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Bogus Medicine
By Bette Dowdell on 06/29/2011
Here’s the scene: You go to the doctor dragging your patooty behind you.
Your body has ballooned whilst your hair got thin. You discovered a whole new definition of tired. And is it normal to wear an overcoat to bed to keep warm?
The doctor nods sagely and announces his on-the-spot, one-size-fits-all diagnosis: Depression.
As he grabs for his prescription pad, you demur. Just a little. After all, he’s the doctor. But you explain that you’re happy with your life. The only problem is not having the energy to enjoy it more.
Ever see a doctor change his pronouncements? Me either. You get a prescription for an anti-depressant.
It doesn’t work, of course. Your problem isn’t depression; it’s a thyroid gland that can’t get its act together.
Most, if not all, thyroid patients have been through this scenario. Maybe multiple times.
Doctors go on about practicing scientific, evidence-based medicine. Look at such talk as no more than a diversionary tactic. At best. Most of medicine arises from opinions and past practices, however misguided.
And doctors love the idea of depression. Depression is real, of course, but the diagnosis of depression, ah, now that’s a wide open door. No tests. No fixed criteria. Anything goes. Best of all, it herds patients through quickly, all paying as they leave.
Here’s the latest: Based on no evidence of a problem, doctors want legislation to force all pregnant women to become candidates for antidepressants. Still no tests or criteria, but even worse, no studies on what antidepressant medication will do to the baby.
Will they get their way? Well, a lot of people went for the Gardasil scam. And a whole bunch more jumped on the statin bandwagon. Not to mention the annual flu shot foolishness. I could go on. Examples abound, each one a disaster.
Nobody seems to have considered what health catastrophe could result from pregnancy-equals-depression legislation.
For one thing, a lot of antidepressants come with a fluoride base. We know that fluoride lowers the IQ of young children. Just imagine what it could do if it got in the door whilst the brain was still forming!
And we know that fluoride causes skeletal fluorosis, then stomps all over our organs. In adults it’s often misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis. The mind boggles at subjecting babies in utero to such a poison.
And fluoride isn’t the only problem.
But the pregnancy-equals-depression scenario sure will sell a lot of pills. And that’s really what counts, isn’t it?
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
Thanks to a drunk driver, Bette Dowdell has had a life-long opportunity to experience a disfunctional endocrine system. By applying her extensive research, she has things all marching in the same direction now, she's doing well and now shares her knowledge with others.
Dowdell has researched health issues–and solutions–for more than thirty years, with a special focus on the endocrine system. When any part of your endocrine system–say your thyroid–goes down, you’re in a heap of trouble. And, to paraphrase, when the endocrine system ain’t happy, ain’t no body part happy. Bette had to walk that road, and she didn’t get much help from doctors. Now she writes a weekly e-zine to share what she learned–and continues to learn, You can get a free subscription at www.TooPoopedToParticipate.com. Don’t drag through life wondering what hit you.
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Comments
Boomer12k
As I began to read this it had THYROID WRITTEN ALL OVER IT. How could a doctor miss it? Well, I had a doctor miss it several times, and so I went to a Chinese Doctor who also is a trained herbalist and Acupuncturist, but is a Medically Trained Doctor who did his residency at the Beijing Hospital. They see every malady under the sun! But even they are not perfect.
My Chinese friend found a cyst on my lower right side. My Western doctor missed it several times. Went back and told her the finding. She said, OK, we'll set up an ultra sound. TO HER CREDIT SHE DID NOT INVALIDATE THE FINDING. When it came back positive, she said she was really impressed with my Chinese Doctor friend!!!!! The doctor with the ultra-sound could not feel the cyst, even with the ultra-sound in his hand. And he was supposed to be "good with thyroids"!
Their technique was the basic down the side of the neck touch method. My Chinese friend did a more thorough examination. He turned me around, gave me some water, had me look up and away to the left and right while swallowing the water. Finds lump on lower right side of the thyroid. Cyst in my case. See the difference?????
Took nine months to get into to do a 5 minute FNA proceedure that my first doctor could have done blind folded with a technician's help. The doctor who did the FNA put the needle......right where I had been putting my thumb all along because that is where I kept feeling the pressure!!!!!!!!!!! Went back to my Chinese friend and told him of the FNA, and....and he interrupts me and tell me they took out 15 cc of pinkish fluid, etc...etc... and the cyst was about as big as my thumb, etc...etc... It was as if he had read the medical report of my procedure.....you getting my drift now??????????????
doctors just are not thorough enough, you have only a ten minute visit to find the problem. I think we deserve more for our 100+ dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!
You notice when I spoke of my Chinese friend I capitalized the word "Doctor"? And when I spoke about the Western doctors I did not? There is a reason for that.....I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also did not capitalize the word doctor in the other paragraph as I was talking about Western doctors. IT WAS NOT A TYPO!!!!!!!!! I MEANT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be well and happy, and ALWAYS GET A SECOND OPINION EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GO TO ANOTHER CITY LIKE I DID!!!!
Steve
Lynnette
I have no respect for doctors either - especially endocrinologists. Mayo doctors used scare tactics on me, saying I had the worst possible thyroid cancer, and oh, BTW, my surgery was scheduled one week away. I had gone in because I had a sub-sternal goiter. Funny thing is, they found no cancer after they took my thyroid.
I spent the next few years severally under-treated. Depressed, suicidal, with more weight gain than all the previous years totaled, I was spacey, disoriented, and always fatigued. But I had "enough" thyroid replacement... 2 grains is NOT enough! I found a way to purchase thyroid overseas, without a prescription. I educated and monitored myself, and slowly increased my dose. I went though 2 alternative doctors who tried to keep me at 2 grains. I found another doctor, and had nothing to lose, so told him up front that I was taking 6.5 grains thyroid to keep my temperature normal and my weight where it was before that surgery. I told him I was taking physiological doses of hydrocortisone to support my greatly fatigued adrenals. He asked me pertinent questions and was satisfied that I was not over medicating. He graduated to Doctor status and I am still with him. Because of my dose, he monitors my bones and all my hormones and keeps me healthy.
Lori
I saw a commercial the other day for some lawyer group looking for moms whose babies were impaired due to the fact that they took certain antidepressants during pregnancy. Stuff like spina bifida, club foot and some others. I also went to a lecture last year by a cardiologist who thinks that all pregnant women should be given statins to prevent high cholesterol in babies. Soooooo...listen to this advice, and then follow the advice for pregnant women outlined in the most recent dietary guidelines, and we're sure to be producing stupid, sick kids (not to mention VERY depressed moms!).
Bette Dowdell
When doctors treated hypothyroidism by symptoms, five grains of natural thyroid was a typical dose. Nowadays, docs worry about overmedicating because of the possibility of osteoporosis. Well, now, there's an oops! Synthroid--and other T4 meds--cause osteoporosis because they lack the calcitonin in natural thyroid. The problem's not the dose, but the med itself.
I'd be interested in your source, Lynnette, if you could e-mail me.
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