The more you learn about thyroid function the more you realize how important it is to your health, well being and longevity. Please read Test Your Thyroid for $87 also in our free library. Thyroid deficiency is all too common in America and at least one in ten people are hypothyroid. Many people are simply undiagnosed and never figure out the cause of their problems.

Hyperthyroid conditions are uncommon and account for only about 5% to10% of patients. The symptoms here include weight loss, fatigue, shakiness, nervousness, restlessness, sweating, warm hands, feeling hot, depression, unusual thirst, hair loss, brittle nails, itching, mood swings, rapid heart beat, irritability, and anxiety. 70% of hyperthyroid patients suffer from Grave’s Disease. Excessive thyroid activity can only be cured by diet and lifestyle; medications will only make you worse.

The older you get the more chance you have thyroid dysfunction. Women are especially prone and women in perimenopause, menopause or those pregnant or who suffer from PMS have high rates of dysfunction. Research shows that thyroid is very connected with obesity, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other conditions. Medical doctors, unfortunately, are very uneducated both as to how to diagnose or treat thyroid problems. They will tell you, for example, that low normal results are “fine”, when there is nothing fine about such results- you must be mid-range normal. If the range is, say, 50-100 you want to be about 75. Soon, we will have saliva test kits for free T3 and T4, but meanwhile you can get tested without a doctor for $87 over the Internet. If you have your doctor do this just get your free T3 and free T4 tested, and not your TSH or T3 uptake as he will probably insist on in his ignorance.

What are the symptoms of under active thyroid? Tiredness, weight gain, overeating, fatigue, hypertension, too much sleep, puffy eyes, feeling cold, cold hands, brittle hair and hair loss, brittle nails, depression, muscle and joint pain, dry and/or pale skin, as well as constipation. Depression is a major symptom here and anyone who feels depressed should have their thyroid tested rather than run for the Prozac. A starting dose would be 50 mcg for T4 and 12.5 mcg for T3 for low normal ranges. For below normal ranges you could try 100 mcg for T4 and 25mcg for T3.

Please understand that T3/triiodothyronine (Cytomel) and T4/L-thyroxine (Synthroid) are BIOIDENTICAL to the hormones you produce. There are no side effects of any kind when taking T3/T4- or any other natural hormone- when you use it properly. T4 always occurs in a 4:1 ratio with T3. Never take pig extracts (Armour®) unless you are one of the very few people who are low in both T3 and T4. Ignorant holistic doctors will often prescribe pig thyroid to people who are only low in T4 and thus raise their T3 to unhealthy hyper levels. You can legally buy T3 and T4 over the Internet for your own personal use without a prescription under U.S. Code Section 21 very inexpensively. Please read You Don’t Need A Prescription in our free library. Mexican Internet pharmacies are easily found with your favorite search engine.

Always remember that all our hormones work together harmoniously as a team in concert. The older you get the lower your “good” hormones are and the higher your “bad” hormones are generally. Test your DHEA, testosterone, coritsol, pregnenolone, and melatonin levels. Get a GTT test for insulin response. Women should test progesterone and all three of their estrogens. If you are over 50 and can afford $100 a month, consider Jintropin Chinese growth hormone sublingually. (GH cannot be reliably tested by blood or saliva, so go by RESULTS if you decide to use it.)

Test yourself with saliva kits as much as possible as doctors- even endocrinologists who are supposed to be specialists in this area- are woefully ignorant of how to test or treat hormone imbalance. The words “estriol” and “pregnenolone” aren’t even in their vocabulary.

Thyroid testing is necessary and you can do this for only $87 without a doctor.