Test your Thyroid for $85 -Roger Mason
The importance of thyroid testing
has been repeatedly stressed here. Hypothyroid (low T3 or T4) conditions
are epidemic in America, and most people are unaware when they are.
Hyperthyroid is rather rare, and can only be cured with a total program
of diet and lifestyle. Never use drugs or medical treatments for this.
You'll find more people are low in T4, rather than in T3. Some people
are low in both. Low thyroid function after 40 is all too common in
America. Thyroid function has very dramatic effects on your health and
well being. Even younger people more and more are having thyroid issues.
Medical doctors are generally hopeless here. That include endocrinologists,
who supposedly specialize in hormones and the endocrine system.
Doctors generally are almost completely un-educated in thyroid diagnosis
and treatment. They will test your T3 uptake and TSH instead of your
free T3 and free T4. TSH does have secondary value though. You'll generally
pay about $100 or more for an office visit, and about $30 each for your
free T3 and free T4. You must de-mand this, and tell him you are not
going to pay for T3 uptake. Often he'll want another $100 or more for
you to come back and, “discuss the results”. If you are technically
"in range", he'll tell you you're fine, and don't need any
supplemental hormones! This is not true. If you are low normal in T3
and/or T4 you need supplementation! Low normal is not good enough when
it comes to thyroid function. This is known as “subclinical hyprothyroidism”.
You must be mid-range. Add the high and low range, and divide by
2 to get MIDRANGE. You must be midrange, and not merely in range. If
the T4 scale is 7-25 (average of 16) you want to be about 14-18 ideally.
If the T3 scale is 1.5-3.5 (average of 2.5) you want to be about 2.3-2.7
ideally. Ranges differ from lab to lab. Then the good doctor will want
to see you again in six months to renew your prescription and order
more blood tests. This obviously gets quite expensive. You go to work,
and he plays golf at the country club.
Years ago Pharmasan offered saliva tests for thyroid, but discontinued
them due to lack of in-terest. This is really depressing that people
have so little interest in their own health. In the next few years surely,
these will be reintroduced by someone. ZRT Labs does offer a very expensive
blood spot test for your thyroid, but you might as well see a doctor
for a real blood draw at this price. There is a very good answer though…
There are several companies on the Internet that offer thyroid testing
inexpensively without a doctor. www.healthcheckusa.com will test your free T3 and free T4,
(and TSH) with a blood draw for only $85. You send them the money, they
send you the paperwork, and you see a clinic near you. You get the ranges
along with the results. This is actually illegal is some states though!
You don't need a doctor to get triiodothyronine (T3) or L-thyroxine
(T4) tablets. Please see the article You Don't Need a Prescription
in our free library. Under Section 21 of the U.S. code, you can legally
import any prescription drug for your personal use without a prescription.
Customs does not care about drugs like thyroid hormones. You can go
to the Mexican online pharmacies and get generic T3 (Cytomel) or T4
(Synthroid) very inexpensively. Search under such generic names as “Cynomel”
and “Levoxyl”. By the way, overdosing on iodine is not going to
help your thyroid at all. You get the RDA for iodine in All Your Minerals®.
Incompetent naturopathic doctors often recommend Armour® Thyroid. This
is extracted from dead pigs after all the pork chops and sausages are
removed. This is a 4:1 mix of T4 and T3. You cannot use Armour® unless
both your T3 and T4 are equally low. This would apply to very,
very few people (like maybe 5%). Just test and use T3 and T4 separately.
Note well: Synthroid®, Cy-tomel®, and their generic versions are
chemically bioidentical to the hormones you produce in your own
body. There are NO side effects at all from these when used properly,
despite what you may have read somewhere. There are
NEVER any side effects from using natural hormones in natural
ways, when you are proven to be low in them by blood or saliva testing.
There are several articles in our free library on thyroid health. It
is vital that you test your thyroid to see if it is functioning properly.
If your level(s) are high, only diet and lifestyle will lower them.
Drugs, surgery, and radiation are destructive and not necessary. If
you are low, you will literally get more dramatic effects from spending
about $4 a month for T3 and/or T4 than you will from taking expensive
growth hormone treatments at $250 a month. The price of a hormone or
supplement has nothing to do with how effective it is.
(Financial disclaimer: The author has no financial interest in healthcheckusa.
No kickbacks of any kind. We're just trying to help you avoid more medical
extortion. There are other sites that legally do blood testing without
doctors.)
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