← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
551. Why the FDA's NDT Ban is Just the Beginning: a Fight for Medical Freedom
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Dr. Amy
Welcome to the thyroid fixer podcast, where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones, especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism, I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town. Then you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. You have questions about your thyroid, about your labs, what they mean. What about your hormones? What about insulin? What. Why are you gaining weight? Why are you so tired? Why are you losing your hair? Why won't my doctor listen to me? Why won't my doctor test these things? All of these questions that you have running around in your brain and you know that if you just had the answers that that could push you over the edge into optimal health, that you could be that badass human that you are meant to be. Well, I got you covered there because I am going live every single week in the just fix your thyroid Facebook group. That is my Facebook group. A beautiful community just filled with amazing people where I am in there, my nurse practitioners are in there. My health coaches are in there. There are patients in there that have been with me for so long, they're experts in their own right, and they answer just the way that I would. So we have you completely covered in this group. So not only can you post your question every single day, every single hour, if you want, you can mark your calendars for our weekly live Q and A sessions where you get to ask your question to me, and I'm going to answer it live on air. And not only that, we are doing product giveaways. We're doing working with our team giveaways. You're going to want to be in there and actually be live on that call. If you're at work, go into the closet, Just shut the door. Take minutes for yourself, Take a half an hour for yourself, Take an hour for yourself so that you can get the information that you need to bring yourself into optimization land, where you're not looking sideways at a brownie and gaining weight at the same time, where you can feel amazing every single day. Because that's my goal for you. You know that I love, love, love to answer your questions, and this is the place where you can get them answered live. Are you absolutely frustrated with working with doctors that keep telling you that you're normal and everything is fine, or are you frustrated with going the functional medicine or integrative medicine route and you're still not getting optimized? Maybe because they're focusing on other things other than the thyroid and hormones or they're not a thyroid and hormone expert. Listen, just because you go to a functional medicine practitioner, it does not mean they know what they're doing with your thyroid and with your hormones. They might tell you they do, but the reality is, if you claim to be good at everything, you're really good at nothing. That is why we focus on thyroid and hormones now. Yes. What else is involved in thyroid and hormones? You got insulin, you got your adrenals, you got cortisol. Of course the gut is important. Of course it is nutrient deficiencies, all the things. But we look at all of that and the bottom line is you could do all the gut healing protocols, detoxes, adrenal fairy dust sprinkling that you want to do. And if your thyroid is in the toilet, if you're not being treated properly, if your free T3 is low, if your reverse T3 is high, if your hormones are in the tank, then it doesn't matter. You're going to be wasting your time, you're going to be wasting money, you're going to be throwing a bunch of supplements at it, just getting more and more frustrated and getting supplement fatigue. You need to work with people that will hold your hand, actually care about you, ask you how you're feeling, not have a cap on any kind of dosing. Oh, that drives me crazy, too. All those docs out there that say, well, you can't go above XYZ dose of T3, that it's complete BS. Do. Do not listen to them. Or doctors that tell you that hormones cause cancer. No, no, do not listen. We can get you to optimization land where you feel amazing, where you're not gaining weight, looking sideways at a brownie, where you have consistent energy through the day, your hair is not falling out, and yes, you actually poop and detox every single day. That is a win. So you're going to want to book a call with my team. And this is Totally free. And this is where we go over. Hey, what have you tried? What has worked, what hasn't worked, where are you at on the frustration spectrum and here's how we can help. And we are going to tailor a program for you and your needs to get you to Optimization Land because I always talk about it. It's a beautiful place to live and I invite you all to join me there. Because in Optimization Land you are confident and strong. You want to go out, your brain works, you have energy, you have motiv and you feel so good every time you get dressed. Oh, and