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First off I want to get into a very popular subject and that is hypothyroid or a slow thyroid.  The thyroid gland is located in your neck and it pretty much regulates how fast or how slow your body runs.  It secretes four hormones, T1, T2, T3, and T4.  Each one of those numbers refers to the number of iodine molecules are attached to the hormone.  So, T4 has four, T2 has two.  Every single cell we have needs the proper amount of thyroid hormone to function.  Ever cell, every where.  So you can see when this system gets screwy, your body doesn’t work right.

Some of the tell tale signs of a slow thyroid are the inability to lose weight, fatigue, feeling cold especially in the hands and feet.  There are some other, not so common symptoms that people can have that can be a sign like brain fog, dry skin, brittle fingernail, low body temperature, that’s a good indicator there, headaches, low libido, hair loss, irregular menstrual cycles, constipation.  There are a couple rather strange symptoms that you can look out for too, hypothyroidism can enlarge the tongue slightly.  You probably won’t really notice it but the tongue will get teeth impressions towards the front.  That’s because it is pushing against the teeth and they are making indentations there.  So, look at your tongue and see if there are little, bumps or indentations, on it.  Sometimes, women will lose the hair on the outside edge of their eyebrows, a thinning type, or loss of hair altogether.

Also, if you have what is called estrogen dominance, that can act like hypothyroidism.  Hormone balancing, if this is causing the symptoms, will take care of that.  Too much estrogen can block thyroid function.  It’s a complicated subject that can take up a whole podcast, hormone balancing is.

As far as medication goes, there is the synthetic Synthroid, a couple generics levothyroxine, levoxyl, levothroid, unithroid, that’s probably a couple more but those are really the only ones that anyone uses.  These are all 100% T4.  Your body should convert the T4 into the more usable form which is the T3.  It’s about 5 times a powerful as the T4.  Now, some people just have a hard time with that conversion.  You may lack a certain enzyme, or not have enough, or the enzyme isn’t structured properly, anything really that makes the conversion difficult.

In these people, they either have to take a high dose of the Synthroid, or use another medication called Armour Thyroid.  I like the Armour much more than Synthroid.  What Armour is is dessicated pig thyroid gland.  Sounds disgusting I know but what is done is they take the gland, dry it out, grind it up, and press it into tablets in the right amount.  The structure of the Armour thyroid is, if it’s not 100% bio-identical, it’s pretty darn close to our own.  So taking it is just like your body getting the thyroid hormone that would normally be secreted by a fully functioning thyroid gland.   Doesn’t have as much conversion that has to happen, there is a bunch of T3 in there that can go right to work.

I have plenty of patients who take the Synthroid, or the generic, and it works great for them, they are happy with it.  In those cases, like with every one of my clients, if they are happy and the medication is working for them, don’t change it.  Don’t break what is not broken.

But some people, it just doesn’t work well, the Synthroid, and they react much better to the Armour.  When someone comes to me and complains of symptoms of a low thyroid, I recommend the Armour.  We need a thyroid stimulating hormone test or a TSH test.  If your TSH is high, that means your thyroid level is low.  See, your body puts out thyroid stimulating hormone to tell the thyroid to put out thyroid hormone.  If you need more thyroid hormone, your body is pumping out more thyroid stimulating hormone to try and stimulate the thyroid to produce more hormone.  So when the TSH level is up, your body is trying to get more hormone out.  You can do that, or get a free T3 test.  The doctor is probably going to want to use the TSH, that’s just kind of the gold standard.

But, I do not treat numbers, I treat patients.  It’s just like with the bio-identical hormones, I need a place to start, that’s the initial testing, after that, I go by how you feel, not by what the number says.  There is a big range of normal.  Just because you fall inside the normal range, lets say the range is 10 to 20, if your test shows 10.5, your in the normal range, but you might be 19, that’s you.  So, a conventional doctor is going to say, your in the normal range, everything is fine.  Well, I’m not going to beat on doctors, we’ve got quackters for that, but we should treat the patient and not the numbers.

Most doctors will start you on the synthroid because that’s just the most popular, the most common.  It’s been used for years with some success.  I already said if you are on synthroid and happy, stick with it.  But if not or you are just starting thyroid replacement, I recommend Armour.  And it’s not just here’s your dose, there is a regimen that I use.  No matter what, I start with 30mg, in the morning for two weeks.  If you are taking synthroid, that is a phasing in and phasing out, but we have to figure that out based on your dose.  After two weeks, hey, how do you feel?  If you still feel a little sluggish, cold, let’s up it to one in the morning and one in the evening for two weeks.  After two weeks again, guess what, how do you feel?  We keep going up 30mg a day until your feeling good, have energy, not cold all the time, then we know about where you need to be.

I like the trial and error method.  It’s not as much guessing as you think.  Traditionally, it was, your TSH level is this, that corresponds with a synthroid dose of that.  But that doesn’t necessarily put you in the normal range for you, it should put you in the normal range, but you could be on one end and the dose is putting you on the other end, but both are considered normal.

So, I go by feel.  Start with a low dose and work our way up until we get to where we need to be.  At worst, it takes maybe two months if you need a hefty dose.  But we get there and the patient is pretty happy with the results.

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