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Book Reviews

Book Review of: Stop The Thyroid Madness: A Patient Revolution.. by Janie A. Bowthorpe, M.Ed

This book explains Hypothyroidism in an easy-to-understand way and covers why you may not be seeing any improvements on T4 only medicine, e.g. Synthroid, Levoxyl, Levothyroxine. 

It also covers how to read test results, information on switching to NDT medication, “adrenal fatigue” and how to talk to your doctor.

I’ll reference back to this book and what I’ve learnt from it throughout my blog posts.

After following the Stop The Thyroid Madness website, referring a lot to the info when I switched from Levothyroxine to NDT and reading the great reviews for the book on Amazon, I decided to order it.  Rachel holding a copy of 'Stop the Thyroid Madness' Book

Overall, the book is written in a simple-to-understand way, which is great for those of us who aren’t medical professionals and ironically struggle to take in what we read, due to thyroid brain fog (a very common symptom).

You can really feel that author Janie Bowthorpe has written the book with passion to help others gain the confidence and knowledge they need to help themselves get better. However, some may interpret it as being ‘preachy’ or particularly negative about T4-only medications.

I did feel that the evidence was lacking on some claims, such as with ‘pooling’, reverse T3 and dosing based on symptoms over test results.

It starts with an introduction about why Janie chose to write the book and each chapter gradually introduces us to more aspects that are well-worth knowing, about having hypothyroidism. The first few chapters are written simply, with very basic information about having the condition and some history behind it and as it progresses, it gets that little bit more advanced, but without you really realising. She’s wrote it in such a way as to slowly build your knowledge from that of a beginners to advanced, without much effort on your part.

The book itself covers why T4-only medicines do not help everyone and why staying on them could be causing you to stay hypothyroid with ongoing symptoms. It also covers how to order or ask for the correct lab work you require as a hypothyroid patient, how to safely make that switch to NDT and what exactly the fuss with NDT is. It has lots more useful information, including supplements and dietary info also.

I used this book with my doctor to adjust my NDT dosage and it is ultimately what helped me get my health back on track. However, caution should be used where it implies that thyroid test results are not as helpful as prioritising symptoms alone, for example.

I did find this book helpful, but found the tone a bit harsh and felt it could have focused more on building a good relationship with a helpful doctor, instead of separating. That, coupled with the lack of evidence for certain claims, makes some of the information questionable. Although dosing instructions are given for thyroid meds, I do not think adjusting thyroid meds should be done without a doctor wherever possible.

You can get a copy of this book from Amazon here.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

You can click on the hyperlinks in the above post to learn more and see references to information given.

About Author

Rachel Hill is the highly ranked and multi-award winning thyroid patient advocate, writer, speaker and author behind The Invisible Hypothyroidism. Her thyroid advocacy work includes writing articles, authoring books, producing her Thyroid Family email newsletters and speaking on podcasts and at events about the many aspects thyroid disease affects and how to overcome these. She is well-recognised as a crucial and influential contributor to the thyroid community and has a large social media presence. Her bestselling books include "Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate" and "You, Me and Hypothyroidism".

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