Are your hands cold all the time? Do you have a low body temperature (just take it right now, is it is lower than 98?) Hair falling out? Dry skin?
I used to show up for my yearly physical, and the nurse would always look at the thermometer and go, “Hm….96…did you just drink something cold?” When I’d say no, they’d shrug and say, “Well, maybe because it’s cold outside.”
Of course, when I started having my miscarriages, I started doing some research which suggested that it was possible, given my below-normal body temps–that my thyroid was involved. What a surprise (not!) to badger them into testing me and for the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)) results to come back and a whopping 9-point something (normal lab range is about 4, for someone trying to conceive, more like 2 or 1). My hands and feet have been cold practically all my life–who knows how long my dumb thryoid had been out of whack.
So the doctor, sort of bored, put me on Synthroid (synthetic thyroid hormone–get it?), which gave me heart palpitations, but didn’t seem to do much else. It wasn’t until I had a casual conversation with one of my son’s excellent doctors who suggested something called Armour thryoid, a natural hormone made from porcine thyroid. That, plus my yoga and some major accupuncture finally got me feeling better. But talk about having ‘Roid Rage.
Unofficial estimates suggest that up to 20% of women might have thyroid problems. Primary care physicians vary WIDELY on how they treat. My friend who’s an astute doc says she puts people on the hormones even if their clinical labs don’t show anything, just to see. On the other end of the scale is my other doctor who could hardly be prodded to write me a script, and then, he just put me on the most “popular” hormone–I had no idea there were others.
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