This article is extracted from
Namaste Magazine Vol 7. Issue 1
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Diana Holmes completed one year of her SRN (State Registered Nurse) training. The ensuing years were plagued by ill health and many misdiagnoses, she eventually ended up in a wheel chair.
Diana is a courageous woman who has strived to help many thousands suffering with her helpline. The research she has uncovered should put an end to the gravest 'faux pas' in medical history, but just like other issues, the door keeps being closed. Why?

 

This is the harrowing story of one remarkable and intelligent woman who struggled to survive against a health-system impregnated with limited protocols and half-truths that condemn many of us to a life of pain and disability and eventual death, because the system is treating dis-ease with singular labels

This is Diana's story

In 1994 she started a campaign to look into the problems of diagnosing and managing thyroid conditions. She ran a Help Line for three years, during which time she spoke to over 6,000 thyroid sufferers. Eventually she met consultant Dr Gordon Skinner. He was so impressed with her work that he asked her to assist with his thyroid clinic, which she did for two and half years. She has now written two books about her life and the effects of hypothyroidism and co-authored a medical paper with Dr Skinner, as well as given talks throughout the UK.

The diversity of the signs and symptoms of this chronic condition

Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK (and millions worldwide) are suffering with hypothyroidism (under active thyroid gland). This condition is not being picked up because doctors are using blood test results as the only indicator. Signs, symptoms, history of the patient and a clinical appraisal should be used as other indicators.

Therefore, many who suffer with thyroid conditions are not diagnosed or they are misdiagnosed with other diseases. The diversity of the signs and symptoms of this chronic condition of hypothyroidism leads doctors into taking symptoms in isolation and treating them, and therefore many people are pigeonholed into illnesses they do not have. These people are desperate to be well, but instead they are intimidated, fobbed off, and belittled by the medical profession. In this article I have included extracts from my book Tears Behind Closed Doors to highlight very important facts of the GRAVEST 'FAUX PAS' IN MEDICAL HISTORY.

Over a period of twenty-three years I was misdiagnosed with six serious diseases and treated for them all. The diseases were, namely, Epilepsy (treated for six months), Coeliac disease (an allergy to the protein in wheat and rye for which I was on a Coeliac diet for eleven years), Polymyalgia Rheumatica (a muscle disease for which I was treated for six months with high doses of steroids).

Then there was depression; I was treated for years with anti-depressants. I was diagnosed with ME (myalgic encephalo myelitis, no treatment). Myalgic of the muscles, encephalo of the brain, and myelitis of the central nervous system. ME is a collection of signs and symptoms relating to the muscles, brain and central nervous system. The majority of ME sufferers have a condition called hypothyroidism (under active thyroid). Last but not least, Myasthenia Gravis (a very grave muscle disease), for which I was treated for 2½years with Mestinon and high doses of steroids. Mestinon is a powerful drug, which has many side effects.

"My energy level continued to be way below par. The intensity of the dizziness varied, depending on my activities and now I had coeliac disease. The list of my physical disorders was growing. In addition I had the mental and emotional problem of coping with my life as my health continued in a downward spiral.

My desperation to quantify my illness

I was also beginning to experience the terrible frustration and loneliness of ill health. All who suffer from long-term or debilitating illnesses experience these feelings but usually try to conceal them. One feels ashamed yet dare not admit it to others. Feelings of anger also well up until they reach an intolerable over-spill; contributing to the drain on one's emotional well being.

I often imagined that if I could put the feelings of dizziness, sleepiness, and the awful way I felt, on the table in front of my GP, then he would see that I wasn't making up this horrible nightmare. My desperation to quantify my illness to him was immense. Yet, to convey this to him in anything that would remotely resemble facts, was impossible for me.…

Before I had retired from work, I had taken out a Permanent Health Insurance to cover myself in case of illness. The policy was sold on, from one company to another, until a well-known company, by the name of Unum, bought it. I continued to receive payments from this company, under the terms of the policy, until one day they informed me that I was to be sent for a 'Dynatron Test'. This, I was told, would show up any problem with my muscles. I welcomed this, but not the journey to London. The test was horrid and very painful. The 'Dynatron Test' comprised pulling various limbs against a tensioned frame. The results were recorded on a computer.

