Thyroid Basics Explained

Damn, am I glad I found this board.
This sticky has made so much sense to me.
I definitely suffer from Adrenal Fatigue without a doubt.
However my thyroid issues (very low body temp) were quite unclear to me.
I now know they are secondary to AF and in treating AF (hydrocortisone, rest, diet => Wilson) and replenishing my deficient Iodone level (way below normal), I should automatically raise my energy levels to normal again. Hope to see improvement soon.

Thanks a lot.

If you have compound problems, iodine replenishment cannot do everything.

Adrenal fatigue is too complex for a sticky. All I can do is recommend Wilson’s book for reading.

Very informative post.Can IR help regulate cortisol levels as well ?

Not directly. But the function of one hormone system depends in the health and gene expression of the supporting/functional tissues and cells that are affected by other hormone systems. And how these problems affect a person can be quite individualistic, creating situations that are diagnostically confusing.

Note that in deeper cases of thyroid problems, the low serum levels of thyroid hormones might also affect how the supporting tissues in the thyroid which may compound the problem.

Some people seem to shrug off some imbalances that are very disturbing to others.

To create another and probably flawed tripod analogy, we see that stable health requires that sex hormones, thyroid hormone and cortisol type hormones all need to be working properly. If all three are off by minor amounts, one can feel that something is wrong and have a list of symptoms. But lab work will suggest that everything is normal if one is not looking carefully at the problem.

Then we can add pathologies on top of hormone imbalances; the clinician focus on the pathology and then all of the other problems are simply invisible as a patients poor response to treatment or, the other problems are assumed to be various side effects of the drugs used to treat the pathology.

To directly answer your question: I would say that if one has adrenal fatigue, recovery with optimal thyroid function could be much better/faster than with functional hypo thyroid issues. And perhaps, subclinical hypothyroidism could be one of the factors that lad to adrenal fatigue. Again, adrenal fatigue is complex because healing takes time and life style changes. You cannot fix it with a pill. I always refer to reading Wilson’s book.

In Dr. David Brownstein’s book “Iodine, Why You Need it” he says that TSH will increase when starting iodine therapy. So if you start it and don’t see results right away don’t run to your doctor to get a thyroid panel done because the TSH number will be high and he might want to start you on thyroid hormone right away.

I’d also add that if after you’ve done iodine treatment and run through all the other options and are faced with what hormone treatment to use be aware that there are several options. The mainstream docs will prescribe Synthroid or one of its equivalents. For some this will work fine, for others they will find they still feel like crap. This could be due to reactions to the dyes and fillers in the Synthroid, but most mainstream docs won’t admit this. An alternative to Synthroid it Tirosint which is a gel cap that just contains the active ingredient (T4),glycerin, gelatin and water.

Some people will still feel like crap even on Tirosint. At this point they may need to try adding some T3 hormone along with the T4. The alternative docs will prescribe Armour Thyroid for this which is about 20% T3 and 80% T4. Some people will do very well on this, some will do well for a few weeks and then feel like crap again (happened to me) and for some they still will feel like crap.

At this point it may be worth considering an approach championed by Dr. Kenneth Blanchard in his book “The Functional Approach to Hypothyroidism” which is a ratio of 98.5-99% T4 to 1-1.5% T3. Apparently some people do very well on this.
Finally some people may find that T3 alone works for them although I haven’t heard of anyone for whom this works long term.

If one has high TSH but higher than the top range free T3, and in range free t4, plus normal-high body temperature, what could it mean?

I think you should create your own thread because when I asked something in those threads the people was mad at me. But high TSH with good T3 and T4 is indicative of adrenal fatigue. I will paste some info here for your reading.

"This is known as pooling and with out cortisol and iron then the thyroid
can not reach the cell to tell the body to stop kicking out more TSH.

Once you send the thyroid to the tissue with appropriate iron and
cortisol this will cause the TSH to drop resulting in the response which
we are looking for driving the thyroid into the cell to get the
metabolic response. As your thyroid comes up so will your ferritin as
enzyme that control uptake of iron from the blood to the storage is
driven by the thyroid it self. "

"An extensive review of the literature shed further light on this issue.[7-12] Gharib et al[7] and Topliss et al[8]
described adolescent and adult patients with Addison’s disease who had
hypothyroidism at presentation and who became euthyroid after the
initiation of corticosteroid treatment.

Reversible Subclinical Hypothyroidism with Adrenal Insufficiency"

Most people are able to convert T4–>T3 in peripheral tissues. But some cannot. When those few are on T4 meds, they can have hypo symptoms, some times severe. And when thyroid meds are used and TSH is pushed low or to zero, T4–>T3 inside the thyroid is reduced or stopped.

As you can see from the above, how people react to thyroid meds can be highly variable. There is no single cookie cutter med or protocol. Many doctors are not mentally equipped to deal with this. And the drug reps push their T4 products and tell docs that that is all that is needed because the patients will convert T4–>T3 on their own. While that seems to be true in many cases, this creates hell for some patients.

Drug reps selling T4 are in competition with things like Armour Thyroid and have a dialog telling doctors that Armour simply has no reason to exist now that synthetic T4 is available. Some docs have learned otherwise.

Then with combined adrenal fatigue and hypo symptoms, docs will treat the hypothyroidism with T4 and that will increase T4–>rT3. Then rT3 blocks more fT3 and hypo symptoms can get worse. Again, this is a degree of complexity that many doctors are not able to grasp.

If someone has the combination of issues in the above paragraph but also lacks the ability to properly T4–>T3 in peripheral tissues, then when put on T4, T3 production will be low and increasing rT3 will make that much more severe by blocking the action of what fT3 they have.