you have a libido. It's a beautiful place to live. So I'm going to invite you to click the link below. We always put it in the show notes how to work with us. So you're going to book a free call, no obligation. We're just going to go over everything with you and at least you'll have some guidelines and know what your next steps should be if you really want to get optimized. We got you. We've been doing this long enough. You're not a tough case, I always say that. But it is time to put you first. Because like I say, we only have so much time on this planet. Let's live it in Optimization Land because you deserve to be the badass human that you're meant to be. So I look forward to seeing you in one of our programs so we can help you level up and bring you into Optimization Land. In lieu of the FDA releasing a statement on August 6, 2025, depending on when you're listening to this, regarding the safety of natural desiccated thyroid products or ADT or animal derived thyroid products including but not limited to armor Thyroid, NP Thyroid, WP Thyroid compounded T4 and T3 medications using a porcine derived thyroid glandular or supplements that contain a porcine or bovine derived thyroid glandular like that that is in my thyroid glandular by the fixer and many other supplements just like that. Basically the FDA is announcing that manufacturers, patients, doctors have 12 months to transition you over from these NDT products that might be working just fine to keep you optimized into the synthetics or the biosynth. Now we're going to break that down today of Synthroid or Levothyroxine and or Cytomel or Leothy. So basically a transition has to be made for you to move from your natural desiccated thyroid products over to T4 and T3 separated out in the levo or the LIO forms. Now what I want to do today is give you a few things to really think about. Number one, the precedent that this could set for other medications such as bioidentical hormones or bhrt. And then I also want to go into a little bit of the history of thyroid medications so that we can better understand it and possibly wrap our minds around the motive of the FDA to do this. Exactly. Now, whenever it comes to our government and their motives, one might not ever know what the true motive is behind any of their actions. But what I do know is that whenever the federal government, and this comes directly from many people I know that work for the federal government, whenever the federal government actually puts out a statement and says that they are doing something for the greater good, or especially for, let's say, your health, you have to let some bells go off in your head, maybe ringing a warning signal that there's something else underlying this. There's just something else going on because the federal government never does anything that would cost them money in order to preserve your health. Let's just face it, shall we? Now, let's actually first review the letter so that we can better understand exactly what, what it's saying and then we can dissect it. We'll go into the history and then of course, the precedent this is setting because it could extend into the removal of medications that work for you, like bioidentical hormones. If we look at the FDA's letter that they released to healthcare providers, patients, and of course, manufacturers, and we break this down. So let's break down the most important parts of this here. So first they go into hypothyroidism, what it is. Millions of Americans take thyroid hormone replacement medication to treat hypothyroidism. We obviously know that millions are also undiagnosed. So they don't even have an accurate number of those people diagnosed with hypothyroidism. But there are many out there that are still undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. And they say that currently there are two types of thyroid hormone replacement medications on the market, available only by prescription. The most commonly used type of therapy is synthetic or laboratory made medications containing only levothyroxine or lyothyronine or a combination of the two. Now, quite frankly, I do not know of any synthetic medication that combines those two. So that's odd that they actually have that in there. An estimated 22 million patients receive prescriptions for Levo dispensed by US outpatient retail pharmacies in 2024. Now, the reason this number is so high is because as we know, the standard of care in conventional medicine is T4 only or T4 monotherapy. I, I joke all the time that doctors are taught. Conventional medicine is taught that you test TSH. If TSH is above a 4.5, you give that patient T4, you pat them on the back, you shove them out your door, you say, good luck, we're going to see in six months, and that's when we'll retest you. Meanwhile, you're still suffering with weight gain and hair loss and constipation and brain fog and the like, but they don't care. T4 is standard of care. In fact, they don't even care, or might not even diagnose you if your TSH is less than 4.5, but you still have all of the hypothyroid symptoms