I was unable to complete the tests due to pain and fatigue. My husband and I travelled down by train to London, and on the return journey I was very ill. The pains in my back and the exhaustion were awful. The steward asked, 'Would you like some ice packs?' I said, 'Yes please.' He said that he thought that I would feel more comfortable in a first class compartment and so took us to our seats. We were impressed by his sensitivity! I attended the clinic in London for the 'Dynatron Test' on the 23rd May 1994. The letter my doctor received from Unum is set out below.

Dear Dr [name removed]
You may recall that we were in correspondence about this patient of yours last year. You will know that we have not been convinced about her disability for some little time and we therefore arranged an independent orthopaedic examination and a Dynatron assessment in London. Our examiner was a distinguished teaching hospital orthopaedic surgeon. The conclusion is that there is no organic abnormality. Her symptoms are totally out of proportion to any objective evidence that there is and the gross variability in her response to the Dynatron examination is a good demonstration that she was exerting volitional control over the examination. Our feeling, therefore, is that she is indeed fit to pursue her insured occupation and further benefit will not be paid.

If I was exerting volitional control over the examination as they suggested, this surely makes nonsense of the 'Dynatron Test'. The patient, as I see it, is in a 'no win' situation. For example, if I performed well on the test, I would have been told to return to work. By performing poorly on it, on the other hand, I was told that I was cheating and must return to work anyway. They accused me of cheating the machine and of this I stand innocent before my God.

Can you imagine how I felt after I read that letter? The horrors of whatever it was I was suffering from were bad enough without being kicked, punched, and kicked again while I was down.
An independent insurance adviser has since told me that this 'rejection' is a common ploy of some health insurance companies.

The stress that the Dynatron Test and the letter caused was indescribable. My condition became worse. I often heard myself saying, 'I am hurting, I just shuffle along (this was inside the house. I had to use a wheelchair before I dare venture out to the shops), I can't go any faster, when will the pain go away? My body is so heavy, I am so exhausted but I must push on. . . oh dear God, please help me!'"1

Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield saved my life

In 1994, I went to see a private GP (MD), Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield. He told me, almost straight away, that I was suffering from hypothyroidism. I told him that I'd had blood tests carried out for thyroid function and that they had been returned within the 'reference interval.' He said that he didn't place too much reliance on blood test results. I can truthfully say that Dr Barry Peatfield saved my life. I started on treatment and within two weeks my head had cleared. Previously I had suffered from a 'busy busy' sensation in my head. After a few months, most of my symptoms had cleared up except my muscles, which took a few more months to become strong again.

I reasoned that if this had happened to me it must have happened to others and so I started to carry out some research.

What I found was devastating! It was so simple and yet the medical profession had missed it!
According to Sir Richard Bayliss, an eminent endocrinologist, 'The reference values for testing blood for thyroid function are, "95% fiducial limits of so-called healthy people."2 Broken down this means, 'an assumed fixed basis of comparison of so-called healthy people.' Assumed, so-called - this is very loose and if the starting point is loose, then why do doctors interpret thyroid blood test results with so much rigidity? Whatever happened to signs, symptoms, patient history and clinical appraisals?

I wrote to the DOH (department of Heath

"After two years of running the Help Line I approached Dr Gordon Skinner MD (Hons), DSc, FRCOG, FRCPath, who was then Senior Lecturer at the Birmingham University Medical School, and told him of the data I had collected. He made a request to see it. Upon seeing it he asked me to assist him with thyroid clinics. This I did for three years and with the data we collected from holding the clinics I co-authored a medical paper with him. This was accepted by the 'Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, (2000) 10, 115-124' Dr Skinner extended invitations, in the year 2000, to eminent endocrinologists, biochemists and representatives from the British Thyroid Foundation, to meet with us, and to discuss the diagnosis and management of thyroid dysfunction - all parties declined…"3
In 1995, I wrote to the DOH (Department of Health), and requested a meeting for Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield and myself. The meeting was duly held and whilst they agreed in principle with my findings, they were not prepared to fund any trials.

