Are You Looking For A Natural Thyroid Doctor?

A natural thyroid doctor can provide drug free treatment options

Are you looking for a natural thyroid doctor who understands alternative health issues? Most thyroid issues are found by a person's primary physician on a routine blood work up.

Current standards for thyroid testing mainly rest on just testing Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone (TSH.) Although this is useful as a warning sign that something is wrong with the thyroid gland, it doesn’t tell you much

Taking a thorough medical history is very important to help the doctor determine what type of thyroid problem you have. A proper physical examination including a face, neck, eye, neurologic, and tibial exam should be performed.

In addition, a good doctor will order more than just a TSH blood test. There are many reasons a person’s TSH level may be too high or too low.

A bad diet, hormone disruption, neurotransmitter disruption, environmental toxins, mercury, and radiation can all influence a person's TSH levels

Therefore, many more factors need to be assessed to properly diagnose a thyroid issue.

A doctor needs a complete blood panel to help determine what is really going on.

An Experienced Thyroid Doctor Will Order All Of These Blood Markers:

The doctor needs a complete thyroid blood panel to diagnose whether it is an autoimmune response or something else

(TSH) Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone
(T4) Thyroxine
(T3) Triiodothyronine
(FTI) Free Thyroxine Index
(T3 U) Triiodothyronine Uptake
(fT3) Free Triiodothyronine
(fT4) Free Thyroxine
(rT3) Reverse Triiodothyronine
(TPO Ab) Thyroperoxidase antibody
(TgAb) Thyroglobulin antibody
(TSH-R Ab / TSI) Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone Receptor Antibody / Thyroid-Stimulating Immunoglobulin. [Note: this is not a standard test. It is usually only ordered when Graves' disease is suspected.]

This full thyroid panel (listed above) will help your doctor figure out if your thyroid disorder is caused by an autoimmune factor or not. Many times a person will have some degree of Hashimoto’s or Graves and not know it.

If the autoimmune element is missed in testing it can cause the patient to get the wrong treatment. These patients are normally told their blood work looks normal but they still feel terrible. They don’t usually respond to medicine, or the medicines only work for a short while.

Functional Wellness Thyroid Doctors

Many times a patient will return to their medical doctor to get off of their medication because their thyroid has returned to normal levels

A good doctor can also determine if your thyroid issues are really a result of other problems such as sugar regulation, hormone disruption issues, or neurotransmitter breakdowns. The thyroid gland is very complicated and it is usually the victim of some other malfunctioning process going on in your body. It is not as simple as just giving someone drugs because they have a low TSH.

When patients come to me they are looking for drug free options so they don’t have to take thyroid-regulating drugs the rest of their life. A functional wellness doctor like myself will do detailed blood studies to uncover the source of the thyroid dysfunction. Many times a patient will return to their medical doctor to get off of their medication because their thyroid has returned to normal levels. This is often the case when the thyroid problems are caused by an autoimmune issue. Once I identify the inflammatory triggers and remove them, the body stops attacking its own thyroid and blood levels return to normal.

My advice is to always follow the advice of your physician, but find an excellent functional wellness doctor to co-manage your thyroid condition. Ultimately you want to build a team of the best doctors who will work together and do what’s best for you. If your thyroid doctor doesn’t want to be part of your team, then shop around until you find one who does.

For more serious thyroid issues a doctor might decide to do an ultrasound, radioactive iodine uptake, and fine-needle aspiration.

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