Underactive Thyroid & Diabetes

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

I have hypothyroidism, and have had it since 1989. I didn’t know why I was gaining weight and didn’t have any energy. The Doctor’s finally figured it out, and now I take Armor Thyroid every day. Most people take Synthroid, but it didn’t work for me very well. (Natural stuff seems to work better for me.)

Nearly 11 million people in the United States have a hypo-active thyroid. a hypo-active thyroid is called Hypothyroidism and is directly linked to low energy levels, high cholesterol, weight gain and obesity, which leads to diabetes? If you think that you may have Hypothyroidism, sometimes called an under-active thyroid, you might want to try taking some ThyPro. ThyPro is running a free trial if you want to try some to see if it perks you up any.

Tags: Diabetes, Free Trial, Underactive Thyroid
Posted in Other Medications | No Comments »

Low Testosterone and Diabetes: Increasing Testosterone Helps

Monday, September 14th, 2009

About 15 years ago, an Endocrinologist I was going to in Portland, Oregon told me that over 80% of his male, type1, diabetic patients required testosterone for their systems to work correctly. He said that Testosterone, along with thyroid, where two things that tended to go hand in hand with type1 diabetes.

I had my testosterone checked, and it was so low it was off the scale, so he started me on testosterone injections. It’s not a lot of fun to give yourself a testosterone shot, since the needle is 1.5 inches long and about as big around as a finishing nail. The needle needs to be big, because testosterone cypionate is oil based, and the needle needs to be pretty big for it to get through.

So, for the past 15 years or so, I’ve given myself testosterone shots twice a week in the arm. I use the right arm on Monday and the left arm on Friday. I’m only supposed to take it every 2 weeks, but then it’s hard to stay normal; you go real high because of the initial dose size, then you drop like a rock and have to wait for the next dose to feel like a man again. What I do is break the dosage into 4 equal amounts and then give myself one every 3.5 days. For those of you who don’t know how to give a testosterone shot in the arm, just aim for the big meaty section below your shoulder, shut your eyes and go…

The one thing i noticed as soon as I started to take testosterone was that my gastroparesis went way down. Instead of food sitting in my stomach for 12 hours, it started to move along in just a couple, and once I added Raglan to the mix, my stomach was almost back to normal. The other thing I noticed, was weight gain. Other diabetics lost weight when they started taking testosterone, but I started to gain, and over the years have put on 85lbs, with 40 of it coming in 1 month after my son was born in 2000.

So, come to find out, when you take testosterone, some people’s bodies use it to make just as much, or more, estrogen as testosterone. So, instead of stripping fat from your belly and thighs, it packs fat on and turns you into an old woman. And, the testosterone leaves your body faster than the estrogen does, which just makes it that much worse.

But, don’t despair, I found out that if you take Arimidex, which is an estrogen blocker that they give women who have had breast cancer, then after a couple of months, the weight starts coming right off and stays off. So, if you are going to take testosterone, have your estrogen levels checked and make sure your doctor gives you Arimidex (anastrozole).

Tags: increasing testosterone, testosterone and diabetes, type1 diabetes
Posted in Other Medications | No Comments »