Pretty much everybody’s heard about the thyroid. Probably because of all the trouble it gets into. Plus the fact it never suffers in silence.
If your thyroid’s unhappy, you know about it. Hoo Boy, do you know about it.
It used to be that 20% of the population had thyroid problems. Nowadays, it’s up to 50%. That’s a whole lot of misery.
The thyroid, a butterfly-shaped gland located by your Adam’s apple, affects everything that goes on in your body. When the thyroid ain’t happy, ain’t nothing happy. (Of course, you could say that about any of the endocrine glands. Unfortunately.)
You may know about the weight problems, hair loss, brain fog, depression, extreme fatigue, etc. that accompany an underperforming thyroid gland. Some of you have experienced the living on the edge, hair-on-fire sensation of an overactive thyroid.
Hyper and hypo share a lot of the same symptoms, but hypo people generally feel like a pile of mush that doesn’t want to move while hyper people feel tired, but wired.
Whether hypo or hyper, you never lack for a boatload of symptoms. One reference book lists slightly more than 300 symptoms for hypothyroidism alone. Is it any wonder, then, that doctors don’t want to hear about them?
Doctors prefer blood tests to symptoms. And who could complain–if the tests worked. Which they don’t.
The gold standard test–the TSH–came to us based on a vote of endocrinologists, not science. They keep moving the goal posts to make things come out right, but that doggone test won’t cooperate. Never mind. Full speed ahead. And millions of people drag through life because doctors won’t listen to their symptoms, and they ‘fail’ the TSH test.
And the other thyroid blood tests don’t do much of a job either. You can get normal results even if you’re in a heap on the floor, drooling and verging on comatose, or, conversely, leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Just because tests say you’re fine doesn’t mean you are. But you already knew that.
And thyroid tests can make your health a whole lot worse. Hypothyroid people often test high in cholesterol tests and low in iron levels. But taking cholesterol lowering drugs and/or iron is a really bad idea that makes your thyroid problem a whole lot worse. Just say “no.”
And keep on saying “no” if antidepressants come up in the conversation. What looks like depression is actually the bone-crushing weariness of thyroid problems.
One form of hypothyroidism, inherited from hypothyroid mothers, never passes the TSH–or any other test. Type 2 hypothyroidism, as it’s called, is all about symptoms. The tests have nothing to do with anything, so those patients rarely get treated.
Untreated or undertreated low thyroid function leads to heart attacks, fibromyalgia, adrenal failure, auto-immune diseases, digestion problems like you can’t believe, osteoporosis, and on, and on. All in addition to the pile of symptoms you started with.
Well, it can get pretty daunting. And while we can’t ask for a redeal on the hand life gave us, we can play our hand wisely.
Avoid bad things that drag you down. Fluoride–in water, in toothpaste, wherever–stomps all over the thyroid. Estrogen–from prescriptions, soy, grocery-store meat and dairy, plastics, and so on, thrashes the entire endocrine system, not just the thyroid.
Adopt the diet, vitamins and minerals that build you up. For one thing, the thyroid needs saturated fat to make its thyroid hormone, so make sure to include good old sat fat in your diet. (Did you know sat fat leads to getting rid of weight so it doesn’t come back? WooHoo!)
I write a lot about putting together a solid vitamin/mineral program to energize your thyroid–and other body parts–to get on the straight-and-narrow. Most of what we hear about nutritional supplements is as wrong as it can be, so to set things straight, I write about the magic that good supplements can add to your life. And I’m living proof.
Health is a journey, and I’m here to help.
About the author: Bette Dowdell defines determination. In a really deep health ditch, with doctors who didn’t help, she got her Oh-Yeah! attitude in gear and researched her way out. She never intended to be a health expert, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. You can subscribe to Bette’s free e-mails on how to solve health problems at http://TooPoopedToParticipate.com
