Low Thyroid – Understanding Why Low Thyroid Is a Huge Problem
February 10th, 2012 | Synthroid | Comments Off
Did you know… approximately 50 million people in the United States are affected by thyroid disease today? Statistics show thyroid conditions strike women five times more frequently than men. The question of course is why? Why is low thyroid disease so prevalent, and why do women continue to suffer with symptoms even after they’re treated with medications?
There are many reasons why low thyroid conditions affect so many people, especially women. One of the most common reasons — in fact, the most common reason is due to something being missed in your diagnosis by your doctor or primary care practitioner.
It’s often the case that women go to their doctor and are told they have a problem with their thyroid. Then they’re treated with medications such as Synthroid or Levothyroxine. The medication doses may be adjusted up or down until blood work shows levels of TSH have been normalized. Their physician then tells them they’re fine and their thyroid function has been corrected. However, their symptoms continue to persist.
If you’ve lived this scenario, you can relate. You know full well, it’s not unusual for people to continue suffering with thyroid issues even after they’ve been treated with medications.
Suffering with symptoms after “successful” treatment with medications is extremely frustrating. If you go to your physician because you’re experiencing extreme fatigue, moodiness, joint aches or the inability to lose weight — which are tell tale symptoms of thyroid issues — you expect your condition to improve when everything is “corrected” by your doctor.
It isn’t uncommon for physicians and thyroid patients to draw the conclusion that unresolved symptoms are the result of aging, or perhaps menopause. They think they just have to live with it. But, in actuality, the continued problems are likely being caused by something that can be properly diagnosed and can be properly treated.
Even worse, as symptoms persist, there’s the risk for more complications down the road as long as what’s really going on with your health remains undiagnosed. Continued symptoms of thyroid disease are warning flags that something more is going on beneath the surface. This is the primary reason patients continue to suffer with extreme fatigue, an inability to regulate body temperature, joint pain and other types of hormone disorders.
The “traditional” yet limited approach to treating thyroid problems that is concerned primarily with normalizing lab values is one common way missed diagnoses occur. If your physician or practitioner is telling you everything’s fine, but you know you’re still suffering, what’s needed is reevaluation that digs much deeper. Rather than unsuccessfully treating persistent problems, you can be diagnosed according to an approach that gets at the real cause of your problem.
If you’re a thyroid patient who’s in this frustrating situation, it’s important to know that you can and do have other options. You do not have to suffer or just deal with it. With deeper evaluation, the cause of your problem can be identified, and you can be treated effectively. You can then look forward to living symptom free, as well as reducing the risk of further health complications in the future.