because they're not looking beyond that tsh, which in and of itself is a, a disastrous consequence to many hypothyroid patients. Thus more being misdiagnosed and told that they're fine, everything is normal. But that's not the point of this podcast. We mentioned that enough, don't we? So, moving on, they're estimating 22 million patients receiving prescriptions for T4 only. That, that's not hard to believe. Again, because conventional medicine is so boxed into the Synthroid box or the T4 only box as standard of care. I know this even from my experience. I've spoken about my own personal journey and how I literally handed Dr. Google papers from my gateway computer way back then to the one doctor out of seven that actually got the diagnosis right, who then put me on T4, which did not work for five months. I took it for five months. There was zero change in symptoms. Zero. And I went back to her and I said, you know, there's this other thyroid hormone called T3. Why don't we add that in? And she said, I don't do that. That's not standard of care. Now, based on the thousands and thousands of patients that we have treated in our clinical practice, our telehealth clinical practice, yeah, that is standard of care. And I would say that the majority. Well, there is a stat that I often throw out. 2% do well on. I use air quotes. Do well on T4 only. 98% need T4 and T3. Now, of that 2% that do well on T4 only, I would argue in practice or in my clinic, in our clinic, where we see thousands of patients because we prescribe to all 50 states and parts of Canada, do You know how many patients come through our door? Do you know how many people that we have optimized with their thyroid? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Of that, I can honestly and accurately say that 0% do well on T4 only. That's why they're coming to us to get out of the conventional medicine standard of care system of T4 monotherapy. That doesn't work. 0% do well on T4 only. 98% need T4 and T3. Now, all of these stats and everything that we're talking about, I'm setting you up for knowledge. When we go into the history, it's really going to make you think like, okay, I'm following this money trail. What's going on? All right, let's keep going with the FDA's letter. These medications have been FDA approved for decades and are marketed as branded and generic medications containing levothyroxine sodium or lyothy sodium. FDA approved. Now, it's important to note that the FDA approval process takes years. This is not a fast process, two, three, five years to become FDA approved as a drug manufacturer. Important to note that. We'll come back to that. So the second type of therapy available only by prescription is animal derived thyroid medication, sometimes called desiccated thyroid extract or dte. We also call it NDT or natural desiccated thyroid. These medications are marketed as armor thyroid and B Thyroid. They have nature throid in here, but we know nature throid was pulled and natural thyroid, among other names. These medications are produced from dried ground animal thyroid glands, usually porcine, from a pig. Animal derived thyroid medications are not FDA approved yet. An estimated 1.5 million patients receive prescriptions for these medications from US outpatient retail pharmacies in 2024. So they are not including the compounded T4 and T3 medications that millions also receive. So we are estimating between 1.5 and 4 million Americans are on natural desiccated thyroid medication. Now, okay, when you Compare it to 22 million receiving prescriptions for Levo. Yeah, there's a difference in those numbers. However, 4 million people or more, if we're underestimating here, are going to suffer if we pull their medication that is working to give them quality of life and to optimize their thyroid. Let's keep going. Due to their complex biological origin, these medications contain many compounds that are uncharacterized for safety and effectiveness. Now let's see here. Complex biological origin. So this is the section of this letter that gives me pause, that tells me that if this goes through and we're going to keep going with this. But if this goes through, what's next? Is it going to be bioidentical progesterone, bioidentical estradiol, bioidentical testosterone? Are compounding pharmacies going to be shut down and banned from making your bioidentical hormone replacement therapy in a compounded form? Are we going to be forced to use things like birth control or synthetic hormones because they want us to move over to the synthetics here with thyroid medication? Do we want to move over to the synthetic hormones as well? Now, it is important to stop and take note here. I want to clarify. By no way, shape or form do I feel that the synthetic thyroid medications like Levo and Lyo are a problem. They're not. In fact, I've often referred to them as biosynth, like bioidentical, yet synthetic and manufactured in a lab biosynth. Because they are, even though they are manufactured, they are bioidentical to what our thyroid gland produces. They're really