Dr. David Clark, DC director of the Center for Low Thyroid Solutions in Durham,NC provides a shocking answer to the question no one seems to ask a woman suffering with low thyroid symptoms…Why Did Your Thyroid Gland Stop Working?
Are you suffering with low thyroid symptoms? Has your doctor ever explained WHY your thyroid gland stop working?
A common MIS-conception about thyroid disorders is that at some point….for some mysterious reason….your thyroid gland just quit working. So now you need thyroid medication.
That’s not a good answer, is it?
I mean, are we programmed so that –at some time in our life–our thyroid glands wear out, give up or shut off? Should you just accept that kind of thinking?
You should not accept it…especially if you’re taking thyroid hormones and your labs are “normal”, but you still have low thyroid symptoms.
If this is you, then your doctor has not determined why your thyroid gland stopped working in the first place. And that’s why the “treatment” isn’t working.
When I train other doctors, my mantra is….
Always Ask “Why?”
I teach my patients the same thought process. Ask yourself “why?”
If you have low thyroid….why did it happen?
The number one cause of low thyroid in America is Hashimoto’s.
That’s an autoimmune problem–your immune system attacks and destroys your thyroid gland. The loss of gland tissue causes low thyroid symptoms.
Even though it is the most common cause of low thyroid, few doctors test for Hashimoto’s (because they have nothing to offer beside thyroid hormones).
However…
there are 22 other reasons why your thyroid hormones could malfunction.
(see my other posts on this topic).
That makes me pause for a second…
We’re all blaming the gland. But the thyroid gland is not the problem in many cases.
Is it the gland’s fault that your immune system is trying to kill it? No.
The thyroid gland does what the pituitary tells it to do— make the T4 and the T3, and then it’s up to other parts of the body to do their job.
There are different players in this low thyroid story, not just the thyroid gland by itself…
The liver must convert T4 to T3.
Your GI bacteria, the good guys that live in there, they’ve got to convert T3 sulfate into active T3.
…There’s a lot of things we could talk about. You can look at my other posts.
So, it’s not just the thyroid gland to blame. I would say 90 percent of the endocrinologists you’ll ever see or family practitioners would say , “Your thyroid gland quit working. Take these hormones.”
If you felt great after taking the medication, you probably would never give it a second thought. But if you’re reading this right now, you probably don’t feel good.
You probably still have some of the low thyroid symptoms you had before taking the medication….
- Gain weight easily
- Fatigue, low energy
- Hair loss, thinning hair
- Low libido
- constipation
- brain fog
- Dry skin
If you’re still suffering these symptoms, then–to me—no one has asked or answered the question, “Why did your thyroid gland stop working?”
Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune condition, is by far the most common here in America, but you can also have problems with binding proteins, conversion, under-conversion….
The point is you need to find someone that understands the entire thyroid story are and knows how to track down the possible suspects.
If your doctor’s only checking TSH and T4, he’s never going to find those other possibilities I just talked about–never.
He’s never going to find
…Hashimoto’s.
…a serotonin problem, a dopamine problem
…an under-conversion problem.
…a binding globulin problem.
He’ll miss them all.
And you suffer the consequences.
You are forced wander for years thinking there’s something mentally wrong with you…
This thyroid medication is supposed to work, but I still feel bad.
It’s not your fault.
If you are taking thyroid medication–or you have low thyroid symptoms–somebody needs to ask and answer that question…
What happened? Why did your thyroid stop working?
Only then, when that question is answered (or at least asked), are you going to be on the path to feeling good again.
I totally agree with you. I recently began thyroid meds to suppy the hormones that my body needs. I have been on them for 3 months. I actually feel worse and my symptoms are just as bad. I decided to check out why my thyroid is not working. So I will be getting further
tests. I want to feel better..