Clinician McCall McPherson shares nine observations about hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's disease, including diagnostic delays averaging 10 years, why T4-only therapy fails many patients, and the need for better screening. Symptoms often get blamed on life stress instead of thyroid problems, especially in women.
Chapters
Things I've learned as a thyroid. Number one, from the time you actually get hypothyroidism to getting diagnosed with it, in what I've seen, it's an average of 10 years. So 10 years of suffering before someone will actually end up diagnosing you. And your labs will go far enough outside of range to be picked up on initial screening labs. Number two, 99% of the time people are not being screened for hypothyroidism with proper labs. They're going to the doctor complaining of fatigue, weight gain, dry skin, all of these things. The doctor returns and says, look, look, your labs look completely normal. You do not have hypothyroidism, when in fact improper lab work has been run in order to rule in or rule out this diagnosis. Number three, if you are a woman, especially a woman with children, it is not a matter of if but when you will end up with a thyroid problem. Number four. So in all honesty, your doctor probably is not properly screening you for Hashimoto's at all. They think there's nothing you can do about it, so there's not a lot of reason to screen you for it. Number five, people find excuses, women especially. Why? We're tired all the time. It's, oh, I have babies, I'm breastfeeding, I'm up all night, my kids are in a lot of extra sports. And then eventually all your kids graduate, they go off to college, and you're still exhausted. And really, it's not all of those things in your life that have been driving these symptoms. It's actually a thyroid problem that you thought was just a manifestation of situations in your life. Number six, Are we on six? Levothyroxine, syndroid, tyrosine. This class of medication of inactive hormone is inadequate for a vast majority of people suffering with hypothyroidism. 100% of my patients at modern thyroid clinic are not treated with this class of medication alone, though they are, of course, the more complex thyroid people. Despite this being the case, the next thing is levothyroxine is the number one prescribed medication in our country. What does that mean? That means tens of millions of people, especially women, are being inadequately treated for something that can really devastate lives. Number seven, if you're on a medication with T3 in it, armor, cytomel, lyothyrenine and P. Thyroid, get your labs drawn on your medication, not off. Number eight, most women who have a thyroid problem also have adrenal fatigue or low testosterone. I see these things running together all day, every day in my practice. Number nine, most endos don't approach thyroid problems outside of a very basic T4 inactive hormone, levothyroxine based treatment. Again, this is not enough for most people. They are not trained in dealing with more complex medications and they actually frequently discourage it.
