Thyroids are like Fingerprints

I’m seeing a growing number of clients with subclinical thyroid conditions with normal blood chemistry panels. Unfortunately, blood chemistry panels only reveal overt pathology, not subclinical conditions. Lucky for us, Dr. Broda Barnes, M.D., developed the axillary temperature to determine subclinical hypothyroidism (doesn’t show up in blood panels but symptoms are present).

At least 30 million Americans have a thyroid disorder and half are silent sufferers who are undiagnosed, according to The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

What are hypothyroidism symptoms? Fatigue is the number one symptom to hypothyroidism. It’s the kind of fatigue where you’re still tired in the morning after a full night’s sleep—that’s a clue that you’re not simply sleep deprived; your thyroid may be under active. Thinning of hair, loss of lateral third eyebrows, cold hands and feet and an inability to lose weight under any conditions are the most common symptoms I see.

So you have all the symptoms but your doctor has said that nothing is wrong with your thyroid… What do you do? My first suggestion is to be sure that your doctor ran all the labs, not just TSH and free T4. You want T4, T3, reverse T3 and antibodies. You can’t get a clear picture without all of them. If your doctor won’t run them, you can run most your own tests in most states. Use direct labs or walk-in labs. While your waiting for your lab work, start taking your first morning oral temp before getting out of bed. Ideally, your temperature should be running around 97. Near ovulation your temp will rise and that doesn’t count. If your numbers are consistently low then I would suspect subclinical thyroid and it’s time to find a holistic nutritionist near you.

In health,

Cara