Remember what your 4th grade teacher told you about assuming things? You make an.... well, you remember.
Many people with hypothyroidism are treated by assuming that their thyroid gland is not working good enough, that is why the are overweight, losing hair, losing their memory, in pain and/or depressed. The solution is to give a little exrta hormone to help out that lazy gland.
Many people with hypothyroidism have that exact problem. Many more do not. Almost all are treated the same.
There are those that have a perfectly good thyroid gland, it's just not being stimulated to release enough hormone.
There are those that are releasing enough thyroid hormone, but the hormone isn't getting used very efficiently.
There are those that don't have enough nutritional substrate to make enough thyroid hormone.
There are those that have some sort of thyroid autoimmune disorder that can be triggered from something in the environment causing problems to the gland.
And then there are those that have a mixture of the above.
The people that are getting the best results aren't assuming, they are getting to the bottom of their problem and taking action.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Hypothyroidism: I Blame It On My Glandular Disorder
Monday, February 11, 2008
My Armour Thyroid Medication Isn't Working...Try, Try Again?
A question was posted to me if I had ever heard of symptoms of depression getting worse when a trial of Armour Thyroid medication was began. The answer is a resounding YES.
When treating hypothyroid problems, it is very important to make sure to cross all your t's and dot your i's. Before any treatment program is begun, you need to make sure you have measured the appropriate labs and test (meaning thyroid panels and others that indirectly affect the thyroid and thyroid hormone that seem to be playing a role in the case), history and a symptom survey.
If changes in labs and symptoms are favorable, then you are probably on the right trail. If things make no change or get worse, this also tells you valuable information as well.
How about an example:
You come in with normal thyroid labs, low core body temperature, depression, fatigue, unexplained weight gain and chronic pain all over. You begin taking a mix of Armour Thyroid and Synthroid and things get worse.
There are a couple ways of interpreting this pattern:
- It's not a thyroid problem.
- You made need to tweak the amount of thyroid hormone, the % of T3 and the % of T4 in the prescription, and/or change the medication to a different type
- It may not be a problem with lack of thyroid production by your body. It could either be a problem with converting enough thyroid hormone to its useful form, excess thyroid binding structures in your body (binding to already made thyroid hormone, making it useless in the body) or poor binding of thyroid hormone to its receptors.
Going back to a detailed labs, exam, history and presentation, you can piece things together better.
In this example, the normal thyroid panel may lead you to believe that maybe thyroid production is normal. Maybe giving exogenous thyroid hormone isn't the place to start.
A lowered body temperature with depression, fatigue, weight gain and pain still points to a hypothyroid problem, so don't jump ship yet.
This leaves you looking at the third interpretation as your most likely cause. This is where most people are losing their battles. If you fail to look at this as a problem of physiology (how well or poorly your body works) and not just pathology (the body isn't working because of disease), your rate of success will usually be less than optimal.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Thyroid Problems Require Treatment Beyond More Thyroid Hormone
Let's pretend that you get to play doctor for a day. What do you think people would say is the reason for visiting you?
Some common problems are weight gain, pain, depression, fatigue, hair loss, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, weakness, memory loss, pregnancy issues, estrogen problems, testosterone problems, high cholesterol, etc. Many of the people will come in with a couple from the above list.
Wouldn't it be great if there was one cause to all these problems? One cause, one solution.
This is the part where you are expecting the doctor who writes a blog on thyroid problems to blame all of life's woes on the thyroid. Well I'm not.
Even problems that can seem to be screaming "thyroid problems" do not end up as thyroid being the main culprit.
The way the thyroid actually works is a series of intricate steps of checks and balances that is set up in such a way to ensure that your body is functioning at a high level through very efficient means. Efficiency is absolutely necessary for survival.
If there is a breakdown in any one of these steps, if there are strong environmental influences that overloads or under stimulates one portion, if certain pathological influences dominate specific areas, or if there is some inherent genetic defect, you will have thyroid problems.
What's the point to all of this?
Thyroid problems are currently being treated by a trickle down effect. Give thyroid hormone and let it make changes on the body.
How did the thyroid problems even come to be? Shouldn't we want to get rid of anything that is causing problems on the thyroid. Maybe giving more thyroid hormone would not even be necessary if you took away the offender.
OK. Done rambling. Here is one last metaphor that will hopefully wrap things up:
If your head hurts, you can take aspirin. You could also stop banging your head on the wall.
If you have thyroid problems, you can take synthetic medications. You could also prevent thyroid problems by hunting down the offender itself.
Let's stop banging our heads against the wall and start correcting the problem.
