Product Description

It's sometimes called a hidden epidemic: One in ten Americans--more than twenty million people, most of them women--has a thyroid disorder. At any given time, millions of people have an undiagnosed thyroid disorder and experience a chronic mental anguish that almost certainly arises from the very same source. Yet many primary-care doctors still don't recognize the importance of the thyroid in mind-body health--and its especially crucial role in women's well-being.

The Thyroid Solution is a must-read for anyone who suffers from a thyroid condition. It's the first mind-body approach to identifying and curing thyroid imbalances. Written by a medical pioneer and leading authority in the field of thyroid research, this groundbreaking book offers Dr. Ridha Arem's practical program for maintaining thyroid health through diet, exercise, and stress control--and through his revolutionary medical plan, which combines two types of hormone treatments with astounding results. Inside you'll discover

- The thyroid basics--what it is, where it is, what it does
- How thyroid hormones affect the brain and alter mood, emotions, and behavior
leading to brain fog, weight gain, loss of libido, infertility, anxiety, and depression
- What tests to ask your doctor to give you--and what they mean
- The vital connection between stress and thyroid imbalance
- The benefits of antioxidants and essential fatty-acid foods and supplements
- How to recognize and cure the deep and lingering effects of a thyroid imbalance

Filled with remarkable patient histories and interviews that document the dramatic results of Dr. Arem's bold new treatments, The Thyroid Solution now gives you and your doctor the tools you need to live a life with peace of
mind . . . and body.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19401 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-26
• Released on: 2007-12-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
"This book has had a profound impact on the way I think, on how I see patients, and on my perception of the connection between the brain and hormones."
--Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D.
   Author of Awakening Intuition

"At last, a nationally known endocrinologist with impeccable credentials discusses vital issues of thyroid disease and treatment never previously addressed in print. Dr. Arem provides solid explanations for symptoms of hypothyroidism in patients with normal blood levels of thyroid hormones and particularly addresses the needs of women who have thyroid and hormonal disorders."
--Gillian Ford
   Author of Listening to Your Hormones
   and The Link Between Thyroid and Depression

"This book will be of tremendous help to the many people with thyroid disease and residual depressive symptoms. Dr. Arem elegantly addresses the important interplay of thyroidology and psychiatry."
--Lauren Marangell, M.D.
    Baylor College of Medicine


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author
Dr. Ridha Arem is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is also Chief of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston. In addition to teaching medical students and physicians-in-training, he regularly speaks to primary-care physicians and specialists at various educational programs. Dr. Arem is a nationally recognized thyroid specialist. For the past ten years he has been the author and editor of Clinical Thyroidology, a well respected widely read periodical publication for physicians on thyroid disorders. He also contributes to Thyroid USA, the official newsletter of the American Foundation of Thyroid Patients, and participates in patient education programs.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Could you have an overactive or underactive thyroid and not even know it? Millions of Americans--and a high percentage of women in menopause and perimenopause (the decade or so before menopause during which hormonal, emotional, and physical changes begin)--do. Thyroid imbalances are not always easy to recognize. Only recently have physicians even begun to accept that minimal thyroid imbalances have an important effect on mental and physical health.

Do you have any of the following symptoms?
Always fatigued or exhausted
Irritable and impatient
Feeling too hot or too cold
Depressed, anxious, or panicky
Bothered by changes in your skin or hair
At the mercy of your moods
Inexplicably gaining or losing weight
Losing your enthusiasm for life
Sleeping poorly or insomniac

Are you feeling burned out from having acted on an excess of energy for several months? Are you listless, forgetful, and feeling disconnected from your friends and family? Are people telling you that you've changed? Are you taking Prozac® or a similar drug for mild depression but still feeling that your mind and mood are subpar? Or have you been treated for a major depression in the past five years?

If you suffer from more than one of these symptoms or answered yes to one or more of these questions, you could be one of the many people with an undiagnosed thyroid condition. Although some of these symptoms may seem contradictory, all of them can be indications of a thyroid imbalance.

