such as any kind of ovarian tumor or parasites or please just give me any reason why I am STILL packing on the pounds after giving up sugar, corn and anything with gluten or caseins in it. She felt I didn't have tumors or parasites based on an exam and previous blood work.

The doctor felt that I am having an issue with my thyroid meds. I am currently taking Nature-throid and it is true that my hair had returned to a brittle state, which is indicative of not getting enough thyroid, even though my blood work shows I am getting too much thyroid. So I am switching back to Armour Thyroid, though the compounded version to avoid any fillers such as lactose. Plus I did not do well on the "new" version of Armour last summer, which is why I switched to Nature-throid in the first place. (See Are You Switching to Nature-throid? Here's 10 Good Things to Know.)

I told my DO that I keep reading on-line that some folks do gain weight when they remove all the toxins from their diet. There are different theories as to why but one is the idea that I am only now absorbing nutrients properly and that adds up in weight. That theory confuses me a bit since all my previous bloodwork shows I had very normal vitamin and nutrient levels, though I have always been anemic. Another theory is that when you go off gluten, you tend to stock up on gluten-free breads and other high calorie, gluten-free foods. I did do that; it is hard not to at first because you feel sorry for yourself and you load up on what you can safely eat.

My DO suggested I try a two-week cleanse. I agreed to do that and started yesterday. The brand name is Life Choice RX. She also said I should try the HCG diet, the one where you exist on 500 calories a day and you give yourself a shot daily that tricks your brain into thinking you are pregnant. That sounded like mutant science to me so I declined that option.

When I went to the doctor on Wednesday, I weighed 188 pounds. I am tall so while I don't look obese, I technically am obese at the weight. Today I weighed myself and I weigh 180. There could be a few pounds difference in the scales but we have a very good scale at home. How in the hell do you lose 8 pounds overnight?

Here is how I think I did it: I kept to a very minimal diet yesterday doing my dead level best to avoid anything that I might have an allergy to. I felt that most of my added weight was water weight that felt very bloaty, which to me means that I was still ingesting something my body cannot process. I did also start the cleanse yesterday and the doctor says some patients lose up to 10 pounds on it; that is over two week however, not in the first day. Here is what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast

• Orange and banana

Snack

• almonds

• applesauce

Lunch

• gluten free deli turkey

• almonds

Snack

• half an orange bell pepper

• black olives

Dinner

• large steak

• green beans

• applesauce

• I also did not have my nightly favorite treat -- wine.

I seriously doubt that eating what I did could cause me to drop 8 pounds in a day. I do feel that by NOT ingesting any of the food toxins, I lost a lot of that bloat. I intend to eat this way until I feel the bloat is under control.

Stay tuned . . . and here's hoping that another 8 pounds falls off by tomorrow!

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Armour Thyroid Is Harder to Find than a Needle in a Haystack

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I have been hypothyroid most -- if not all -- of my life. I went to a lousy Austin endocrinologist who could do no better than shrug his shoulders at my three pages of symptoms that I brought to him for 5 years. I fired him and finally found a truly caring doctor who actually understands how the thyroid works. As I have gained my health and thus my life back, my anger at that harmful doctor is still present, though lessened somewhat by finally feeling healthy again. My good doctor has almost erased my wrath at the arrogant endocrinologist, but every now and then a news story crops up about thyroid medications (such as the one below) and my anger at the needless suffering of the millions of thyroid patients at the hands of their doctors and Big Pharma gets my mad going again.

I am now sure that I was first gluten intolerant and a lifetime of not knowing that whittled my thyroid gland down to nothing. Mr. Big Fancy Pants Endo -- who is paid thousands every year to give "lectures" by the makers of his favorite drugs, including Synthroid -- apparently has never heard of Celiac's or gluten intolerance and probably has never even heard of gluten itself. He certainly never suggested that I may have some serious food allergies that caused all of my health symptoms.

I was put on Armour Thyroid on March 8, 2007 by my new doctor. I have that date marked on my calendar every year and I celebrate it as that is the date I started to get my life back. I had been practically bedridden for most of 2005-2006, so when my brain fog started to lift and my energy levels came back, I was in love with Armour Thyroid as that is the drug that made health possible for me.

I was on Armour Thyroid until the summer of 2009, when for some incomprehensible reason, the makers of Armour changed the 100-year old formula that worked wonders for countless thyroid patients. I began to feel hypo again. I also felt nauseous from something the genius makers of Armour decided to add to the formula. The company ignored pleas from thyroid patient advocates and refused to answer why they changed the formula. So most of us switched to another form of thyroid called Nature-thyroid. You can guess what happened next -- that also became nearly impossible to find.

Synthetic thyroid brands such as Synthroid simply do not work for me and for thousands of other hypothyroid patients as well. We have to have thyroid that is not synthetic or we remain ill.

What would happen in the national media if a major maker of insulin suddenly changed their formula and diabetics everywhere began to feel ill from the new formula? What if the makers of the most popular statin drug started playing around with that formula and people felt ill from that change? Would there not be a national outcry?

It is incredibly sad to me that we have to become health detectives and figure out for ourselves why we feel like shit. It is even sadder that once we finally find a medicine that gives us hope for a healthy life again, that medicine is suddenly changed and no longer does what it should for thousands of sufferers.

But saddest of all, you have to find that special doctor who refuses to be told how to treat patients based on what an insurance company thinks is best and instead relies on his or her training AND he/she bothers to listens to the actual symptoms the patient presents. Every day I say a small prayer of thanks to the thyroid patient advocates whom I have never met in person but who I count as dear friends as they are the one who directed me to the doctor who cared enough to actually heal me. I have a pit in my stomach every time I meet someone new who has suffered at the hands of an unknowledgeable and lazy doctor who has permitted that patient's life to ebb away until there isn't much there anymore.

For more information about the importance of getting on the right thyroid medicine, please bookmark Stop the Thyroid Madness and make it your personal thyroid Bible. Also check out Thyroid patients panicked as medication disappears.

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