Hello,
I am Dr Michael Teplisky, a holistic medical doctor from Low Thyroid Doctor.com and I am here to talk to you about low thyroid or hypothyroidism.
Low thyroid is a very common problem, about 35 million people are being treated for it. Some feel better with treatment, some don’t, but at least they are being treated. The problem is that there are about 35-40 million more people who have low thyroid, but they are NOT being treated.
I have been practicing internal medicine in NYC for almost 30 years and I have personally treated close to 3,000 people with low thyroid. Most of the patients came to me because either they had all the symptoms of low thyroid but their doctor would not treat them. Or they were given a medication for low thyroid, and it did not help them.
The point is that there are tens of millions of people with low thyroid who are not being treated because their doctors tell them that everything is fine, they are OK, they don’t have any problems, or they are being treated in a way that does not help. We’ll talk about why and how this happens. How it is possible that the patient knows that she (it’s usually a woman) is not fine, but the doctor says she is.
And then there are people who have low thyroid and do not even know it, because the changes in their health were so slow that people have gotten used to the way they feel and don’t complain. I have discovered many such people by doing a very comprehensive blood test that I do on every new patient.
As I said, I have seen a few thousand patients with low thyroid, so I know a lot about it and I wanted to share what I know with you in the hope that if you are not feeling well you will consider low thyroid as a potential reason. Or, if you are being treated for low thyroid, you may understand why your treatment is not working and how to make it work.
Now, there are many excellent discussions of hypothyroidism on the internet. However, they are all rather short. This is understandable because there is only so much information you can provide in 10-12 minutes. A typical lecture gives you a brief overview of what low thyroid is and how it is usually treated. But it does not give you all the information that you should have.
For example, most reviews mention that patients with hypothyroidism have low energy and weight gain. But they don’t usually mention heavy menstrual bleeding or elevated blood liver tests. But these are also symptoms of low thyroid. And if you are trying to figure out why you are not feeling well, you and your doctor will not consider low thyroid unless you know all the symptoms, not just a few common ones.
Which is why I came up with an idea of doing a more comprehensive review of low thyroid. Not 10-15 minutes, but as much time as needed. I have created a seminar on low thyroid to give you all the information you need to have a better understanding of the problem. My goal is to educate you, so you know a lot about low thyroid, can recognize it, and know how to deal with it. Or, if you are already being treated and not getting the results you would like, it is my hope that you will learn how to change that and what else can be done.
I called this course “Hypothyroidism in 21 lectures”. It could be many more lectures, because I could provide a lot more information about thyroid. But I did not want to make it too long and bore you. So I managed to get all the basic information in 21 lectures. This is the transcript of the lectures in the form of an eBook.
I plan to do a recording of each lecture on YouTube and maybe put them together as a seminar on my site.
I will use simple, non-technical words and descriptions. When I have to use a medical term, I will explain what it means. The first few lectures will be about how things should be when the thyroid functions normally. It will be about what thyroid is, where it is, what it does, how thyroid hormones are produced, how they are regulated and so on. In other words, how things are when everything is normal. And then we’ll talk about low thyroid or hypothyroidism, what it is, why it happens, what it does to your body (and if you are pregnant, to the developing child) and how we can deal with it and make you healthy again. In short, we’ll cover many topics.
Today I am going to introduce you to your thyroid, tell you what it is, what it does and why It is important.
So, what is the thyroid? Thyroid is an endocrine gland. A gland is an organ that produces something and releases it either outside the body or inside the body. For example, sweat glands, salivary glands that make saliva, lacrimal glands that make tears, their product goes outside the body, which is why they are called Exocrine glands. EXO means outside. Then there are Endocrine glands, they make a product or products that stay inside the body, ENDO means inside. These come from Greek, like many other medical terms. The product of endocrine gland is called a hormone. Hormones are released into the blood and go on to do their job.
Some hormones have a local effect, in other words they don’t affect the whole body. Later on, we will learn about a hormone called TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone. It is produced by a pituitary gland, which is located in the brain. The job of TSH is to travel from the brain to the thyroid gland and stimulate it, make it work harder, produce more thyroid hormones. It does not influence other organs. Purely local.
Then there are hormones that affect the entire body. Insulin, which regulates blood sugar, is one of them. And so are the hormones made by the thyroid gland. Thyroid actually makes 3 different hormones, but for our purposes only 2 are important. They are triiodothyronine or T3 and tetraiodothyronine or T4, also called thyroxine. Both contain Iodine, T3 has 3 of them and T4 has 4.
Thyroid hormones go inside the cells of the body. They help every cell produce energy and heat. In other words, they are responsible for overall metabolism. Energy is what the cells run on, sort of like gasoline. Energy allows the cells to grow, develop, replicate, multiply, repair and do everything else. Energy allows us to grow from infants into adults. And thyroid hormones are responsible for that.
We’ll have plenty to say about thyroid hormones in the future lectures, for now I just want you to realize that life without thyroid hormones is impossible.
Now, let’s talk about the actual physical thyroid. It’s a small organ, about 1 oz, it’s located at the base of the neck. It looks like a butterfly, and it surrounds the trachea, the pipe that that brings air into the lungs.
Normally, thyroid is very small, so you do not see it or feel it. There are conditions when it can become big, when you can see it and feel it. This is called a goiter, which is another word for enlarged thyroid.
This ends lecture number 1 in our “Hypothyroidism in 21 Lectures” seminar. Next time I will tell you how thyroid hormones work inside the cells.
If you know someone who might find this information useful, please ask them to go to LowThyroidDoctor.com and download this free ebook. Also, if you have questions or comments, please email them to DrTeplisky@gmail.com. I try to read and answer all of them, time permitting.
Also, please keep in mind that if you suspect that you have low thyroid or you are being treated and are not getting better, you can get a free, no obligation 30 min phone consultation with me to see if I can help you get better. Just schedule it online or call my office at 718-769-0997.