You could also be one of the many people who has been treated for a thyroid imbalance but still suffers from its often-overlooked, lingering effects--effects that may continue to haunt you even after treatments have presumably restored your thyroid levels to normal. If you've ever been treated for a thyroid imbalance, answer these questions:

Do you feel better but still not quite your old self?
Do you have unusual flare-ups of anger?
Are you less socially outgoing than you used to be?
Are you less tolerant of the foibles of family and friends?
Do you suffer from occasional bouts of mild depression?
Do you have frequent lapses in memory?
Are you often unable to concentrate on what you're doing?
Do you feel older than your chronological age?

If you've had a thyroid problem in the past but still answer yes to one or more of these questions, it is quite likely that your symptoms are thyroid-related. You don't have to suffer any longer. The Thyroid Solution will show you how you can work with your physician to heal these lingering symptoms.

The Thyroid and the Mind

At any given time in the United States, more than 20 million people suffer from a thyroid disorder, more than 10 million women have low-grade thyroid imbalance, and nearly 8 million people with thyroid imbalance remain undiagnosed. Some 500,000 new cases of thyroid imbalance occur each year. All of these people are vulnerable to mental and emotional effects for a long time even after being diagnosed. Incorrect or inadequate treatment leads to unnecessary suffering for millions of these people. But these are numbers. Behind the numbers are the symptoms and ravaging mental effects experienced by real human beings.

The 1990s have seen a major increase in the recognition and detection of previously unsuspected thyroid diseases among presumably healthy people. This stems in part from improved medical technology, which has led to the development of sensitive methods of screening and diagnosing thyroid disease. It also stems from the increased public awareness that thyroid disease may remain undiagnosed for a long time and that even mild thyroid dysfunction may affect your health. Recently, some medical associations such as the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists have initiated public screenings for thyroid disease, much as cholesterol testing has become available in shopping malls and other public places. At any given time, more than half the patients in our population with low-grade hypothyroidism remain undiagnosed. In a recent thyroid-screening program involving nearly two thousand people that I directed in the Houston area, 8 percent of those tested had an underactive thyroid. Many people screened had nev
er heard of the thyroid gland but rushed to be tested when they recognized that they were suffering many of the symptoms listed in the announcement of the screening. The public's awareness of thyroid disease was boosted by press reports about former president George Bush and his wife Barbara, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and Olympic track champion Gail Devers when they were diagnosed with thyroid disease. Thanks to these factors, people with nonspecific, undiagnosed complaints are becoming increasingly likely to ask their physicians whether their symptoms might be related to an undiagnosed thyroid disorder.

As an endocrinologist who has focused his research, teaching, and patient care on thyroid conditions, I realized early on in my practice that taking care of thyroid patients was not as easy as I had expected. Treating and correcting a thyroid condition with medication may not always make the patient feel entirely better. I discovered that to care fully for my patients, to help them heal completely, I had to treat their feelings as well as their bodies. If they didn't feel better even though their lab tests said they were cured, I learned to listen to them, believe them, and work with them to help them become wholly cured. In taking care of thyroid patients, the physician's role is not merely to address physical discomfort, test the thyroid, and make sure blood test results are normal (indicating that the right amounts of the various thyroid hormones are circulating in the body). Addressing the effects of thyroid disorders on the mind, helping patients cope with their condition, and counseling them sympathetic ally are equally important.

Many physicians treat dysfunctioning thyroids, but few of them listen to the person attached to the gland. They concentrate on the blood levels. For these physicians, once the lab results say that a patient appears stabilized, the case is closed. Yet many patients go on to suffer for years from a variety of symptoms left over from the thyroid imbalance. A recent survey conducted in our outpatient endocrine clinic revealed that nearly a third of patients with underactive thyroid glands continue to have symptoms after their thyroid hormone blood levels are normal. Physicians should be treating the still-suffering patients with new protocols for as long as it takes for the mental effects to subside. The reality today, however, is that millions of patients suffer needlessly while their doctors continue to treat thyroid dysfunction as a simple physical disorder rather than what it is: a complex blow to the body and brain.

