It sure seems like doctors are quick to perscribe Synthroid. I've been hearing more and more people are on this so I've been trying to do a little research.
Synthroid is only T4. What the doctors tend to overlook is that the vast majority of people can't convert T4 to the active form of thyroid which is T3. This is easy to confirm by measuring the free hormone levels, but not many doctors use these tests. Research published in the May 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism reported on a recent study that found patients preferred thyroid treatment that included a combination of T4 and T3, rather than the usual T4 only, and the combination treatment was associated with weight loss. This clinical trial is the largest to date, and the first since the Bunevicius study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999 which confirms a beneficial effect of combination T4/T3 therapy for hypothyroidism. Since this is something she's going to be on probably for the rest of her life, I'd be learning all I could about it if I were her...
You're right....what were we thinking correcting these patients to euthyroid.
Funny how if they couldn't convert to the active form T3 then why would their TSH normalize.
Any first year medical student will tell you that you monitor Thyroid disease with TSH NOT T4, T3.
Just out of curiosity which school of homeopathy did you graduate from? Scary what happens when lay people read medical journals
FYI, to Stavios....do not worry, this is an EXTREMELY common condition among women and once your girlfriends TSH normalizes (i.e. The appropriate dose of synthroid is prescribed) she will be fit as a fiddle.
On the other hand, you could get one of these shamans on this board to prescribe her goat thyroid or something.