damn close, let's say. And I know with many of our patients, including myself, we do really well on these proper combinations of biosynth. In fact, when we're looking at natural desiccated thyroid, I would say the majority of my patients do a little bit better on the biosynth than the NDT for a variety of factors, including the fact that natural desiccated thyroid medication is roughly 80% T4 and 20% T3. As we've already discussed, T4 is the inactive thyroid hormone and it has to convert and become T3, the active thyroid hormone. That process is a rigorous process in the body. Many people have issues converting. Many people have issues with elevated reverse T3. So while they may be doing well on NDT, we often add T3 to that mix, lonine to that mix, to even just change that 80:20 ratio to give them a little bit more of the active thyroid hormone and keep the inactive thyroid hormone low so as not to increase the reverse T3.3. But the most important thing here is options and personalization. I have always said that my favorite thyroid medication is the one that works for you in the combination that works for you, in the dose that works for you. And if we limit your choices and your options to two, meaning Levo or Lio, and they have various forms and brand names kind of stretching out, expanding from, from the base. But the base is T4 and T3 separated out. You deserve options. You deserve the medical freedom to have options. And when we, when we get into the Historical perspective, it's kind of going to blow your mind a little bit. So the FDA is concerned with these unapproved. I'm using air quotes here. Unapproved thyroid medications is that, number one, tablets made from the same manufacturing batches may not always provide the same thyroid hormone levels. Inconsistent doses have serious consequences for patients. Too much medication can cause unwanted side effects, and too little could not be effective. Now, I agree with that statement. However. However, yes, there might be slight variances from one tablet or one lot to the other, but these are often rigorously tested. And just like any recall on your car, on your food, on your Tylenol, or even most recently, on your Levothyroxine, that's supposed to be the holy frickin grail. Also recalled. Things happen. Things happen in the manufacturing process. And that's why we catch it, we recall it, and we change it. The struggle is real when it comes to losing weight. Listen, I know because I've been there. You're trying all the things. You're doing the diet, you're tracking your macros, you're getting to the gym, you're going to Pilates, you're doing all the things, but it's not working. It's not working. And this is independent of a thyroid problem. Maybe you have a thyroid problem. Maybe you have low hormones, or maybe you don't and you're just like, I just have a really crappy metabolism that I am putting on weight or I can't lose weight no matter what I do. Then you need some help. But what you don't need is a stimulant fat burner of the old days where you literally thought you were having a heart attack. You need something that is actually going to work to increase your metabolism without jacking up your heart rate. Enter Thyroid Fixer. Yes, I know it's called Thyroid Fixer, but I named it after myself and the brand, because it's my baby. It's my child. And it's a product that I have been studying for 15 years and using it on patients for 15 years before I brought it to you. Thyroid fixer contains T2. And what this does, I call it the forgotten thyroid hormone. No, there's no tests for T2, but your body does produce T2 in small amounts. T2 will increase your basal metabolic rate, literally the amount of fat that you're burning at rest. It's also browning white adipose tissue. So this is why you jump into cold plunges. Or maybe you're like, I don't want to jump in A cold plunge to brown your white adipose tissue, that helps with insulin resistance, it helps with metabolism, it helps with inflammation, helps with overall health. So that's a good thing as well. And here's the other thing with T2, it's not going to affect your thyroid. So many of you know, if you take T3, if we give you T3 or if you abuse T3 when you're not supposed to, it will have a feedback loop, a negative feedback loop on your thyroid and you're going to either look like you're hyperthyroid or you're going to shut down your own Thyroid Production. T2 doesn't do that. It's working at the cell level to just simply increase your metabolism. That's a win all the way around because now you're going to burn fat, now you're going to lose those extra LBs. And that's ultimately what we want. It also bonus helps with ATP production at the mitochondrial level. This means steady energy through the day. No highs, no lows, no caffeinated red bull spikes, just really nice steady energy through the day to keep you going. So you want to add in thyroid fixer and just literally watch your body change over the next couple months. Because listen, I mean it's, it's time, well, it's time all year long. I mean there's