In general, primary care physicians have not been adequately trained to detect and manage thyroid disease and may lack the expertise needed to diagnose and treat a wide range of thyroid disorders. They also receive little teaching on the effects of thyroid disease on mental health or on understanding the interplay between the mind and the thyroid.

The majority of practitioners of internal medicine and family medicine complete their residency without having had a rotation (or semester) in endocrinology. Many physicians leave their training programs with inadequate knowledge of thyroid disorders and inadequate experience in diagnosing and treating these disorders. Physicians who do receive training in endocrinology realize that thyroid conditions are more widespread than most people think and are also some of the more complex problems in medicine.

Recently I talked with several residents who were about to complete their training in internal medicine. They had also just finished a two-month rotation in endocrinology (including attendance at outpatient clinics). One outstanding resident, who was about to start a primary care practice, pointed out the inadequate training for primary care physicians in diagnosing and treating thyroid conditions. He confessed:

I didn't see many thyroid patients during my three years of training prior to attending your outpatient clinics. The patients I recall were those who came into the hospital with acute thyroid conditions or patients with medical conditions known to be related to thyroid disease. In these cases, the diagnosis was easy to make based on obvious signs and symptoms. But even in the outpatient setting, we residents seldom look for subtle indications of thyroid disease.

Because both the physical and mental symptoms of thyroid disease masquerade as signs of many other illnesses, getting the proper diagnosis can sometimes take a long time. Often symptoms are misdiagnosed and mistreated. Until patients find the right doctor, they are left alone to deal with devastating effects, which may include depression or even upsetting changes in personal behavior. Inexperienced and poorly trained physicians sometimes make their patients feel crazy or hypochondriacal when they report their symptoms. The doctors may give them antidepressants and a pep talk instead of blood tests, proper medication, and counseling on how to cope with their problems. Female hypothyroid patients may be given estrogen replacement therapy instead of thyroid hormone. Yet what male and female patients really need is a program of medication and counseling. Thyroid imbalance can quickly escalate into a destructive brain chemistry disorder--as powerful and pervasive as major depression, an anxiety disorder, or manic-
depression.

Once the brain has been denied thyroid hormone or oversupplied with it because of thyroid disease, it takes a long time to recover. If the symptoms are ignored, they can intensify. A vicious cycle occurs wherein the patient gets depressed, the thyroid disease worsens, physical and emotional effects multiply, and mental health suffers further. This cycle is not widely understood or recognized, and many physicians do not know how important it is to halt the cycle--or indeed h...

Customer Reviews

Excellent reference for those with Thyroid problems and Doctors alike
I love Dr. Arem! He gave me my life back. I read his previous edition of this same book a long time ago. I found out things about Hashimoto's that none of my previous Endocrinologists seemed to know. I was stunned at how much an imbalanced thyroid can effect your body. I was also intrigued by his different approach to T 4 and T 3. I had very poor health back then, so I managed to get an appointment with Dr. Arem. It turned out that my thyroid levels were not being controlled right and he fixed it for me. Then he went on fixing my health by diagnosing me with many other conditions outside of his field like Celiac Disease that so many other Doctors missed. Thanks to the genius of Dr. Arem I have my health back and it all started with me buying this book. He is the only Doctor I trust implicitly. I frequently recommend to everyone I know with Celiac Disease and Thyroid problems or anyone who just simply suspects they have a hormonal imbalance to go see this man. For those of you who do not live in this area of the country do the next best thing and buy this updated and new edition!

This book saved my life.
After receiving radioactive iodine therapy for hyperthyroidism, I experienced a near-complete emotional and mental breakdown soon after: I could not stop crying; I had vivid, violent nightmares; it was extremely difficult to get up in the morning; I had no control over my emotions, and I picked fights with my boyfriend almost constantly. The "possible slight depression" I was warned about in hypothyroid pamphlets from my doctor was much different than what I was experiencing... In my mind, I was going crazy--and I didn't know what to do. A friend came across this book and it was only then that I realized my symptoms were related to severe hypothyroidism and I went in to see my doctor sooner.

