Emily's Blog

THE TOP TEN MOST COMMON THYROID SYMPTOMS

by Emily Glasser on 12/05/11

FATIGUE
WEIGHT GAIN, DESPITE A LOW-CALORIE DIET
COLD HANDS AND FEET OR SENSITIVITY TO COLD
CONSTIPATION AND OTHER DIGESTIVE DISTURBANCES
ITCHY, DRY SKIN
DRY, BRITTLE HAIR
HAIR FALLING OUT
HEART PALPITATIONS
BRAIN FOG
LOSS OF OUTERMOST PORTION OF EYEBROWS

THYROID DISEASE, THE HIDDEN ILLNESS

by Emily Glasser on 12/05/11

Almost every day I am asked about thyroid disease by a concerned patient who suspects that they or a loved one might have some sort of thyroid condition. Oftentimes, the patient has already been to see their family physician or GP, has already had blood work done and been told that their thyroid is normal and, “everything seems fine.”

They’ll tell me they are fatigued and cold all the time, they can’t lose weight and their hair is falling out—the all too familiar signs that something is amiss with the thyroid. While many patients bring their labs to me for review, the labs are often incomplete and missing the key elements necessary to diagnosing a thyroid condition.

In fact, after I run a more thorough work-up, many patients are often amazed (and usually relieved) to learn that they indeed have a thyroid condition and that it is not, “all in their head.”

The good news is that it is not all in their head and it is treatable. There are many ways to support the thyroid and regulate the immune system that brings relief to thousands of thyroid sufferers and allows them to live healthy, productive lives. (I’ll talk more about the specifics of this in future blogs.)

Not surprisingly, I see patients with these same concerns and questions about their thyroid panels time and again. As some 27 million Americans have some type of thyroid condition, roughly half will remain undiagnosed (National Woman’s Health Information Center). Autoimmune thyroid disease, such as Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, is the most common form of autoimmune disease in America and accounts for over half of all thyroid conditions.

So with the prevalence of thyroid conditions this high, why is there all this confusion and missed diagnoses? There are a multitude of factors why patients slip through the cracks and go undiagnosed. To name a few:

Outdated lab ranges eliminate many thyroid sufferers right off the bat, simply because the lab ranges are too narrow and are not compliant with the latest research.
Sub-standard lab work that fails to include antibody testing (essential to diagnose autoimmune thyroid conditions) and insufficient hormone testing.
Ambiguous symptoms that overlap with other conditions or diseases, many times mistaken by the practitioner as something else entirely or attributed to environmental, mental or emotional factors.
Subclinical cases not yet detectable through lab testing alone.

If you think you might have a thyroid condition, don’t wait to get help. Call my office and schedule an appointment for a thorough blood work-up and analysis.

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The Truth About Lab Testing--Part 2

by Emily Glasser on 12/01/11

Did you know that lab ranges are not standardized? This means that a lab in Florida will have different lab reference ranges than a lab in San Diego or Texas or Nevada.

Lab ranges are established by calculating averages. Combining the lab values of both the healthy and sick people in your city or area in which you live, the lab will use this average as their "standard" lab range.

This poses a few problems. First, the patient demographic can change drastically from city to city, state to state. There can be more sick people in a given town such as polluted Newark, New Jersey or near textile manufacturing plants in Detroit.

Second, why are we comparing our health to sick individuals in the first place? I don't know about you, but I don't want my lab values compared to "sick" values or even an average of healthy and sick people combined. Wouldn't it be more useful to calculate the average values for moderately health individuals and use that as our guide?

While sometimes the differences from lab to lab may be subtle, at other times it could mean the difference between being full-blown diabetic and pre-diabetic or insulin resistant. So, your mother in Alabama could be diagnosed as Diabetic. But, when she retires in Iowa and has a check-up with her doctor in Des Moines, she could be told she is no longer considered Diabetic.

How many missed diagnoses and mis-diagnoses might this yield?

This is why I practice "Functional Medicine." Taking into account these skewed lab ranges, I use a different set of lab ranges derived from the average values of health individuals. This allows me to see more subtle shifts in your metabolism and catch diseased states in the beginning stages as well as before erupting into a full-blown, more severe pathology.

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The Apple Juice Controversy

by Emily Glasser on 12/01/11

The FDA muddles things once again. Organic arsenic naturally found in apples is relatively harmless. However, inorganic arsenic, in this case derived from pesticides, poses serious health concerns.

To begin with, I do not condone drinking juice. The body assimilates fruit juice as pure sugar and it is lacking in the vitamins, minerals and phyto-nutrients that are otherwise found in the pith and fibrous body of the fruit itself.

So, if you have children and still want to give them juice from time to time, buy organic. This will eliminate the potential for inorganic arsenic exposure and is better for your child anyway.

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The Truth About Lab Testing

by Emily Glasser on 11/22/11

Lab tests can be really useful in understanding your health, but unfortunately, many doctors today are not running adequate panels to really give you a thorough work-up, and therefore, may miss the diagnosis completely.

Right now, it is estimated that up to 27 million Americans may be affected by thyroid disorders, but at least 14 million are undiagnosed. Additionally, 1 in every 4 Americans are said to have insulin resistance, a condition that is considered to be a pre-cursor to diabetes. But, at least 8 million people with insulin resistance remain undiagnosed.

While there may be a number of factors leading to these “missed diagnoses,” statistics show that misdiagnosis (or non-diagnosis) occurs in up to 40% of the population and is one of the most common types of medical mistakes.

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