The Thyroid Gland – What Can Go Wrong
The thyroid is a gland, managed by another gland, the pituitary, located at the base of your neck. Its shape suggests that of a butterfly. It helps monitor your weight, and it manages the production and use of other hormones produced within the body. It does produce two of its own hormones – T3 and T4. T4 is overwhelmingly produced in the largest quantity (99. 9%). The thyroid’s main purpose, however, is to manage our calorie use.
Without iodine the thyroid couldn’t to its job. Many impoverished countries where foods containing iodine are rare, have a large incidence of goiter – a condition where the thyroid becomes inflamed and swollen without sufficient amounts of iodine.
Iodine is a fairly simple element to introduce by synthetic means. An ordinary vitamin or even table salt that includes iodine as a natural ingredient can get the patient back to normal in a month or so since the iodine needed is measured in mcg (micrograms). The thyroid is the sole reason the food industry decided to add iodine to regular salt. Before the introduction of iodized salt, the cases of goiter were many. Even talking to our own grandparents will show that many of them suffered from goiter in their younger years. Now, with iodized salt available throughout most of the world, goiter is quickly being eradicated.
Many of us have even blamed our weight on our thyroid glands. Either we or our mothers have insisted that our extra pounds were nothing more than a “gland disorder”. Since the thyroid is the one gland that is responsible, in part, for our weight and our metabolism, we blame the thyroid for every five pounds we put on and can’t get rid off.
It’s actually not at all common to find that our weight has a direct correlation to a malfunctioning thyroid. If your doctor doesn’t put you through tests to determine what is happening and then formulate a diagnosis that relates to your thyroid, your real problem is probably midnight snacking – not one of your glands.
A little more common, however, is hyperthyroidism. This is a condition where the thyroid is working too hard. Symptoms range from patient to patient depending on age and how severe the thyroid is being affected. Unfortunately, the two most common complaints are usually weight loss and anxiety which, in many instances, a doctor will attribute to other high stressors in the patient’s life such as a death in the family, job loss, or something similar.
Pregnancy can cause postpartum thyroiditis. It’s not severe, and usually goes unnoticed by patient and doctor alike. The symptoms usually are lost in everything else that is occurring to a woman’s body just after giving birth. The condition usually corrects itself within a few months.
On the opposite side of the wall is what is called hypothyroidism, when the thyroid is not performing at 100%. Again, symptoms are frequently mistaken for other more common problems, or are ignored completed. Common symptoms include being tired, having memory lapses, dry skin, and general aches all over.
None can doubt the vecraity of this article.