no good time of year to lose body fat. We want to be in shape, we want to look, feel and perform our best. Add in thyroid fixer and your body will absolutely thank you and then you'll come back and you'll thank me. Now, quite frankly, in my practice, seeing thousands, if not tens of thousands of patients, all of us, everyone in my practice, my nurse practitioners and the like, I have never seen a patient end up in the hospital in cardiac arrest from taking too much armor or from that armor containing 10 times the amount of T3 and giving them heart palpitations. If the ratios are off slightly, maybe they're getting a little bit more T3. Oh, we even have reports saying, hey, I feel really good all of a sudden, what's this batch? But we've never, I have personally never. And maybe you're a practitioner out there listening to this and go, oh, well I have, I have never seen a person go hyperthyroid if they are being treated properly by a practitioner that knows what they're doing with the thyroid. If they're being treated properly. It's very, very rare, if it's not actually non existent, that these people will go into a serious consequence situation and go into Hyperthyroidism now, too little cannot be effective. Okay, yeah, absolutely. We want to be aware of that. But again, it's about choices. So if we currently have someone, or let's say you're listening to this and you are this person that's on natural desiccated thyroid medication, you're on armor. And you know, all of a sudden a batch comes out, you're like, hey, wait a minute, what's. I don't know what's happening. Whether it's me or my medication. I'm feeling a little bit hypo all of a sudden. Well, that did happen back in 2008, and it happened to me. I was on armor prior to moving to T3 only and discovering that I am T3 only. And it was like this. This process that armor was working a little bit, and then all of a sudden it wasn't. And then there was a shortage slash recall. That can happen. And once again, you catch it. You be aware of your body, you talk to your practitioner about it. Maybe you change laws, maybe you get armor from a different pharmacy, or we add in T3 until we figure out exactly what's going on with that particular medication. But I'm going to tell you, this can even happen with the generic T4 and T3. I've talked about this before. Your T4, your levothyroxine. There are a boatload of different generic manufacturers of Levo. There are a boatload of different generic manufacturers of Lio or T3. And if you even change the generic manufacturer, let's say your pharmacy can no longer get T3 from Sigma Pharm. So they change you over to Sun Pharmaceuticals, and you're like, whoa, wait a minute. All of a sudden I'm either a little bit too amped up or I'm a little bit too low. It can be the difference in the generic. And the generics are supposedly FDA approved. You're going to have these variations, these snafus in medication here and there. But if they are caught, we can adjust. And I would love to know the statistics or the cases from the FDA of people who have died from natural desiccated thyroid medication. Has anyone died? Has anyone gone into cardiac arrest? Has anyone needed, like, a pacemaker? Has anyone lost all of their bones to where they're just, like, walking down the street and breaking in two? Now, we know that that's not even. It's not even a thing. T3 does not cause osteoporosis. Right. Increasing a dose of NDT does not cause osteoporosis. And afib. But this is what they're scared of. So I'm just, I'm playing into their, into their fears and I'm countering their fears with zero cases. So the FDA sent letters to manufacturers, porters and distributors of marketed unapproved animal derived thyroid medications on August 6, 2025. This letter notified them of the agency's intent to take action against unapproved animal derived thyroid medication. Now they say doctors will be able to work with their patients to safely transition them to an FDA approved thyroid medication. Okay. Manufacturers, importers and distributors of unapproved animal derived thyroid medications may be subject to compliance action if they commercially distribute their unapproved products. Additionally, these unapproved animal derived thyroid medications are not eligible for compounding because these products are registered as biological products under the Public Health Service Act. So that means, that means that your compounded T4 and T3 are gone bye bye as well. So currently biologics or biological products cannot be compounded. They are not eligible for the exemptions for compounded drugs under sections 503 A and 503 B of the FD and C Act. Federal law does not provide a legal pathway for marketing biologics that have been prepared outside the scope of an approved biologic license application. So again, that biologic term, that's where it gets a little bit scary because what are they going to do? How are they going to classify are bioidentical hormones? If they're classifying compounded T4 and T3 from animal derived thyroid glands, what are they going to do next? And