Thyroid Balance

Traditional and Alternative Methods for Treating Thyroid Disorders

Glenn S Rothfeld, Deborah S. Romaine

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781440519369
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

If you are one of the more than 14 million Americans who suffers from a thyroid disorder, knowingly or unknowingly, Thyroid Balance is the key to restoring your health and well-being. Never before has there been a comprehensive guide that explains all the traditional and alternative methods available for treating thyroid disorders, and allows you to become an active participant in designing a balanced, practical treatment program.
Using the amassed knowledge of twenty-five years at the forefront of the complementary medicine movement, Dr. Glenn S. Rothfeld answers every question the thyroid patient might have, including how to:

• recognize a thyroid condition
• determine if the adrenal gland is the real culprit
• distinguish between hypo, hyper, autoimmune, and subclinical conditions
• integrate conventional and alternative treatments
• know what to do when treatment fails
• get your metabolism and your body thermostat back under control
• control weight gain and loss
• and so much more!

Part 1

The Thyroid Butterfly:
Delicate and Elusive

1
Why You Feel
the Way You Do

We all have days when we wake up feeling like all we want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. When this happens once in a while, it’s normal. When it happens more often than not, you certainly don’t feel normal anymore. Even when you drag yourself out of bed, you lack the energy to do anything beyond what is absolutely necessary—and sometimes not even that. You forget what you set out to do, or what others tell you. You feel like confusion wraps your brain, and your thoughts seem always a half-step off. Your body aches, your hands and feet are cold all the time, and every time you see yourself in the mirror it looks like you’ve put on weight. Clearly something is out of balance. But what?

In all likelihood, your thyroid—and as a result, just about everything else in your body and your life.

YOUR BODY’S THERMOSTAT

Your thyroid gland perches like an open-winged butterfly across your throat, right at your Adam’s apple. But don’t let this gentle image fool you. This soft, delicate structure is a powerful influence on just about every function within your body. Like an organic thermostat, your thyroid gland regulates your metabolism— the collective chemical processes that run your body. When the thermostat is set too low, metabolism slows. And when it is too high, metabolism increases. Your pituitary gland, a pea-sized bundle of tissue located deep within your brain, sends the chemical signals that turn this thermostat—your thyroid gland—up and down. When these signals get confused somehow (usually when your thyroid gland responds inappropriately to them), the chemical messages that your thyroid sends out to the rest of your body also get confused. Your thyroid is then out of balance—and so is your body.

The chemical messengers in this process are hormones. There are three key hormones involved in thyroid function, although other hormones have at least minimal roles in maintaining thyroid balance (Chapter 2 gives all the details about this). Your pituitary gland releases thyroid-stimulating hormone— TSH—as the signal to your thyroid gland to produce and release its hormones. These are triiodothyronine, better known as T3, and thyroxine, or T4. Too much of these hormones signals an overactive thyroid; too little indicates an underactive thyroid. The cycle of hormone balance and imbalance is actually far more complex than this simplistic overview, of course, and we’ll discuss it extensively in coming chapters.

A MATTER OF BALANCE

You hear and read a lot about thyroid disease or thyroid disorders or thyroid conditions. From a clinical perspective, this viewpoint is certainly valid. When thyroid function is “off,” your health suffers. But so does, quite literally, every aspect of your life. More accurately, it’s a matter of balance or imbalance that starts with your thyroid gland and involves every part and function of your body, from your hair to your toes. Although restoring thyroid hormone levels to “normal” levels helps to restore your body’s balance, it isn’t the sole solution. Balance is seldom about a single factor, but rather is a matter of how multiple factors come together to contribute to this balance. It’s important to address each of these factors, as we will in this book.

