This Is Your Endocrine System: Thyroid

Our most well-known endocrine gland is the thyroid. Not nearly as well known is the fact that half the population has thyroid problems, mostly undiagnosed or mistreated.

The thyroid, a butterfly-shaped gland located by your Adam’s apple, controls metabolism and affects everything else. 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 sensation of an overactive thyroid.

Hyper and hypo share a lot of the same symptoms, but hypo people generally feel like a lump of mush that doesn’t want to move, while hyper people feel tired, but wired.

One sure thing about thyroid problems is you never lack for a boatload of symptoms. One reference book listed 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. Which isn’t a surprise considering they have only a few minutes per visit to figure things out. So 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.

One form of hypothyroidism, inherited from 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, maybe a majority of hypothyroid people, don’t get treated.

Low thyroid function, whatever its cause, leads to heart attacks, fibromyalgia, auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, adrenal failure, and on, and on. All added, of course, to the pile of symptoms you start with.

Thyroid problems require prompt and proper treatment to save the day. The TSH test guarantees that most people won’t get it.

Worse, when doctors do treat hypothyroidism, they compound the problem by treating it with Synthroid or one of its ugly generic cousins. Our bodies aren’t so keen on synthetics that don’t look like the real thing, and synthetic thyroid, lacking four out of the five parts of natural thyroid, doesn’t look anything like the real thing. And it causes allergic reactions in lots of people.

So you won’t get better, but your doctor will say you’re fine or prescribe an antidepressant, which won’t help.

And if your thyroid is overactive? Doctors usually remove overactive thyroid glands so patients can become hypothyroid and receive the standard bogus treatment for that. Then they get to yearn for the edge they used to live on.

Did you know that Iodoral (iodine/iodide) (Lugol’s Solution is the liquid version) reverses hyperthyroidism? Helps a ton with hypothyroidism, too. But doctors will warn you never to take any form of iodine lest you kill yourself. Sigh. Well, at least they’re right about iodized salt; that doesn’t have such a good track record.

I’ve been dealing with this mess pretty much all my life. Tough sledding doesn’t begin to describe it.

But this information age opens the floodgates to good information. Including mine–thirty-plus years of research coming at you.