All of these things can be at play at times in a doctors case load and this can create very confusing situations where it is difficult to know what is going on. And the doctor might assume that the symptoms must be from some other pathology and not be thyroid related, because the patient has been properly medicated for that.

I find that I am not equipped to deal with these issues in a forum.

Here is a really good website I found for interpreting thyroid lab results. You can download the Excel file and enter your free T3/T4 values to get a “big picture”:

http://www.drrind.com/therapies/thyroid-scale

True to form. Not a single word about iodine intake or deficiency.

this thread has been helpful. I have been on TRT for about 6 years, and have my blood tests every 6 mos. this last time (December) I was found to have low thyroid numbers, and the doc prescribed me a very low dose of Synthroid, 25mg.

I have ordered them, but havent started taking them yet.

I will check out the Adrenal fatigue info and Idodine to see what more I can learn.

thanks again, KSman~

Just a reminder.
If you guys do iodine loading you should take probiotics afterwards.

"Maybe there is a learning disability as a symptom of hypothyroidism. "
You might be amused to hear that Iodine deficiency has actually been linked to lower IQ. From wikipedia: “Iodine deficiency is one of the leading causes of preventable mental handicaps worldwide, producing typical reductions in IQ of 10 to 15 IQ points”

Also some good analysis here: http://www.gwern.net/Iodine

KSman said: "Element bromine is related to iodine and in the body it can get stored where iodine would otherwise be stored. You can slowly build up bromine in your system and it is not good for you. Bromine is introduce in foods and medicines: http://en.wikipedia.org/...ne#Applications When you do IR, it will displace bromine in your body that is then excreted.

However, serum levels of bromine can make one feel sick during the phase and people will feel that the iodine is making them sick. Those who have such levels of bromine should not abandon IR but should understand what is happening and why. They can also reduce their IR dose to see if things are more tolerable. Bromine stinks.

Someone shedding bromine may smell bad or fishy and may have a metallic taste sensation. If this is happening, there would be some comfort in knowing that they removing toxins. If one feels that the bromine displacement is over, they could increase IR dose if that makes sense."

Thanks again for this valuable info KSman. I increased my salt intake several weeks ago using “iodized” sea salt. My body temps came up a little but not enough so I started IR. After just a couple of days, when my wife kissed me she asked what the “fish smell” was. I also had a metallic taste in my mouth.

The next day I expelled some of the most rancid gas in my life
awful!!-(my grandson was really proud of me). I came back and re-read this sticky and when I saw the paragraph above I was relieved to know that I wasn’t dying but that I was just expelling what was already dead inside of me. I had one day of feeling really bad
almost flu like during this time


BTW the taste and smell have gone away so I’m guessing that means that the IR has been effective in helping to eliminate the toxic bromine from my system.? Thanks again for sharing this information with us
it definitely increases the comfort level when things like this happen.

EZrider

There is bromated vege oil in some sports drinks such as gatorade orange.

Developed in 1965 at the University of Florida to help football players keep hydrated in the heat, Gatorade was an immediate hit. By 1969, a private company acquired rights to market the drink and started adding brominated vegetable oil to distribute flavor evenly in a new orange version.

There also is bromine in some medications, Rx and OTC.

You also need to find out where you picked up your bromine and also need to think about who else has shared your exposure [family?]. The can be exposure in the work place from fire retardant clothing.

Bromide can be found in several forms. Methyl Bromide is a pesticide used mainly on strawberries, found predominantly in the California areas. Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to citrus drinks to help suspend the flavoring in the liquid.

Potassium Bromate is a dough conditioner found in commercial bakery products and some flours.

There is some really good thyroid analysis in the Perfect Health Diet book.

Even though it is targeted towards low carb paleo dieters, many T-Nation people who are cutting/dieting may find it relevant.

[quote]KSman wrote:
There is bromated vege oil in some sports drinks such as gatorade orange.

Developed in 1965 at the University of Florida to help football players keep hydrated in the heat, Gatorade was an immediate hit. By 1969, a private company acquired rights to market the drink and started adding brominated vegetable oil to distribute flavor evenly in a new orange version.

There also is bromine in some medications, Rx and OTC.

You also need to find out where you picked up your bromine and also need to think about who else has shared your exposure [family?]. The can be exposure in the work place from fire retardant clothing.

Bromide can be found in several forms. Methyl Bromide is a pesticide used mainly on strawberries, found predominantly in the California areas. Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to citrus drinks to help suspend the flavoring in the liquid.

Potassium Bromate is a dough conditioner found in commercial bakery products and some flours.

[/quote]

I used to drink lots of Gatorade and sports drinks but that was years ago. It was probably from the “Tama Flu” or the Doxycycl hyc
was sick for about 6 weeks this winter.

I can’t believe how much better I feel after getting that out of my system. That’s what I love about this forum
you can learn stuff you would never hear about in your dr’s office.

EZrider

Neither of those drugs have any bromine in their molecules. Maybe bromine can persist for years. If not from sports drinks you need to think about where else it came from and if your family was exposed. You could have your wife take the same iodine that you took that started your bromine stink and see what happens.

http://web1.caryacademy.org/facultywebs/gray_rushin/StudentProjects/ElementWebSites/bromine/nature.htm

http://leifgrunseth.com/2010/05/the-everyday-food-additive-that-toxifies-us-all/

Thank you Sir,
Looks like I have a lot more research to do. My wife is taking the same iodine and so far she still smells like a rose. I will try to figure out where it came from and let you know. I would never have suspected bromine until I read your post. I have to tell you that I feel great now!

This is all a lot to take in for me as I am new to this whole thing but you guys are great!! awesome threads!!