Dr Toft Book: Understanding Thyroid Disorders - read it online

[Barbara]

Dr Anthony Toft's book - Understanding Thyroid disorders is now available to read online at http://www.familydoctor.co.uk/onlinebooks/Thyroid.pdf It is also possible to buy it online at http://www.familydoctor.co.uk/index.html   See below for latest links** as well as in bookshops and many chemist shops.  ISBN: 1 903474 19 1

This book has helped many of us to persuade their doctors to increase their thyroid meds to a level where they feel well again.  In particular see page 84:

"Judging the correct dose of thyroxine
Your GP or thyroid specialist will usually prescribe a dose of thyroxine that raises the fT4 and TT4 to the upper part of the normal range and reduces the TSH level in the blood to the lower part of the normal range. Typical results would be a fT4 of 24 pmol/l or TT4 of 140 nmol/l, and a TSH of 0.2 mU/l.

In some patients, a sense of well-being is achieved only when fT4 or TT4 is raised, for example 30 pmol/l or 170 nmol/l, and TSH low or undetectable. In this circumstance, it is essential that the T3 level in the blood is unequivocally normal in order to avoid hyperthyroidism."

Dr Toft also addresses the problem of generic thyroxine on pages 42 to 43:

"Thyroxine is now manufactured in the UK by a variety of companies. This is known as generic thyroxine and, despite rigorous controls, doctors and patients have noticed from blood test results and from symptoms that there may be a variation in tablet strength between different manufacturers. For this reason, it is wise to insist that the same make of thyroxine is dispensed by
the pharmacist when you renew the prescription. If it is not possible to provide the same make, you should consider having a blood test some six to eight weeks after starting the new preparation."

The subject of using T3 is mentioned positively on pages 43 to 44 in the section  "Possible future treatment".

**Update
Sadly it's now only possible to read a small section of the book online and the links above are now out of date too. 

The new links (Thanks Karmacookie for these  ) are:
http://familydoctor.co.uk/understanding-thyroid-disorders.html if you want to buy the book
and
http://213.175.206.48/~familydo/media/upload/Thyroid%20sample.pdf to read a sample chapter.

[Ric]

nice one bArbara just read a lot of it!! LOts of cool nformation...well worth a read

[alison]

Lots of useful information but he says that Armour is not to be recommended.  He seems to believe the old story about Armour ingredeints being unstable and unreliable.

Alison

[HypoChick]

I saw that too,

Im not on armour so it doesnt affect me in that way. I think hes a big jobby thyroid doc and whats good is that he states the TSH levels should be LOWER than mose GPS do, so for those on bog standard treatment its invaluable to show their GPs when they r feeling ill an in the dreaded range.

[Karmacookie]

Yeah I like the bit where he doen't worry too much about TSH being below 1 or even T4 being slightly high.  I've got it highlighted just incase my Doc can;t see it properly!

[Dawn]

yes he's committee of teh BTF so a big noise and I think the chap who came up wiht teh TSH test !! so ahndy for quoting the bits like that but not for armour as it's agaisnt the BTF policy so jsut glue those pages togehter if you wnat your doc to prescirbe. They pick and choose what suits so don't see why we can't 

[JenniferT]

Hi Barbara

Thanks for this link.  Well worth a read.
Hope your feeling OK
Jen x

[Adele]

Thankyou for the link Barbara.

Very informative! im learning more about this all the time and its down to folks like you who help with such useful info!

[FuzzyThyroidBrain]

Dr Anthony Toft's book - Understanding Thyroid disorders is now available to read online at http://www.familydoctor.co.uk/onlinebooks/Thyroid.pdf  It is also possible to buy it online at http://www.familydoctor.co.uk/index.html as well as in bookshops and many chemist shops.  ISBN: 1 903474 19 1

Just a quick heads-up that both those links are giving me a "404 File Not Found" error message

[Karmacookie]

http://familydoctor.co.uk/understanding-thyroid-disorders.html

[Barbara]

Thanks for this Karmacookie, I've now altered my original post to show the new links.

It's a shame about not being able to read most of the the book anymore.  There's only the introduction and a little about hyperthyroidism available now.

[Dawn]

hmm i wonder why !!

[wizzle]

I've been looking at books recently, is this a good one to start with or Dr Peatfields?

[Karmacookie]

Hi wizzle

Dr Tofts book is very basic and we don't agree with every thing he says but he is very well respected in the thyroid world so useful to use when negotiating dose with Docs.  Parts of this are useful too

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=50&storycode=4126143&cid=clinical_1

I haven't read Dr Peatfield's book.  I have heard that it is good but would be useless to quote from when seeing the Doc/Endo as he is a retired GP and practises now as a nutritionalist.

[CC]

Wizzle,

There are some excellent books that I would recommend, Dr Peatfields, Dr Skinners, stop the thyroid madness but these (and many others) are great to gain knowledge but doctors and endocrinologists would poo poo them unfortunately.