Dear Dr Peatfield…

Below is the letter I sent to Dr Peatfield today. Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield is a major guru & living legend over here in the UK. He specialises in Adrenal and Thyroid support. He is the author of “Your Thyroid and How to Keep it Healthy: The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Survive it.” His book has been super-helpful these last 6 years. All my appointments and telephone conversations have been awesome. I base all my metabolic support on his work. He is one of the few Doctors I like and trust. Not many of them about!!!!

Looks like thyroids is my Big thing at the moment.

Dear Dr Peatfield

Hi there, we spoke on the phone about five weeks ago and you asked me to try some Nutri-thyroid at very low dose to see what might happen. I have now tried it and results are as detailed below. I will also add some history, comments and some other investigations in order to make things as clear as possible.

History: Trouble re-started in Feb 2013 after one small, low dose round of mercury chelation under the Cutler protocol. The chelation round was fine, but after five days I became super tired, massively lacking in energy and freezing cold all the time. Obvious thyroid, and possibly adrenal, issues. So I started a temperature graph to see what was happening.

IMG_0436You can see from my temp graph the temps are all low which indicates thyroid troubles. I would also have said ‘possible adrenal problems’ because the temps are not totally stable, but they are not that unstable and I am not totally methodical when it comes to always taking 3 temps a day and averaging them. You can see from the graph that I often only do one or two temps and that I know affects the ‘average daily temp’. But it is equally clear they are always low and a little up and down. As far as I can tell, I definitely have thyroid issues, and I might have adrenal issues.

The temp graph is as per Dr Rind: three temperature readings per day, which are averaged and plotted on the graph. The reason I do this is because every morning I awake to a very furry and gunky mouth and I believe that can affect the temp. I have taken my morning basal temp these last few days and you can see them on the graph. Interesting to see them above my daily average temp!!!

FYG I have been having episodes of mega-hot, mega-sweating during the night. It comes and goes but I occasionally awake at 3am drenched head to foot in sweat. I am not always aware of this and my wife told me the other day that i was mega sweaty one night, but I didn’t wake up and wasn’t aware, so I am not sure if this is every night or not. I don’t think it’s every night. Mornings when I awake I am always feeling ‘warm-and-toasty’. In the day time I generally feel ‘cold’ and always wear extra layers to keep warm.

Before we go on, I have made an important discovery. I have been getting horrible heart palpitations and high blood pressure (BP) issues. The high BP seemed to come and go at odd, different times of the day. It’s been stressing me out. It gets me down.

I generally eat bread in moderation only, trying to have just one meal a day with bread, but 2-3 weeks ago I had bread at breakfast and lunch and I felt TERRIBLE in the evening. So as an experiment I stopped the bread, and from that day onwards it’s made a world of difference: no more heart palpitations, no more raised blood pressure. I feel grounded and secure at last; everything feels stable and level. This is a big deal. Cool news and happy dayz! Note: I do not feel/get digestive issues with the bread. It feels like something deeper than just digestive troubles the bread causes. Note: I am fine with potatoes and fine with brown rice too, (even in large portions.)

I have included my notes that detail my temps, symptoms and comments from day to day. Also included are my blood pressure readings, which as you will see have all calmed hugely down since I stopped eating bread.

Eight weeks ago when I tried the Adrenal Cortex, 1 cap, 50mgs, it was my BP that went crazy, along with the crazy heart palpitations. I am not sure what would happen now, now that the removal of bread from my diet has calmed things down?

And another thing, I am currently reading ‘Stop the Thyroid Madness’ book and it talks about ‘adrenaline surges’ when stating adrenal support. I have never heard of Adrenaline Surges before, but they sound exactly what I had when I took the adrenal cortex recently…and the same as 15 months ago when the adrenal and thyroid support kicked off all the major trouble with my heart. I have included a highlighted page from the book which very well describes what happened to me. Is that what happened to me?

Note of my current major symptoms: greatly lacking in energy, cannot exercise at all, cold and I have burning hot feet. Without shoes the heat dissipates away, but with any shoes and walking around for 30-60 minutes; the heat builds up to unbearable levels. This has been like this for about 7-8 months. It comes and goes. Sometimes very mild, sometimes a real hassle. No idea what it means when my feet are boiling hot, and the rest of my body is cold to the bone. Comical! Is this just one of the joys of thyroid fatigue? Or another problem to figure out?

So…I started on half dose of Nutri thyroid, 70mgs, felt nothing for 4 days but on the fifth day things got better. My notes from the day read:

“Feeling good!!!!!!!!! 7pm BP 129/80 p50, Yes felling better. More stable. Still lacking in energy but defo better. Dreams have returned with a vengeance.”

As the days progressed things remained the same, i.e. a general feeling of a little progress at long last. Importantly no wildness, no raised blood pressure and no heart palpitations.

After nine days I have raise the dose again, to one capsule, 140mgs Nutri-Thyroid. Two days in and no real change. Temps slightly up, but nothing certain yet.

Since I have been on Nutri-Thyroid: very hungry all the time, gained 1-2 KG in much-needed weight. I am now having two bowel movements a day, (instead of one). I occasionally get very low levels of depression, just feeling a little down after all the troubles I have…but feel much more buoyant and happy now I’m on thyroid support. And libido seems to be making a come back! Nice! Always a good sign!!

Other signals and signals:

1) Adrenal test. I did the blood pressure lying down and then standing up thing to test the status of the adrenals: done 11am20th May 2013:
Lying down after 5 minutes: 134/69, pulse 49
Standing up: 146/57, pulse 59
Hooary! I think that means my adrenals are ok????
Please confirm that’s the case.

2) Torch pupil test for the adrenals/aldoeterone: Mildly positive for this test. My pupil did fluctuate back and forth after 1 minute, but I must say it was mild. I have done this test before and on previous occasions the flutter back and forth was strong. On this occasion it was however pretty weak and mild.

3) I started selenium supplementation a couple of months back: noticed no difference.

4) I have added a chart of my current symptoms from ‘Stop The Thyroid Madness’ book.

Note: my current supplements:
Milk Thistle (for liver)
Hawthorn berry (for heart)
Mukta vati (for blood pressure)
Zinc
Magnesium
Calcium
Chromium Vit C
Selenium
Vit D3
1 cap Nutri Thyroid.

Conclusions and summery of questions:
1) Do I have thyroid fatigue?
2) What are my adrenals doing?
3) What’s the burning feet thing?
4) Adrenaline surges? Is that what I had?
5) What to do about these things?
6) I have read that calcium can interfere with the thyroid glandulars. Should I take the calcium at a different time?
7) Supplements? Anything else? B’s?????
8) I swallow the Nutri-Thyroid pills. Should I take them sublingually?
9) How often do I raise the Nutri-Thyroid dose? Every 7-10 days?
10) I guess no upper limit like last time. Just keep gradually raise until temps rise?
11) Should I switch to Armour at some point? Or just go with the Nutri-thyroid for now and see what happens? The reason I ask this is because in my experience both Nutri-thyroid and Armour take a LONG time to gradually raise the dose: 4-9 months each. I need to chelate my mercury out and for that I need strong thyroid support. Last time Armour was required for chelation as the glandular was not strong enough.

That’s probably enough. After I have sent this letter to you I will call and arrange another telephone conversation with you.

Thanks for the help Dr P. You da man!

Best regards
Sunshine

Note: Nutri-thyroid is thyroid glandular. That mean it is crushed up cow thyroid glands. Yummy!