that's, that's really the message that I want you to consider because you might be listening to this and saying, I'm not on ndt. It doesn't affect me. Yes, it does. Yes it does. I mean, you're probably not listening to this if you're one of those people that are never going to take care of themselves. They don't want to be on hormones. They're just gonna. Or you are just going to age and not care about supplementation or nutrient deficiencies or hormones protecting you from cancer and Alzheimer's and osteoporosis and all the things. You're not even listening to this podcast. So I'm not talking to you. Who I'm talking to are my health warriors out there that really actually give a about how they feel and that they don't want to age gracefully. They want to age like a badass, including hormones and bioidentical hormone therapy. Now let me take it one step further. Maybe there's a medication that's working for you, let's say for your migraines, or let's say there's a medication working for you for your, oh, I don't know, your depression, even though most antidepressants are band aids. Let's say you fall into that category that you really do have a clinical imbalance in your brain and you finally found one that gave you quality of life. And then the FDA comes along and goes, yeah, sorry, you're going to have to transition off of that and go back to one of the other ones that you probably already tried that didn't work. Your quality of life is going in the toilet. In the toilet. So yes, this does matter to you. This does extend beyond NDT medications. I mean, come on, we cannot be that blind in the last five years to notice and recognize that medications that work are being withheld from consumers being able to utilize it. Treatments that work that are of low expense to the pharmaceutical industry are being held while other more extensive, more expensive, more side effect profile based medications are being pushed. Or treatments that just flat out don't even work are being pushed. But we won't go there. We'll stay on the thyroid. So let's go into some history, shall we? Did you know that NDT was actually. It's the OG. It's the OG thyroid medication. In the late 1800s, desiccated thyroid extract, or NDT was introduced as the first effective therapy for myxedema and hypothyroidism. So mixedema is that moon phase that's swelling of your face. Oh goodness. I had that when I was being tossed around and misdiagnosed. And on T4 only that didn't work. That nice round fat moon face myxedema. And this can also occur in the arms. You know, when you have that like thickness occurring, it's like, oh, it's not fat. It's just this thick skin edema under the skin. So they initially were drying out sheep thyroid glands and they moved to pigs and sources like armor. Thyroid came about in the 1930s. NDT delivered both T4 and T3 in proportions closer to the body's natural secretion. Through 1965, roughly 80% of thyroid prescriptions in the United States were NDT. 80%. Reflecting both physician and patient reliance on its full spectrum hormone profile. Meaning you got some T3 in there. 80%. And then synthetic T4 arrives, but it doesn't immediately win. So in the 1920s, T4 was successfully synthesized, but without modern lab tools. So dosing was blind. It was crude. NDT remained dominant because patients felt better, they felt better, patients felt better, and physicians were really working with their patients at the time, dosing it on how they felt. Then the T4 monotherapy era begins. 1970s radio immune assays for TSH, meaning testing for TSH T3 and T4 finally emerged where doctors could monitor levels. But then many functional practitioners like myself argue, hey, number one, you're all saying that this peripheral conversion of T4 to the active T3 happens really easily in the tissues, but we know it's often impaired. We know stress, illness, inflammation, diode polymorphisms, elevated cortisol, elevated insulin, estrogen dominance, iodine deficiency, magnesium deficiency, selenium deficiency will all impair that T4 to T3 conversion that conventional medicine thinks occurs so beautifully and so naturally and so easily. NDT actually was providing benefits to patients who didn't effectively convert T4 to T3. Now we do have T3 that we can add in now as well. But again, it's all all about choice. So then the NIH endorsed this T4 monotherapy. But functional medicine sees this as an oversimplified one size fits all approach that ignored downstream conversion issues in individual physiology. You as an individual person needing what you as that individual person needs. Again, the best thyroid medication is the one that works for you in the combination that works for you in the dose that works for you. So now you're wondering, well, what about reverse E3? When did we figure that out as a test? That came about in 1977. Verse T3 came about 1977. However, widespread commercial availability lagged. So RT3 testing remained kind of confined to the research labs. It really wasn't until 1995 that a study evaluated Vers T3 in hospital settings. Now