I follow a Dr. Wiggy on Facebook – he is an integrative medicine doctor practicing in Winston Salem, North Carolina. He was originally from Nebraska. He specializes in thyroid/hormone treatment as well. He truly has helped me online with the things he has posted and I just wanted to share a comment he made on his last posting on his Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/DrWiggy
Dr. Wiggy: Thyroid MD
“Chronically ill patients are like peeling back the layers of an onion. It is amazing how many different deficiencies/imbalances they may have.”
I have had my fair share of doctors who do not believe in “peeling back the layers” and getting to the bottom of a problem, but have had many tell me it is all in my head, all my fault, or here’s another pill! Personally I believe any doctor who gets into medicine for any other reason other than a deep desire to heal and find out what is causing a patient’s health issue is a deadly weapon! They are a detriment to a patient’s health and one should proceed with caution or seek another doctors care.
I experienced 12 years of poor treatment for my thyroid disease – 12 years of feeling miserable and being told it was either my fault or all in my head. Many medications were prescribed that did not fix the underlying reason I felt that way and usually made me feel worse. The winter of 2012 I was in to see my healthcare provider for a physical and she began to blame me for a number of things and told me I had no idea what I was talking about in regards to my body and she said my problems were absolutely not hormones, but the weight I had gained. That was the last straw for me and I began to search for another doctor because I knew I was not going to get any help from her with her narrow-minded view of the whole picture. I located a doctor 2 hours drive from my home who specialized in thyroid disease and is an internal medicine doctor – Dr. Jeffery Passer, MD in Omaha, Nebraska. I got in to see him in June of 2012 and he listened to my symptoms and he took a battery of lab tests and assured me he would get to the bottom of my problems. Guess what he found – my thyroid levels were horrible (HORMONES), my female HORMONES were way out of range, I have reverse T3, I had adrenal insufficiency, I was diabetic (caused from not being optimally treated for thyroid disease and the weight I gained because of that), Vitamin D and B12 deficient, and many other lab test results were either high or low. He began to treat me for the thyroid and then we worked on the adrenal insufficiency when my saliva test returned and he was shocked at how low that was – it was just points above the very bottom levels – extremely low! Thyroid and cortisol levels can go hand in hand and finding a doctor who will test for both is key! He also increased my vitamin D intake and I gave myself B12 shots for a month until that came back into normal range. He worked on my female hormone levels and now they are back to normal. My diabetes was worked on and better and he eventually got me on a program called the Better Body System and I lost 68 lbs in 2 months time – best program I have found!! This doctor wanted to “peel back the layers” to get me feeling good again. I can honestly say I am so much better now – I am among the living again and I cannot thank him enough for all he has done to help me regain my health and life.
I went through 3 endocrinology doctors before my present doctor and they seemed to not understand thyroid disease and pretty much blamed me for weight gain and feeling poorly. It was not my fault – hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s disease, of which I have both, causes weight gain if not optimally treated, was well as all the other issues I obtained over that 12 year span. This being their expertise area one has to ask why they would blame the patient and not know that I was not being optimally treated. They are the kind of doctors I call Band-aid doctors or quacks – they scold you, they blame you and sometimes send you home with another pill and keep you coming, but they do nothing to eliminate or control the problem – often times they only “mask” it to get you by until you see them again.
If you are having health issues and you seem to be a mystery to your family provider or a specialist – fire them or find someone else – care enough about yourself and well-being to seek out further help – there are doctors out there that want to “peel back the layers” and get to the bottom of why you are feeling poorly! Why a doctor gets into this field of work if he does not deeply desire to heal his patients – is it greed, status, prestige – if it is for any of those reasons he should be avoided at all costs! It is your health and if they do not care about it then you have to! Seek out someone who does care how you feel and wants to get you better! I do not regret firing my provider – it was the best decision I made and it is empowering! It could be a matter of “Life” or “death!”