Hi Dr.Dave,
My name is J and I was recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I was hospitalized in December for thyrotoxic crisis and was therefore started on PTU. I have tried unsuccessfully to wean myself of this medication and was told by my endocrinologist that my only option now is to undergo radioactive iodine therapy. I am very worried about the procedure as well as the possible unwanted side effects. Is this a safe procedure and is it my only option or can you recommend an effective alternative. Please help!!!!
Sincerely,
J
Hi, J, I can't give you medical advice over the internet but let me tell you what I can. I treated many people with thyrotoxic crisis in my day and there are of course 2 different approaches. In Europe they keep people on drugs sometimes for life, never using radiation. If you read the side effects of the drugs like PTU and tapazole there are some really scary ones. Then again, there are few drugs that don't have scary side effects.
In America we use radioactive iodine to zap the thyroid. The main side effect is hypothyroidism, which is not a picnic but can be much easier to control and is far less dangerous. Generally it is not hard to restore the thyroid values back to normal with a simple one a day medication that most doctors are comfortable with.
Letting the toxic thyroid go is a crapshoot. It can certainly kill you and if it does not, it’s likely you'll wind up hypothyroid anyway. I nursed many a patient through the thyroid radiation and restoration of normal thyroid levels without any serious troubles.
I also had some people on drugs for very long periods of time and did fine there as well, but it always made me nervous.
I don't know of any supplements that calm the toxic thyroid.
I hope this helps,
Doc
Dr. Dave,
I had a Dr. tell us in a class the other day that cod liver oil and fish oil were very full of free radicals and we were crazy to take them. I have been taking them ever since I talked to you about a year and a half ago and feel great taking them and it completely got rid of a cough I had had for 9 months! But when another Dr. tells you something very contrary it makes you wonder how two Dr.'s can come up with such opposite information.
Thanks
Torey T
Hi, Torey, there are no free radicals in fish oil. As far as pollutants, cod is loaded and fish can be if they are not purified.
Right now in Britain they are pulling fish oil off the shelves left and right because of a pollutant called dioxin.
This is what happens when you use a cheap, unpurified brand that is not tested.
Our fish oil as you know is super clean.
I would have two questions for your doctor friend:
1) How many patients have you treated with anything, let alone fish oil?
I have to admit I am a bit tired of people being labeled as national experts on fish oil when they have never been able to actively take care of one single patient themselves without the supervision of a doctor.
There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.
2) Where did you get your info? If you check on the national library of medicine and type in "fish oil", you and anyone else can find thousands of references to fish oil improving health. If the comment about free radicals were true, why is there so much positive info?
Why are there provisional recommendations for fish oil from the American Cancer society and the American heart Association?
I think your doctor needs to go back to school or back into the ice age!
I would stay on the fish oil, Torey, it sounds like you are doing great on it and your body doesn't lie!
Best, Dr Dave
Hey, Doc, I had a wild and crazy experience with Super Omega 3 I just had to tell you about.
I was minding my own business a week or so ago and all of a sudden I started getting bad pain on the ride side of my belly.
I thought it was some fish I ate so I took some antacids and tried to go to sleep. I tossed and turned most of the night and didn't feel well at all. By morning I knew this was serious and I remembered my little daughter had appendicitis when she was 3 and it was just like this.
So I went to the hospital and they immediately sent me up to surgery after the doctor examined me. No x-rays no nothing, just some blood tests and a medical history.
Five hours later I am laying in a recovery room without my appendix and with a couple of little scars. They gave me some narcotic by vein and it made me nauseated and goofy.
They let me go the next day and sent me of with a prescription for more narcotics.
I decided against that. I had some Tylenol at home but I had also been using your Super Omega 3 after workouts to decrease the soreness.
I had discussed using it with my doctor and he said the way they did the procedure I didn't have to worry about bleeding and yes I could take it. I read your really good blogs on supplements and surgery so I wanted to be sure.
Anyway, the surgeon said it was fine, so I took the little garlic gel caps out of the packets and used the big fish oil caps and the yellow capsules. I took 2 packs at once two times a day.
Doc, I swear I was astounded that this was the most effective pain killer I had.
I had almost no pain on it and if I missed a dose I hurt pretty bad.
You make an amazing product and I just wanted to thank you because I couldn't stand the narcotics and Tylenol; just doesn't work for me.
From now on I am going to use Super Omega 3 everyday instead of just after workouts.
You rock Doc!
Jason S.
Jason, I must say you are a pioneer. I would never have thought of using Super Omega 3 for post op pain, although it makes perfect sense.
They often use a drug class called NSAIDS of which Toradol is the most popular for postoperative pain management.
Toradol is in the same class of the recently banned drugs, Vioxx and Bextra.
If it is safe to use Toradol it is certainly safe to use Fish oil based compounds like Super Omega 3 since they have the same pain killing benefits without the risk of kidney failure, liver failure and bleeding stomach ulcers.
Toradol can only be used a few days after surgery and then it must be stopped.
As always you need to ask your doctor just like you did because it may not be safe to use supplements after some surgeries.
It sounds like you had what we call a lap api (Laparoscopic appendectomy) and the risk or bleeding is very low with that procedure and the tools they use like ultrasonic scalpels and stitching instead of staples seal the wounds very tightly.
I cannot recommend Super Omega 3 as a post op pain management unless you talk to your Doc, but it sounds like you did everything right and got a great result.
I would love to write this one up for the medical journals under the title "Super Supplement controls post op pain".
Hmmm, maybe our favorite journal JAMA would print it.
Whatddya think?
Well I hope everyone found an egg.
I am off to chef our Easter dinner, a nice lean piece of Filet, spinach salad with pine nuts and goat cheese and my favorite, broccoli followed by a slug of fish oil and Boost Immune or maybe based on what Jason said, I'll switch to Super Omega 3 for the day.
Have a fantastic Day!
Doc
Supplements mentioned in this blog:
Super Omega 3 - Immune Boost - fish oil
No comments:
Post a Comment