Armed with my research I approached Woman Magazine and they agreed to feature my story, and with my telephone number at the end of the article I started my Help Line. I wasn't prepared for the onslaught. Over three years, and several magazines later, thousands of people had contacted me and I collected thousands of questionnaires containing masses of data. Everybody's story was a variation on a theme.
"NHS (The National Health Service, UK) was formed over fifty years ago, and it was hoped that spending would rise sharply and then fall. The assumption was that chronic illness would be stamped out at an early stage, and the NHS would gradually produce a healthier society. This has not happened. We have spent billions of pounds trying to make sick people better by treating related symptoms 'singularly' instead of getting to the root of the problem. The NHS never stood a chance.

Doctors need to be reinformed

Around the same time that the NHS came into being, drugs were being used to combat TB and so patients were cured of this disease and lived beyond the age whereby TB would have killed them. According to Dr Broda Barnes (deceased), who practised in America - 'although these patients were living longer, they were now open to other diseases which could kill them, such as heart disease, diabetic complications, atherosclerosis, glycemic conditions, hypertension, and chronic hypothyroidism, which is a common diagnostic failure.'4 Hypothyroidism is sometimes called 'mild myxoedema,' but to those who suffer it is certainly not mild.

Laboratories are working on the assumption, that blood testing for thyroid function, is 'an assumed fixed basis of comparison of 'so-called' healthy people,' so-called being the operative word. When the starting point is very loose then the end result cannot be deemed to be specific! As patients did not have a blood test when they were well, there was no need, therefore the doctor does not have a base line for them, from which to work.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the basic genetic material found in every living cell in our bodies. The chemical structure in every single person is different and everyone has his/her own personal pattern. There would be no need for a 'reference range' if we were all the same, but we are not all the same!

The majority of GPs and consultants do not know how the reference values are made up, and therefore the results are interpreted without any flexibility. Thus there is a problem with the diagnosis and management of hypothyroidism. The patient has a poor quality of life through ill health, sometimes for many years. This leads to lost potential.
Continued ill health that mystifies doctors, in turn incurs exaggerated costs for the NHS for each patient."5

Dr Skinner and I set up a Working Party, which I chaired. The Working Party comprised of three doctors, a biochemist and a Bachelor of Science. We had two meetings with a representative from the DOH, all to no avail.
Many people today are enslaved in bitter bondage and the slave driver is technology. This technology is used out of ignorance by the medical profession whose reliance, on a set of figures, outweighs the signs and symptoms suffered by the patient.

I sincerely believe that GPs are not receiving the correct information from their professional body. They must feel frustration when blood test results are returned in the 'reference range.' Many times doctors may believe that their patient is suffering from a thyroid condition, only to be upstaged by a blood test result. They do need to be reinformed on the diagnosis and management of thyroid conditions. I hope that by sharing my story it will help the readers of Namaste to a greater vista. (You may take this and Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield's article to your GP).

As I stated at the beginning of the article, I believe this to be the biggest 'faux pas' in medical history. If that isn't the answer, then is there A HIDDEN AGENDA?

WHY do I think this is?
Is your thyroid function compromised?

• A myriad of diverse symptoms can point to dysfunction and are being ignored by the medical systems.
  
  
• The routine blood tests alone are NOT able to detect thyroid/adrenal dysfunction.
  
  
• Doctors forced to treat blood test results not patients. Iodine deficiency and fluoride - two major disrupters putting 141 million Europeans at risk.
  
  “To condemn the entire population, already having marginal levels of iodine, to inevitable progressive failure of their thyroid system by fluoridating the water, borders on criminal lunacy” ~ Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield
  
  

The full text of this article can be found in Namaste Magazine Vol.7 Issue 1

Visit the website of Diana Holmes http://www.thyroidtears.co.uk This website is currently inactive