The
NHS is Killing Us!
Thyroid Patient Advocacy-UK is a web site and campaigning and patient
support forum with the objectives of increasing awareness of the prevalence
of hypothyroidism, and the difficulties facing patients in obtaining a
correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment for this disease within the
NHS.
If you, or someone you know is suffering from hypothyroidism or has signs
or symptoms of this disease, we hope you will find the information we
have provided to be of help and comfort, and will encourage you to join
our Internet
discussion forum.
Please note that in order to bring an improved level of information and
care to those with thyroid disease, Thyroid Patient Advocacy UK works
with medical professionals who specialise in thyroid disorders.
Hypothyroid patients are desperately seeking an understanding and partnership
with their NHS doctors to get the best treatment possible. We believe that
every patient has the right to optimal treatment, including treatment
with natural desiccated porcine thyroid extract (Armour Thyroid, USP being
the most well known), and which can be prescribed within the NHS. The
current situation, whereby hypothyroid patients are, through the neglect
of NHS doctors, being left to self-diagnose, self-treat, and self-monitor
owing to a lack of understanding of the disorder by NHS doctors, is unacceptable
and, in my view, indictable, on the grounds of causing patient harm through
professional neglect.
Some common and often undiagnosed symptoms and dangerous consequences
of low thyroid include: serious mental problems, seizures, heart disease,
diabetes (including misdiagnosis and complications) and constipation,
resulting in colon cancer. Other symptoms include all female problems—due
to high amounts of dangerous forms of oestrogen— such as tumours,
fibroids, ovarian cysts, PMS, endometriosis, breast cancer, miscarriage,
heavy periods and cramps, bladder problems leading to infections, and
others.
We are fighting to remedy this. Our aims are to persuade the medical
profession to re-examine current diagnosis and treatment protocols of
hypothyroidism, which are urgently overdue, to raise awareness of treatment
options amongst the general public and the medical profession, and to
provide educational and emotional support to patients and their families.
Sheila Turner
Thyroid Patient Advocate and Founder of TPA-UK
If you would like to learn more about thyroid disease — and hypothyroidism
in particular — or suspect you have a thyroid disorder, you can
talk with fellow patients anytime day or night on our Yahoo Health Groups
community forum! Believe it when we say that it's NOT all in your head!
Why not join a cracking group of people, all of whom have been there,
done that, and bought the t-shirt!
New
and current patients can schedule any new or ongoing consultations with
Dr Peatfield with clinics held throughout the country through April 2008.
These clinic dates are updated on a regular basis. Dr Peatfield has also
announced his new clinic relocation
and well as clinic information.
Dr
Gordon Skinner speaks out about the recent General Medical Council (GMC)
proceedings as well as on the diagnosis and treatment of the clinically
hypothyroid patient in this five-document series. The official
GMC FTP hearing transcripts as well as all of Dr Skinner's news and
articles are also available here.
