Hypothyroidism
You feel miserable. You're tired and cold all the time, you can't lose weight, your hair is falling out... You went to your medical doctor, and he checked your TSH. Everything came back within the "normal" range, so he said, "Your thyroid is fine." Well, now what?!?!
Does this sound like you? Not to worry. Chances are, even if your TSH was "normal", you could still be very hypothyroid. You see, in the world of thyroid function, lab tests often lie. You got it - you were right all along. Dr. Berglund has treated countless hypothyroid patients who were "passed over" by the medical system. The good news is: once he was able to treat their thyroid, they got better!
Is this you?Signs & symptoms of hypothyroidism
- Brittle nails
- Ridged nails
- Acne (juvenile or adult)
- Dry skin & hair
- Creviced, cracking skin on heels, elbows, & knee caps
- Thick, dry, coarse skin
- Skin rashes
- Thinning eyebrows
- Hair loss
- Slow healing
- Dry mouth
- Dry eyes/blurred vision
- Visual disturbances
- Heat intolerance
- Cold intolerance
- Cold hands & feet
- Raynaud's Phenomenon (fingers turn white when exposed to cold)
- Low body temperature (less than 98.2º when not sick)
- Never/almost never sweats
- Sweating abnormalities
- Muscle and joint aches
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Easy weight gain
- Fluid retention (swelling)
- Thickened lower ankles
- Chronic infections
- Slow reflexes
- Muscle weakness
- Fatigue
- Anxiety
- Irritability
- Panic Attacks
- Low ambition
- Low motivation
- Depression
- Decreased memory & concentration
- Fatigue, exhaustion, & low energy (even after 12 hours of sleep)
- Slowness of thought process
- Indecisiveness
- PMS
- Breast tenderness
- Menstrual cycle irregularities (prolonged and heavy)
- Headaches & migraines
- Low sex drive
- Anemia tendency
- Infertility
- Slow, weak pulse
- High cholesterol
- Blood pressure problems
- Asthma
- Allergies
- Bad breath
- Gall bladder disease
- Chronic constipation
- Deepening, hoarse voice
- Enlarged thyroid gland
- Lump in throat (hard to swallow)
- Abnormal swallowing sensations
Hope for hypothyroid patients
Dr. Berglund is able to test you for hypothyroidism, despite the fact that your lab tests might say you're "fine". He uses your symptoms, along with muscle testing (and lab work, if needed), to determine your progress.
When treating patients for low thyroid, Dr. Berglund provides the patient with the raw materials that their thyroid gland needs and proper stimulation if their thyroid has become lazy and––Ta-dah!––the thyroid starts to work properly again. Because he is not providing exogenous hormone (hormone that was made outside of the patient's body) but rather supporting the patient's own body to function on its own, their thyroid glands end up stronger. In contrast, if patients receive Levoxyl, Synthroid, or Armour (porcine thyroid), the hormone itself is being furnished from the outside, so the patient's thyroid gland doesn't need to recover the ability to manufacture its own hormone.
His approach to treatment matches the sensible adage: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."
Other helpful links
"Synthroid doesn't work"
Dr. Berglund's book, Tired of Being Sick and Tired
Barnes Basal Body Temperature test download
Thyroid patient testimonials
Dr. Berglund's podcasts
Allergies & nutrition
How your thyroid functions
(Taken from Dr. Berglund's book, "Tired of Being Sick and Tired")
Your butterfly-shaped thyroid gland is located in the front of your lower neck, just below your Adam's apple. As one of your largest endocrine glands, its primary function is to secrete hormones. By means of these hormones, your thyroid controls your metabolism, creates proteins, and sensitizes your body to other hormones. Your thyroid hormones are essential for your nerve development, sexual development, and physical growth as well as for regulating your metabolic rate, your body heat, and your energy level.
Your thyroid gland depends on other glands in order to know when and when not to secrete more thyroid hormone. The hypothalamus gland is one of them. Your hypothalamus releases hormones that affect your body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and sleep. Your hypothalamus, when it detects the need for additional thyroid hormone, releases thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH). This hormone activates certain cells in the front part (anterior) of your pituitary gland to release thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). TSH then activates your thyroid, stimulating it to make and secrete additional thyroid hormone directly into your blood stream.
Worldwide, hypothyroidism is greatly under-diagnosed. One of the reasons for this is because so many of its symptoms are so commonplace. In fact, Dr. Berglund dislikes going through a list of hypothyroid symptoms with patients, since they tend to rule out the diagnosis if they do not feel that they manifest all of them or even most of them, or if they have assumed that the symptoms came from another cause.
In truth, a hypothyroid patient might be able to identify only one or two signs or symptoms of an under-functioning thyroid gland. The classic general hypothyroidism manifestations include fatigue, inability to lose weight (or gaining weight easily), intolerance to cold, and swelling (usually in the extremities: hands, lower legs, and feet). For a more thorough list of hypothyroid symptoms, see the columns to the left.
Lab tests lie!
Why a normal TSH lab test may still mean you're hypothyroid
Your thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) is secreted by the pituitary gland. This is in response to TRH (thyrotropin-releasing hormone), which is released by the hypothalamus to encourage the thyroid gland to increase production and secretion of T4 (thyroxine).
The idea behind the TSH test is that in many cases of hypothyroidism, the pituitary's release of TSH to stimulate the thyroid works about as well as a boss yelling at an employee to work harder. Then the boss goes from a yell to a scream, and some employees respond to this type of motivation. So do some thyroids.
However, what if the pituitary is sluggish and lazy? The TSH will be low to normal. Then if the hypothalamus starts telling the pituitary that the body needs more thyroid hormone, it's just too bad. In other words, even though it would seem that testing for TSH levels would prove whether or not a person's thyroid hormone levels are normal, it does not—because other factors can be involved.
Proper medical standards of care consider TSH a great screening tool to assess a patient for hypothyroidism. However, there are too many variables. What's the health of the pituitary? What's the health of the hypothalamus? We might see plenty of T4, but is there enough T3? And finally, are the hormones communicating normally with the cell receptor sites? Because it looks only at a single facet of the complicated workings of the thyroid system, the TSH turns out not to be such a good screening test after all.
As you can see, you could have a perfectly normal TSH, but you could still be hypothyroid!
Don't worry. There is still hope for you to finally feel well again! (See "Hope for hypothyroid patients" in the left column.)
Check out our "Wellness Minute" video with Joseph Buishas, CCN, LDN for more information on hypothyroidism.