they termed it unreliable for distinguishing between you thyroid and six patients. This is what I always say. And this is why mainstream endocrine circles largely dismiss it. If we test a sick patient in the ICU or the er, illness, injury, whatever it will be sepsis, fighting for their life. Guess what? Reverse T3 is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful hormone in our body that will go up in those times of disease, illness, tragedy, trauma, injury, to say, you know what, at this point in time, the body needs to shuttle its resources to healing this person. They don't need to burn fat, they don't need to grow their hair. They don't need to make major decisions. The body needs to shuttle resources to protect this person. Now if a person is walking around healthy for the most Part trying to live life. They're not battling a, an injury. They're not cut wide open from a car accident lying in the ICU. And reverse T3 is high. That's when we pay attention and we say what's happening? That this person is in survival mode when they're not in the hospital. Okay, so a 2025 retrospective study of nearly 1,000 patients showed reverse T3 levels high and they showed the highest reverse T3 levels in those on T4 monotherapy and much lower in those on ready for it, NDT or T3 containing combinations. I'm going to read that again to you because I want it to sink in. A 2025 retrospective study of nearly 1,000 patients showed the highest reverse T3 levels. It was actually 20.9% in those on T4 monotherapy and much lower reverse T3 levels in those on NDT or T3 containing combinations. We need reverse T3 and we need NDT so that people don't have to walk around with elevator reverse T3 in a human dormancy syndrome mode. Elevator reverse T3 has also been called human dormancy syndrome, meaning your body is in a hibernation state like that of a bear. Now, if we keep going with T3, that history, 1952 was the discovery that triodothyronine T3 is the most biologically active thyroid hormone. In 1956, lyothyrenine sodium with the brand name Cytomel introduced in the US market in 1950s and onward, T3 was available both as monotherapy and in combination tablets. There was Liotrex at one point of time that is no longer available that apparently contained T4 and T3 in the synthetic forms. So if we look at the history, we have NDT medication first actually followed by T4,4 and T3 separated out, but very, very close together. The last stat I heard was that T3 came first, then T4. But nonetheless, these synthetic forms of T4 and T3 became widely available and many people were using T3 as well. I don't know exactly when the shift occurred to the the medical schools, MDs, DOs, learning that that's all you have to do is test tsh. And if TSH is above the reference range limit, which has changed throughout the, then we give T4 only and wish that patient good luck. Now, again, we have to look at clinical practice just to conclude this discussion. Clinical practice, what's occurring and then what is actually happening in the human population with what we are seeing, how people are feeling and what this ban could mean for you and then also what you can do about it. So in clinical practice, I know myself and my colleagues that obviously since this has come out, we've been discussing this ad nauseam and we've been comparing notes as to what we use in practice. And most of us use what works for that unique individual patient. And we want those choices and those options available. I've heard many stories of actual practitioners stating that they don't have a thyroid and armor thyroid is the only thing that worked for them. I have colleagues where armor thyroid is the only thing that worked for them. We need those options. So those people, yourself included, who may be optimized on NDT or a combination of NDT and T3 can stay well, can keep your quality of life. The reality is that if we change you over From Armor or NP Thyroid to T4 and T3, you may or may not do well. I don't know, because everyone is so unique and so individual. We'll try if we're forced to, if our hands are forced, we will try to optimize you. But it's going to be a rough road and you shouldn't have to suffer. Now, one step further, as I've already mentioned, this sets a precedent. Yes. For the FDA to continue to ban medications and dictate exactly what you take. There is a huge problem between synthetic hormones, as in progesterone, estrogen, testosterone and bioidentical hormones. Like I already stated, there's not that much of a difference between the biosynth. I mean, there's a difference in how it affects you, but there's not a difference in health consequences. T4 and T3 are completely safe. We get optimized. I'm on T3 only. We have patients optimized on T3 and a little bit of T4 all day long. We don't have anybody on T4 only because that doesn't work. But we do have patients optimized on T4 and T3 in whatever combination and whatever dose that looks like it could be a little baby dose of T4 and a more macro dose of T3. It could be 50, 50. It could be 60, 40. But we do