Faith Santos -Caratao, MD -Diabetes, Thyroid and Endocrine Diseases

02/11/2025

Good day dear patients
For everyone’s safety , clinic schedule on Nov 4,2025 ( Tuesday) is cancelled.
Kindly contact ika to reschedule your appointment.
Let’s all pray for each others safety.

01/11/2025

Dear Patients
We are having some technical issues with our page’s messenger.
For urgent concerns please contact ika.
Will update you once we have fixed the issue.
Thank you

29/10/2025

Good day!
Please see updated clinic schedule for November.
No clinic from Nov 12 - 19,2025 and nov 21,2025.
There will be NO Saturday clinic schedule for November .
Also, no clinic tomorrow oct 31,2025.
Have a blessed long weekend everyone!

08/10/2025

On World MCT8 Deficiency Day, we want to increase awareness of MCT8 Deficiency, a very rare genetic condition caused by a genetic mutation in the SLC16A2 gene. Thyroid hormones are particularly important for proper brain development during pregnancy and early childhood.

📌 In this disorder, also called Allan-Herndon-Dudley Syndrome (AHDS), thyroid hormone is unable to enter cells in the brain because of a defect in a thyroid hormone transporter called MCT8.

📌At the same time, excess thyroid hormone, specifically T3 (triiodothyronine), enters tissues in the rest of the body, which typically leads to complications. As a result, patients are born with severe developmental delay from hypothyroidism (not enough thyroid hormone) in the brain, while at the same time they experience hyperthyroidism (too much thyroid hormone) in the rest of their body.

📌Patients are largely dependent on parents/caregivers during all stages of life.

📌Diagnosis:

Males with developmental delay, decreased muscle tone, increased resting heart rate, and poor weight gain should have a blood test to measure the level of thyroid hormones.

A blood test is performed to confirm the diagnosis by detecting a genetic mutation in the SLC16A2 gene.

📌The main difficulty in the diagnostic trajectory includes:

🔹late diagnosis
🔹visiting multiple doctors

📌Efforts to detect patients with MCT8 deficiency during neonatal screening may be an important step in reducing the diagnostic delay.

📌There is ongoing research for therapies using different forms of thyroid hormone that do not require the MCT8 to enter the cells of the brain.

📌This year, the European Commission granted marketing authorization for a medication for the treatment of peripheral thyrotoxicosis in patients with monocarboxylate transporter 8 (MCT8) deficiency (Allan-Herndon-Dudley Syndrome), from birth.

This marks a significant milestone for the MCT8 community, providing the first authorized treatment option in the EU for this rare condition.

📌More research, progress in therapy research, and collaboration with healthcare professionals, patient advocates, and regulatory bodies are needed.

08/10/2025

For patients looking for a reputable psychiatrist , I highly recommend Dr. Euriz Calmerin. She caters to pedia, adult and geriatric patients.
Lets not take our mental health for granted😊

05/10/2025

Good day Dear Patients
Please take note that for the month of October , clinic schedule during MONDAYS ONLY will start from 1PM instead of 10am.

Oct 6 - Riverside 1PM onwards
Oct 13& 20 - MetroBacolod Hospital 1PM onwards
Oct 27- Riverside 1pm onwards

NO CLINIC OCT 7,8,9.
Thank you for your understanding!

29/09/2025

Dear Patients,
Please take note that you may contact us via these mobile numbers or pages
1. Clinic Phone numbers
0967-253-9162

(0968) 316 4551

2. pages
Dr . Faith Caratao Clinic Appointment
Or
Faith Santos Caratao MD

For the month of October 2025
, there will be NO clinic schedule on the following dates
Oct 7-9 ( Tuesday to Thursday)
Oct 31 ( Friday )
Thank you!

18/09/2025

Dear patients and colleagues
I have been getting feedbacks that our clinic mobile number is hard to reach and/or your calls to set appointments are unanswered . If that is the case, kindly send me a message here so il be the one to facilitate the appointment.
Please let us know how we can serve you better.
Thank you!

28/08/2025

21/08/2025

This day we give honor to
- the babies we still long for and think of…
- the babies who brought joy back into our world
-the husbands who stood by us through thick and thin
- the community of family, friends and doctors who guided us in our journey
- our God who carried us through our grief and gave us hope and faith
Aug 22 is National Rainbow Baby Day. Sending hugs and prayers to everyone whose journey is signified by a rainbow❤️

I’m 1 in 4.
I saw two pink lines.
And then I watched them vanish.

No bump pics.
Just blood, silence, and a pain no one talks about.

I was expected to “move on.”
But how do you move on from someone you never even got to hold?

I mourned a baby I never met.
I grieved a future I had already fallen in love with.
And I did it quietly, because the world doesn’t know how to hold space for loss this small, but this heavy.

But... sometimes after the storm, comes a rainbow.

National Rainbow Baby Day is August 22nd.
It’s a day to honor the little ones born after loss.
A day that’s both joy and grief woven together.

For every rainbow baby, there’s a storm that came first.
For every celebration, there’s a heartbreak that lingers.

So when you see us celebrate our rainbows, know this:
We are also remembering the ones who never made it earthside.
We are loving two babies at once...
The one we lost, and the one who brought color back into our world.

💔🌈 August 22nd, National Rainbow Baby Day.

17/08/2025

Dear Patients,
I will be cancelling my clinic schedule this week. My son has a respiratory infection and he really needs to be monitored closely.
I apologize for the inconvenience this sudden change of schedule may have caused you.
Kindly get in touch with ika for further details.
Thank you for your understanding!

13/08/2025

Important reminders for those on levothyroxine treatment.

ETA guidelines for the use of levothyroxine to optimize the treatment of hypothyroidism: recently, an expert task force was approved by the Guidelines Board of the European Thyroid Association to formulate recommendations for patients who take levothyroxine in tablet form:

For optimal absorption of levothyroxine, tablet form:

🔹absorption of levothyroxine is under fasting conditions, with 62–82% of the dose absorbed during the first 3 hours after ingestion

🔹soy, coffee, tea, milk, and grapefruit may interfere with absorption; avoid these for a few hours after taking the medication

🔹 calcium, iron may interfere with absorption; take these 4 hours apart from levothyroxine

🔹a fiber-enriched diet or fiber supplements may cause malabsorption

📍Drug interaction with levothyroxine absorption:

🔹proton pump inhibitors, PPIs, (rabeprazole, esomeprazole, omeprazole, pantoprazole, lansoprazole) used for gastritis, stomach-related conditions, may interfere with absorption. Take levothyroxine at least 4 h before PPI.

🔹patients with gastric disorders and those who take proton pump inhibitors may require higher levothyroxine doses to achieve target TSH levels, and long-term PPI administration presents a heightened risk in these cases. Always mention gastric issues and medication taken for these to your doctor.

📍The co-prescription of levothyroxine with several interacting drugs (Tamoxifen, estrogens, corticosteroids, etc) or supplements can affect bioavailability; always discuss with the doctor both the medications and supplements taken.

📍Regular thyroid function lab tests as markers of adequate thyroid hormone status are important.

📍An effective doctor–patient relationship is essential to individualize treatment and reach the therapeutic goal.

Marco Centanni, Leonidas Duntas, Ulla Feldt-Rasmussen, Josef Koehrle, Robin P Peeters, Salman Razvi, Pierpaolo Trimboli, Camilla Virili. ETA guidelines for the use of levothyroxine sodium preparations in monotherapy to optimize the treatment of hypothyroidism. European Thyroid Journal. July. 2025.