Free How Come They're Happy and I'm Not? by Peter Bongiorno Page B

case with our supervising doctor, he explained to us that from a naturopathic perspective, it was common to see new symptoms pop up when another symptom is being suppressed. It's kind of like when you try to stuff too many balls in a bucket—when you try to put the lid on, one or two will pop out. In this case, Winnie's mood was pushed under the surface, but her period symptoms popped up and out.
    Our supervising doctor recommended we run some blood tests, and while most of her test results were quite healthy and balanced, Winnie's ferritin was abysmally low. We started her on an iron supplement, and after one month, she reported feeling so good that her energy had even improved, though she hadn't even known it was a problem beforehand. She also mentioned her exercise seemed much stronger. Best of all, her mood had improved. After two months, her premenstrual symptoms had disappeared and she had discontinued the Prozac with no negative effects on mood.
Test: Thyroid
    The thyroid test looks at how your thyroid functions. Besides its importance in mood, your thyroid is a key factor in your ability to burn food as energy, to have good bowel movements, and even to keep bad cholesterol (LDL) in check. Low thyroid function is very common. According to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, one in ten Americans suffers from thyroid disease and almost half of these remain undiagnosed. Many experts suspect the heavy metal pollution and radioactive by-products from nuclear power plants may be increasing the incidence of thyroid disease. Low thyroid symptoms include weight gain, slowed thinking, memory problems, feeling cold, and constipation. Often, low thyroid can be an early or even first symptom of oncoming depression.

    Figure 2 : The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis

    The blood tests I recommend look at how the brain instructs the thyroid and how well the thyroid responds to those instructions. These are Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). TSH is made by the pituitary gland, in the base of the brain. TSH tells the thyroid how much thyroid hormone (mostly in the form of T4) should be produced. That T4 travels to nearly all cells of the body, and gets converted to T3, which is the active form of the hormone. T4 is identical to the molecule they use to make thyroid replacement hormone. The brain has an area called the hypothalamus, which keeps track of how much T4 and T3 is present in your body, and sends a signal to the pituitary in the form of thyroid releasing hormone (TRH). The TRH in turn tellsthe pituitary how much TSH to make. This system is called a negative feedback loop.
    In the blood stream, T4 and T3 can either actively create an effect (called the “free” form) or not (called the “bound” form). This is why it is a good idea to ask your doctor for both free and total measurements of T4 and T3 as well as something called Thyroid Binding Globulin (TBG). Sometimes your total amounts can be normal, but the active free form is low. The liver puts out this protein called TBG, which will bind up the thyroid hormones in your blood and not allow them to be active.
How to Treat Abnormal TSH, T3, or T4
    If your TSH is greater than 2.5, I usually recommend patients run what is called a thyroid antibody panel. This panel helps you determine if your thyroid is malfunctioning because your immune system is attacking it (a condition called Hashimoto's disease or thyroiditis). Some doctors say 2.5 is just fine for thyroid, but the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists has been lowering the threshold of TSH. If yours is near the new 3.0 threshold, it should be checked.
    If the results show an autoimmune thyroid condition, please refer to the following section in this chapter on digestive and antiinflammatory work.
    If there's no autoimmune condition and
TSH is above 2.2 and T4 is low but T3 is in normal range: Eat extra kelp and seaweed