have patients optimized on that. What we don't use in practice is synthetic forms of hormones. We don't use progestins, we don't use birth control. We don't use equine estrogens. We use bioidentical hormones. What if those are taken away? What if those are taken away? And I'll take this one step further. Because this is happening with this FDA band is that they're coming after supplements as well. So glandulars. Now, in my fixer line, I do have thyroid glandular by the Fixer. I have another podcast that you can dig for. If you just go into Apple podcasts or Spotify and you search at the top the thyroid Fixer and you put in Glandulars, you're going to hear my podcast on thyroid glandulars. Comparing literally the bovine thyroid glandular supplements to the porine thyroid glandular medications. They're very, very similar. Although we can't say that there's T4 and T3 in bovine glandular supplements. We know that there is because there's no little guy picking out the T4 and T3 from your supplement after we dry the cow's thyroid gland. Very, very similar. I said that back in the early 2000s when I was working with my mentor and he had a supplement store or storefront and I picked up one of the products, I said, oh, it's a matter of time before the FDA comes in and bans this. I figured it would happen because they would figure out that it's pretty damn close to Armor Thyroid, but actually they're just wiping them all out in one fell swoop instead. So we don't even have the option of Armor Thyroid. But here's the problem again. If the federal government can come in and dictate supplements and pull supplements, what else is next? Years ago, there was talk of the federal government coming in and pulling your D, your vitamin D in supplemental form. That would have been vitamin D3, which is the most accurate form of vitamin D, and forcing you to use a prescription vitamin D2, which is not really biologically available and doesn't do much to raise your levels. And it's usually a 50,000 IU bomb that you take once a week and then expect your body to divvy that out, that 50k out over the course of a week. It's just ridiculous. But there was talk about that. So what else are they going to do? Are they going. Are, are they going to force you to get a prescription for every supplement? I don't think you realize the precedent that this sets, the door that this opens and the catastrophic events that could come of this to your health and to your health freedoms and to your medical freedoms. So I'm going to ask every single one of you listening to this, bombard the FDA with emails. We'll put the, we'll put their email in the show notes. Bombard them. Yes, you are going to get an automated reply. They've already typed it out. Everybody gets the same one. But if there's any chance of them seeing hundreds of thousands of millions of emails bombard their system, let's shut their servers down. Let's do that. That could be fun. And then sign any petition that is floating around. There are four, maybe five different petitions out there right now. We are doing our best to consolidate them. I am working behind the scenes with thought leaders in this space. People like Dr. Amy Myers, Isabella Wentz. We are working to actually bring you real information, keep you updated. And we're working to gather every single practitioner out there to stand together and for our voices to be heard by the federal government to stop this ban. There are companies right now that produce natural desiccated thyroid medication that are in the process of getting approved. However, because that approval process takes two to five years, they will be outside of the scope of this ban. According to that FDA letter, everything needs to be done in 12 months. The move over has to be done in 12 months. Well, they are not going to get approved in 12 months. They're not. So we are also fighting for a grandfather clause to allow these companies to continue to market their products until the time that they are finally FDA approved with their stamp of approval. These are scary times. Bottom line, these are scary times. And once again, if you don't think that this NDT ban matters because you're not taking it, you got to think again. I hope that this has opened your eyes to the possibilities that will come by opening this door to the FDA that has allowed food coloring and and chemicals in our food that it's banned in Europe and they're concerned about your NDT having a little sprinkle of something something in it. Are you kidding me? That's a whole other podcast. For now, check the Show Notes Rate the fda. Subscribe to my newsletter as well. We'll put that link in the Show Notes. I will keep you updated every single week, if not more, on what is going on in this wide world of the NDT ban. The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your health care regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider. Provide a relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthcare professionals featured on the show. 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