Hypothyroidism

As a child, my temperature was typically 96.8 instead of 98.6, but doctors ignored it, so I had undiagnosed hypothyroidism till I was 32. By then I was sleeping 12 hours a night and taking over 1000mg of caffeine to stay awake the other 12. I was working at The Colonial Press in Clinton MA where the Barnes book was printed in 1976. I had to work second shift because it took me three more hours to become functional after I got up. Normally, I could not read without falling asleep, but fortunately, a doctor had recently put me on "speed" (Dexedrine) and I was able to stay awake to read this book. OMG! I had three dozen symptoms of low thyroid, and no doctor had ever suspected it! I brought the book to my doctor and asked him to read it. He said he did, but then ordered the standard thyroid blood tests. I said, "But the book proved that the blood tests are useless, and that body temperature and symptoms are the only reliable way to diagnose and treat low thyroid." He replied, "Well, we'll give you the tests anyway."According to all three blood tests, my thyroid was perfect, right in the middle of the normal range, so he would not give me a prescription. I went to several other doctors. One endocrinologist had a tantrum and threw me out of his office, but I finally found an old GP who was willing to try it. Sure enough, three dozen symptoms went away as my temperature came up to normal. Without that book, I probably would not have lived past 40. I'm now 79 and get by just fine on 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night. I can climb at least six flights of stairs two steps at a time without difficulty. I can squat so low I can touch my butt to the floor and pop back up again. As a senior electronics engineer, I can still do analog circuit design and printed circuit board layout. Earlier this year, I bought a microprocessor board and learned how to program it. I am still coming up with new inventions and writing the patent applications myself. I have deliberately eaten a high-fat high cholesterol diet since 1976 to prove the medical establishment wrong. My weight, my blood pressure, and my blood chemistry are all excellent. I am living proof that Broda Barnes was right and the rest of the medical has been wrong all this time. But enough about me.The blood tests measure what they measure very accurately, but they are measuring the wrong thing. We don't care how much thyroid hormone is in our blood because that is not where it works. The T4 has to get out of the blood and into the tissues, be converted by an enzyme to T3, and the T3 has to get into every cell of our body where it binds with receptors on the mitochondria. There it controls the metabolism — that rate at which we combine food and oxygen to produce heat and energy. The only way to measure that is by body temperature. Our temperature is normally regulated to ±0.07%, the most tightly regulated variable in the body. TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) from the pituitary gland controls the output of the thyroid gland. The TSH blood test has a normal range of ±82%, which is almost 1200 times wider than the temperature it is supposed to regulate. Trusting such a test is ludicrous.

"Hypo-thyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness" (Harper & Row, New York, 1976) by Broda O. Barnes, M.D. and Lawrence Galton, is an amazing book - straight forward and sensible, a great boon to people with low thyroid function. Dr. Barnes, over a period of many years in medical practice, noticed a number of symptoms in her patients that were difficult to explain. As time went on, she came to see patterns which she suspected were due to low thyroid function (Hypo-thyroidism). The symptoms ranged widely: fatigue, headaches (including migraines), skin problems, menstrual disorders, fertility problems, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart attacks, diabetes, hypoglycemia, emphysema, obesity, lung cancer, and so on. Who would think that high blood pressure and low thyroid function were connected? I certainly didn't!Dr. Barnes discovered that when she treated those patients for low thyroid function, almost all of them recovered from the symptoms that plagued them. As time went on she became more and more convinced that low thyroid function was the problem in almost all cases. She does say that thyroid dysfunction isn't always the answer, but in her long practice she found that thyroid dysfunction was the culprit in many cases.Although written 36 years ago, this book remains vital today. It is a well known fact that thyroid tests are notoriously inaccurate. Dr. Barnes clearly explains why and provides an alternative method for finding out if thyroid function is low. She claims that treatment with thyroid hormone gradually and in very small amounts will usually fix the problem.I have had a thyroid problem for years, but until 2001 not one doctor (and there were many) discovered that this was an explanation for various symptoms I had. In almost every case, the doctor assumed I was being a hysterical female (I could see it in their eyes when they weren't able to help me), and some even said to me that I had psychosomatic illness (in other words, it was all in my head!). And how silly this attitude was; my symptoms were obvious and easily identified. Why should they think I was manufacturing them, just because THEY couldn't understand what was happening to me. It was a fluke that I found this book recently on Amazon.com, while searching for help. When I read the book, I was (to use a modern expression) "blown away"!!! Everything Dr. Barnes said made perfect sense to me.My family doctor (who also has a thyroid problem) is working with me to gradually increase my dose of thyroid hormone, following the system that Dr. Barnes recommended (I got him a copy of the book too). It is working, and I finally know that low thyroid function has caused ALL my various symptoms, and I know how to fix the problem. I am no longer on Synthroid - it didn't help me at all, and am taking dessicated thyroid medication that works admirably. I feel good that I am now much more informed and knowledgeable about thyroid function. I am able to watch for signs of low thyroid function and I will take steps to remedy the situation if it happens agin in future (with the help of my doctor, of course.)I recommend that everyone who has illness as described above should buy the book from Amazon and read it to see if they might be helped by Dr. Barnes' recommendations. I feel that reading this book has literally saved my life.

When Dr. Broda worked in this field, treating thyroid-associated disorders progressed substantially. He wrote over 100 papers, most significantly about thyroid issues. However, his work is now largely ignored, and the correct diagnosis of hypothyroidism is often missed by applying inferior diagnostic methods. Also, medicine has turned to expensive, patented pharmacological solutions to focus on specific problems related to thyroid insufficiency.An example of the current approach is psoriatic arthritis, which was not a specific category of arthritis when he was practicing. Expensive biologic drugs are now used to treat the condition, sometimes successfully. Dr. Broda was successful at treating hypothyroid arthritic patients with thyroid therapy. A colleague treated sixty-seven arthritics with thyroid therapy without identifying whether they were hypothyroid or not. They mostly showed improvements in their arthritic symptoms. Dr. Broda treated other patients who had been previously treated with large doses of prednisone. He successfully treated them with thyroid therapy and small doses of prednisone. He emphasized that prednisone depressed thyroid action, so the thyroid dose should be used to counteract the effects of prednisone.Birth control pills or estrogen replacement can depress thyroid function. The current TSH measurement method is not precise and can falsely reassure one that the thyroid is functioning at an acceptable level. Dr. Broda’s basal temperature method measures thyroid function accurately so that a depressed thyroid output can be treated.Thankfully, this book is still in stock. We can learn so much from those who came before us.