Doctors typically prescribe a thyroid supplement—a drug that boosts the thyroid hormones in your system—to treat most thyroid imbalance. This is a tried-and-true therapy that has been the standard for more than a century. The earliest documented use of this therapy dates to 1891, when doctors started using ground thyroid gland tissue from sheep to treat severe hypothyroidism. In 1914, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York, isolated thyroxine, the pure extract of thyroid hormone that is still the basis of treatment today. And this therapy is an essential element in restoring thyroid balance and preventing the very serious and even life-threatening health consequences of inadequate thyroid function. (In fact, many people with hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid, don’t get enough thyroid supplementation. We’ll talk more about this in later chapters.) But just as a single factor is seldom the cause of a thyroid imbalance, such a single-minded approach to restoring the balance of thyroid function is often not quite enough to get you back to feeling like your normal self. Nearly everyone with thyroid imbalance feels better when they take a comprehensive, integrated approach to restoring balance to their thyroid functions, to their bodies, and to their lives. More than thirteen million Americans currently receive medical treatment to treat thyroid imbalance, and health experts estimate that as many as eight million others live with undetected thyroid problems. But simply receiving medical treatment often isn’t enough to get you back to feeling normal. Countless people who are taking a thyroid supplement still suffer from subtle but disruptive symptoms such as inability to lose weight, weight gain, lack of energy, irritability and moodiness, fertility problems in women and men, and, for women, menstrual problems including premenstrual syndrome (PMS), cramping, and heavy flow. While it’s bad enough to have these symptoms, what can make matters even worse is a doctor who says, “Your lab results are normal, so I don’t know why you’re having these problems.” Lab results are important clinical measures, but they present just a piece of the picture! Unfortunately, it’s the piece most doctors are trained to focus on—and if it’s not the piece that fits your situation, you can find yourself hanging.

Hang no more! We know more about thyroid balance and imbalance today than we knew ten or twenty years ago when your doctor was learning about thyroid function. We know that the subtle interrelationships among thyroid hormones and other hormones in your body are just as important as the levels of thyroid hormones. We know that as many as a third to a half of all those who have underactive thyroid function have what doctors call “subclinical disease”—they don’t fit the typical model when it comes to the blood tests we use to measure thyroid function. We know your blood test results can be “normal,” yet you can still have the symptoms of thyroid imbalance—and we know that these symptoms can improve with a comprehensive approach that looks at your whole body as an integrated structure. We know that the way you feel is not all in your head. And we know that even people who feel fine with just thyroid supplement therapy find that they feel even better when they take a more lifestyle-oriented approach to maintaining not only thyroid balance but also body balance. From what you eat and how active you are to complementary therapies such as acupuncture and yoga, there are many factors that affect your health and well-being.

WHEN YOUR THYROID IS UNDERACTIVE

If your thyroid gland doesn’t produce enough T3 and T4, the major thyroid hormones, to shut off the TSH signals from the pituitary gland, then it is underactive. This results in a clinical diagnosis of hypothyroidism, the most common thyroid imbalance (affecting about 90 percent of those who receive treatment). The classic signs of underactive thyroid include coarse hair and skin, constipation, slow but steady weight gain, feeling cold all the time, and having no energy (more about hypothyroidism in Chapter 6). Hypothyroidism tends to develop over a long period of time, often years, and becomes more common as you get older. Nearly 20 percent of women and 10 percent of men over age 60 have underactive thyroid function, although the symptoms are often attributed to other causes such as menopause or simply “aging.” Although hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid imbalance, it’s also the most commonly missed diagnosis, especially when the results of blood tests come back borderline or even normal.

WHEN YOUR THYROID IS OVERACTIVE

Most people with thyroid imbalances have underactive thyroid function. But your thyroid gland can kick into overdrive, too, pumping more thyroid hormones into your bloodstream than your body needs. Rather than feeling sluggish and slow, you feel all revved up. You seem to have boundless energy, and might even feel jittery. Sleep? Who needs sleep? You’re hot no matter what the temperature. Your clothes seem to get looser and looser. Your heart feels like it’s racing, and you might even have palpitations— those rather frightening rapid heartbeats that come one right on top of the other and make you feel like your heart is coming right out of your chest. These are the signs of hyperthyroidism, which we discuss in Chapter 7. Although hyperthyroidism is less common than hypothyroidism, it is by no means rare. Among the thirteen million Americans being treated for thyroid problems, about one million of them have hyperthyroidism. Many hyperthyroid people go on to become hypothyroid later in life, as the thyroid gland “burns out.” Because hyperthyroid symptoms are more frightening and come on more suddenly, people who have them are more inclined to get to the doctor right away. And the clinical picture is clearer—just about always, the lab-test results support the symptoms.

