Thyroid disease is now commonplace.
So here is the thing… Thyroid disease is actually very common. You probably know someone who is suffering from a thyroid condition currently. According to the American Thyroid Association, around 20 million people have been diagnosed with some form of a thyroid condition. There are many, many more undiagnosed cases out there as well.
Why so many undiagnosed cases?
Most conventional doctors check just one marker, TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) to determine if your thyroid is functioning properly. In my last blog, Is Your Thyroid The Problem, I went over some basics on thyroid hormones and how they work. Knowing a bit about the physiology of the thyroid, and the hormones it produces and interacts with will shine some light on the matter. Needless to say, to tell a complete picture, there are many other hormone markers to check.
The Physiology
Your thyroid regulates metabolism for every cell in your body. Metabolism is often associated with just being in relation to weight gain and weight loss, but actually, metabolism is about cellular regulation across all cells of the body!
Because the thyroid is part of the endocrine system and involved with cellular regulation, its hormone levels should rise and fall according to the bodies needs. When this doesn’t happen, we have the symptoms that we talked about in our last blog, associated with low thyroid.
So here is how the communication flow works with the thyroid:
Hypothalamus —-> Pituitary
Pituitary —–> Thyroid (Pituitary uses TSH to communicate)
When your thyroid receives a signal in the form of TSH from the pituitary that your body has inadequate levels of thyroid hormone, your thyroid produces more of both T3 and T4.
Conventional Thyroid Testing
Most conventional doctors start by checking just your TSH levels… As we will show, this is inadequate.
- According to most conventional labs, the normal range for TSH of about 0.4 – 4.0 mIu/L.
- However, most naturopathic doctors and functional medicine practitioners is about 1-2.0 mIU/L.
- Studies confirm that thyroid levels higher than 2.5 mlU/L are associated with obesity and the development of metabolic syndrome. (1, 2, 3)
So there you have it… here we have studies confirming thyroid levels above 2.5 mlU/L as potentially health injuring, and your conventional doctor, using lab guidelines, might be telling you that everything is totally fine, even though you know things are most definitely not fine!
There are five underlying problems most commonly causing thyroid dysfunction.
There are lots of reasons why the thyroid can be disrupted. Many of these can be attributed to either stress, environment, genetic, toxic, or nutrient deficiency.
- The hypothalamus and pituitary may not be functioning properly to signal your thyroid.
- The body may not be converting T4 into T3.
- Cells may not be letting T3 inside.
- Stress can result in the production of reverse T3.
- The body may be having an autoimmune reaction to the thyroid.
Tests We Do At The Teggatz Clinic
At the Teggatz Clinic, we test the following as a bare minimum:
- TSH (conventional doctors often just test this)
- Free T3
- Free T4
- Reverse T3
- Thyroid Peroxidase
- Thyroglobulin antibodies
- Urinary Iodine
These additional tests ensure that we get the most accurate picture possible to determine the actual reason behind your symptoms.
The truth is that you can have thyroid issues that won’t show up right away, and will give false negative results. For instance, you might go to see your conventional doctor, suspecting thyroid issues, take the recommended test, and your TSH results come back great. So you think you are fine…
However, if you were to take a full spectrum test, including the additional thyroid hormone markers listed above, we might be able to tell you a different story. In knowing what your numbers are, and being able to interpret what they mean, we can work together to create an intelligent plan of action.
I’d love to help!
Call us for a free 15-minute appointment today!
319-393-4307
PS… Did you see our last email? We are offering a FREE acupuncture and functional medicine experience in co-partnership with Hands In Harmony, LLC. 10 Spots Available! November 16th at 7PM! Call us at 319-393-4307 to reserve a spot!
