Here we are going to share with you what to know about not only your thyroid, but help you understand the blood work doctors use to determine the health of your thyroid, and why your diagnosis may be wrong.
But before you follow any advice from any video or website, make sure to check with your healthcare provider to make sure it is appropriate for your specific condition. We share this information to help you better understand your body so you can better work with a health care provider to reach your health goals.
First, we are going to explain what the thyroid does, then we are going to explain the blood work, including how it can lead to you being mis-diagnosed or mis-treated. At this point, you should better understand your condition and if thyroid disease is your root cause of your symptoms or if the thyroid is malfunctioning from a deep root cause. In my experience, the thyroid malfunctioning is usually a symptom and not a thyroid disease.
What does the thyroid do?
It releases thyroid hormones in the body.
What do these thyroid hormones do?
Triiodothyronine (T3) is a thyroid hormone. It plays an important role in the body’s control of metabolism (the many processes that control the rate of activity in cells and tissues).
T4 increases numerous enzymes that produce energy for the body.
Free T4 is the active form of thyroxine hormone that enters your tissues where it's needed
Since thyroid affects metabolism and enzymes that allow the cells in your body to do their job (grow hair, contract to move the body, digest food, etc). Can you see how low and high levels can affect your energy, sleep, weight, strength, digestion, hair growth, etc. Every cell in your body needs thyroid. Can you see how taking thyroid if you don’t need it can cause harm to your body?
So when the body’s cells use these thyroid hormones, the levels of thyroid in the blood go down. A gland in the brain, and causes the pituitary gland to release a hormone called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone called TSH for short. This hormone does exactly that. It says, “hey – thyroid levels are down, make some more”. So, the thyroid makes more.
When levels go up, the pituitary gland senses this and stops releasing TSH until the levels go back down.
This is why doctors measure the TSH. If it is too high, they assume it is high because the thyroid hormones are too low, so they prescribe thyroid. Seems reasonable, right? But the problem is, sometimes the TSH is high but the thyroid levels are normal. So how can the thyroid levels be fine if TSH is high? Why would the pituitary gland keep asking the thyroid to make thyroid hormone? There are several possibilities: this can happen if you are not ingesting enough iodine for the thyroid to make it’s hormone? So, you don’t need thyroid, you need iodine.
I’ll share a story to explain this better:
I had a patient this week get her follow up results. She was suffering from extreme fatigue and saw her medical doctor. The doctor did blood work to test her TSH. It was discovered that her TSH was high, so the doctor prescribed thyroid medication. My patient wanted natural alternatives, so she made an appointment with me.
I ordered additional tests. We tested for T3, T4, free T4, Vitamin D, B12, iron levels and a few other tests. I also asked what kind of salt she used, and her salt was a sea salt that was low in iodine. All her tests were normal except she had very low vitamin D levels, which can also negatively impact thyroid levels. This explained her fatigue and high TSH (her thyroid had to work harder to make thyroid). So we added iodine and Vitamin D3 supplements, and within a week she felt better. We did follow up labs for her Vit D, and thyroid levels, and they were normal!
I share this story to demonstrate how doctors need to look at more than TSH levels to get to the root cause of your symptoms.
If a doctor prescribes you something without asking about your diet, sleep, exercise, and after just one blood test, you do not have a doctor, but a drug dealer.
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565 N Walnut St
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