THYROID IMBALANCE IS NOT ALWAYS
A CLEAR CLINICAL PICTURE

One challenge for patients and physicians alike is that thyroid imbalances are not always clear-cut from a clinical perspective. It’s dismayingly common to have a convincing constellation of symptoms that point to hypothyroidism and yet find that all the lab tests come back with results that are within normal limits. Some doctors will treat for hypothyroidism anyway, monitoring thyroid hormone levels and watching for improvements in symptoms. If you have such a doctor, give thanks! Unfortunately, the majority of doctors (especially family practitioners) just don’t know enough about the subtleties of thyroid function and dysfunction. Because over-supplementing thyroid hormones can cause a different set of potentially dangerous problems, many doctors who are less informed about thyroid imbalance take a “wait and see” approach, typically requesting that you return in three or six months for repeat lab tests. At best, this approach leaves you feeling as bad as ever. Or your doctor might feel compelled to run other tests to check for conditions such as fibromyalgia. And at worst, you might begin to wonder if maybe you’re going crazy. Don’t worry, you’re not . . . your problems are more likely to be in your throat than in your head.

COULD YOU HAVE A THYROID IMBALANCE?

As many as eight million Americans live with undiagnosed thyroid imbalance, typically underactive thyroid. Perhaps as many who are already receiving medical treatment for thyroid imbalance continue to have symptoms. This affects your life in innumerable ways. The answers to these questions can help you determine whether you could be among them.

Questions 1–5 explore autoimmune disorders. Some forms of thyroid imbalance are the result of an autoimmune response; in other words, your body starts to view your thyroid gland as an intruder and musters an immune response to attack it. Many autoimmune disorders seem to run in families. If you or any immediate family members have an autoimmune disorder such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, you’re more likely to develop another one such as an autoimmune form of thyroid dysfunction.

1. Does anyone in your family have a thyroid condition?

2. Do you, or does anyone in your family, have diabetes?

3. Do you, or does anyone in your family, have rheumatoid arthritis?

4. Do you, or does anyone in your family, have lupus?

5. Do you, or does anyone in your family, have pernicious anemia?

Questions 6–13 focus on problems related to dry skin and hair, common symptoms of underactive thyroid. These problems alone are not clear signs of thyroid imbalance; many things can cause dryness, from weather conditions to the hair- and skin-care products that you use. But when present with other symptoms, coarse hair and dry skin (and skin problems in general) raise suspicion about thyroid imbalance.

6. Do you frequently have dry eyes?

7. Does your mouth frequently feel dry?

8. Is your skin rough, coarse, itchy, or flaky?

9. Do you have eczema or similar skin problems?

10. Do you have vitiligo (patches of depigmented skin)?

11. Is your hair rough or coarse?

12. Do you seem to be losing hair?

13. Is your hair prematurely gray?

People with underactive thyroid typically lack energy and feel tired, fatigued, or lethargic. Questions 14–17 look at how this might play out in your life. If you feel that all you want to do is sleep and that you just don’t have the energy to make it through your day, underactive thyroid could be the reason. Conversely, people with hyperactive thyroid often have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and feel that they have too much energy.

14. Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night?

15. Do you have trouble waking up in the morning?

16. Do you feel that you have the energy you need to make it through your daily activities?

17. What is the first thing you want to do when you get home from work, school, or other activities?

What you eat and how your system responds, questions 18–20, are often subtle cues to your thyroid balance. Bowel movements that occur less frequently than every two or three days typically signal constipation, a sign of hypothyroidism. Bowel movements that occur several times a day, on the other hand, might signal hyperthyroidism. Cruciferous vegetables can suppress the levels of thyroid hormone in your bloodstream. Vitamin C and the B vitamins also affect thyroid hormone levels.

18. How frequently do you have bowel movements?

19. Do you eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale)?

20. Do you take vitamin supplements?

Because thyroid balance affects your metabolism, a thyroid imbalance often throws your body’s heat mechanisms out of kilter. An underactive thyroid fails to maintain a high enough metabolism to generate heat to keep you feeling warm, while an overactive thyroid revs up your body’s chemical processes to the point of ge...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART 1: The Thyroid Butterfly: Delicate and Elusive
• PART 2: Thyroid Conditions: Living out of Balance
• PART 3: Thyroid Therapies
• PART 4: Restoring Thyroid Health: Living in Balance
• A Glossary
• B Additional Resources