My RAI treatment had taken effect very quickly and my thyroid levels were extremely low, which explained my symptoms. Doctors like to warn you that you may "gain weight," an easy physical symptom, but they do not warn you that you may feel like you are losing your mind.

I have struggled with thyroid disease for 18 years, having a sub-total thyroidectomy in my teens for hyperthyroidism, only to have the disease recur in my early thirties. The endocrinologists I have seen during this time treated me based on my TSH, T3 and T4 levels from blood tests--but they never explained to me the level at which my emotional and mental health depends on the balance of these levels. I realize now how dangerous it is to give patients incomplete information.

This book connects the endocrine system to the whole person: the physical, mental and emotional health, with the physical, mental and emotional everyday life of the patient. Without an understanding and an explanation to the patient of these synergies, medicinal treatment alone becomes inadequate and the patient suffers.

If you have thyroid disease or plan to undergo RAI or surgery for treatment, please prepare yourself and read this book. You'll be glad you did.

Pretty Good--3 1/2 Stars
I read this book, The Thyroid Solution by Ridha Arem, many months ago, so some of my specific recollections are a little hazy, but I do remember thinking that overall it was pretty good--a solid 3 1/2 stars. (I rounded up to four even though it isn't quite up to that.) But even though it's pretty good and worth reading, there were a few respects in which it disappointed.

Dr. Arem's thorough yet understandable exposition of the thyroid, how it works in concert with other bodily systems and organs, and the wide-ranging consequences of deviations from optimal functioning relative to health and well-being is sufficient in and of itself to justify recommendation of this book.

Moreover, Dr. Arem is head and shoulders above the all-too-typical McMedicine types who robotically prescribe Synthroid based only on TSH reference ranges. For example, Dr. Arem recognizes that some patients are unable to convert adequate T3 from T4, so he frequently prescribes T3. And he also recognizes that some people will have to be pushed lower than others on the TSH to really feel good.

Disappointingly, he strongly resists using natural, desiccated whole thyroid in favor of synthetics for reasons that aren't entirely convincing (e.g., that the natural ones aren't sufficiently standardized). In fact, his antipathy toward natural (e.g., Armour) thyroid is so great that he tries to migrate his patients who are already taking it to other "better" synthetics. Perhaps some of his patients would do better if he were more willing to prescribe whole thyroid. For whatever reason(s), some patients respond better (from the patient's perspective) to whole thyroid than even the T4/T3 combo. My impression from reading Dr. Arem's book was that unless a patient came in already on whole natural thyroid, they would be extremely unlikely to be encouraged to try it.

I didn't like the way he spoke slightly dismissively of pioneers such as Broda Barnes as if what he did was OK for the time, but now that we're out of the Stone Age it's time to get sophisticated. (He wasn't as disrespectful as the way I just stated it, but that was substantially the drift.) To some extent this attitude is understandable. Dr. Arem and most other modern practitioners rely heavily on lab/blood results (which weren't available to clinicians of earlier times), but one wonders if modern reliance on the labs sometimes detrimentally takes precedence when in conflict with clinical symptoms.

His overly cautious thoughts regarding iodine supplementation are likely to be unhelpful for at least some patients. While acknowledging its importance, he's inordinately concerned that people will take too much. (There is evidence that the problem is overwhelmingly in the other direction: many people suffer because they ingest too little; his worries will probably scare some from taking enough iodine to help themselves.)

Basically, my impression is that Dr. Arem is a very competent medical professional with more empathy for his patients than a typical doc (which isn't saying much, unfortunately). He's probably more completely successful with a higher proportion of thyroid patients than most endocrinologists (based on his prescribing of T3 inter alia). Similarly, it is likely that his book will be helpful to most who are seeking solutions to thyroid issues. But there will still be a few who should wish the "Stone Age" Broda Barnes were still around. (Barnes is gone, but his writings are still here and there are some clinicians who've continued to blaze his trail and who could help at least some of those for whom Dr. Arem's approach proves to be less than ideal.)

Go ahead, read this book and be prepared to find it helpful. For many, this book will be enough. But if it doesn't get you 100% to where you need to be, don't think it's the last word.