Thyroid treatment fell apart in the 1960s. That’s when thyroid blood tests and Synthroid first appeared.
Doctors hailed the blood tests as a means of making thyroid treatment scientific. Blood tests eliminated the need to deal with symptoms, which, as any thyroid patient can tell you, are many.
The problems with this approach went unmentioned. First, the TSH test has little science behind it and came into use based on a vote by endocrinologists. While docors swear by it, results are unreliable. As are the results of the various T3 and T4 tests.
Synthroid, a synthetic version of one part of thyroid hormone, adds to the disaster. First, synthetic versions of natural hormones wreak havoc. You may remember the Women’s Health Initiative revelation that synthetic estrogen and progesterone, also highly touted by medical poobahs, cause disease and even kill people.
Our bodies don’t like synthetic medications that try to pose as the real thing.
And Synthroid doesn’t even attempt to do the whole job! Synthroid tries to match only one part of a five-part hormone. What’s that about? How can it possibly be equivalent to the real thing?
Doctors prescribed the real thing, Armour Thyroid as one instance, very successfully before Synthroid arrived. Medicine had no scientific, anecdotal or logical reason for changing from natural thyroid to synthetic. It’s another follow-the-money story.
And that’s not all. Back in the day when doctors treated by symptoms, they prescribed twice the dosage that today’s doctors prescribe using blood tests. Prescribing five grains of Armour Thyroid wasn’t unusual. And patients did a whole lot better than they do nowadays.
To sum up: Unreliable tests, a bad medication and inadequate dosage levels cause the current thyroid treatment problems.
Bette Dowdell is not a doctor, nor does she purport to be one. She's a patient who's spent the past 30+ years studying, with great success, how to handle endocrine problems. Her best credential is that doctors tell her she’s doing ‘too well’ for somebody with her level of endocrine problems. Subscribe to her free e-zine and get plugged in to her information at http://TooPoopedToParticipate.com. If you’re dragging your patooty, and the doctor says you’re just fine, this is the place to get some answers.