Depression, one of the most common symptoms of
hypothyroidism, is often treated with anti-depressant drugs. However, taking the correct hormone
medication instead would handle the true cause of such feelings and relieve the
person’s symptoms.
Hypothyroidism is a medical condition where the thyroid
gland is underactive in its role of secreting the hormones needed to regulate
functions of the thyroid. The thyroid gland located inside the neck of the body
has the job of releasing hormones that monitor how efficiently and quickly the
cells convert the nutrition from food into energy. Thus the gland’s role is to
regulate metabolism throughout all the cells of the body. An underactive thyroid thus gives a
lower metabolism rate which mimics depression.
Hypothyroid symptoms can be identical to those of
clinical depression.
•
Fatigue
•
Sleepiness
•
Slowing of speech
•
Depression
•
Persistent sadness
•
General apathy
•
Lack of interest in personal relationships
•
Low self-esteem
•
Poor concentration and memory
•
Suicidal thoughts
Medical publications acknowledge that properly done blood
tests that measure the hormones secreted by the thyroid and adjusting them back
up to normal levels will handle depression symptoms caused by a hypothyroid
condition.
In July of 2011 “The Harvard Mental Health Letter”
published a article titled “Sometimes Depression Results from an Underactive
Thyroid” where Dr. Michael Miller, Editor in Chief, reported that taking the
correct hormonal supplement once a
day would restore the depressed person to his or her normal emotional
mood.
Yale Medical Group from The Yale School of Medicine
published an article “Hypothyroidism and Depression” that explains that
hypothyroid symptoms are “indistinguishable from depression.”
These medical findings have appeared in major media
reports as well.
The “New York Times” ran an article in its Health section
on Nov 22nd, 2011 entitled
“For Some, Psychiatric Trouble May Start in Thyroid.” Though he is a psychiatrist, Dr. Russell
Joffe of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, who is doing research
in this area, says that “In the early 20th century, the best descriptions of
clinical depression were actually in textbooks on thyroid disease, not
psychiatric textbooks.”
Another psychiatrist interviewed had this to say, “It’s
the chicken-and-egg question,” said Jennifer Davis, assistant professor of
psychiatry and human behavior at Brown
University. “Is there an underlying
thyroid problem that causes psychiatric symptoms, or is it the other way
around?”
Dr. Davis then said it is common for people with thyroid
problems to be given a misdiagnosis of psychiatric illness.
Meanwhile, knowing that Dr. Joffe’s work will take
several years to conduct, a medical doctor who is not a psychiatrist is not
going to wait for those results. “Psychiatric symptoms can be vague, subtle and
highly individual,” noted Dr. James Hennessey, director of clinical
endocrinology at Beth
Israel Deaconess
Medical
Center in
Boston. He is going ahead with
thyroid hormone balancing for his patients who exhibit depression symptoms and
who might have even small underactive thyroid situations.
Fox News published an article on August 17, 2011 “9 Sneaky Causes of Depression”.
It listed the number one item as “The Weather”,
number two as “Smoking” and number three as Thyroid disease, recommending that
blood tests could easily determine if that is the cause.
MSNBC on June
22, 2011 ran “Is Your Thyroid on the Fritz?” stating that untreated
thyroid disorders can lead to infertility, chronic depression, cardiac ills, or
high cholesterol.
Knowing that symptoms of hypothyroidism have been shown
to be identical to symptoms of depression, it would make sense for those feeling
depressed to get the simple thyroid blood tests done by a competent medical
doctor as a first step, since the hormonal pills properly given have no side
effects.
On the other hand the anti-depressants given out by
psychiatrists to treat depression symptoms by adjusting “chemical imbalances in
the brain” have no blood tests they can give to support their claims.
Their drugs have many side effects including depression and suicidal thoughts,
suicide attempts and, sadly, suicides.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/sometimes-depression-results-from-an-underactive-thyroid
http://www.yalemedicalgroup.org/stw/Page.asp?PageID=STW000168
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/health/for-some-psychiatric-troubles-may-begin-with-the-thyroid.html
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/16/sneaky-causes-depression/
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43492653/ns/today-today_health/t/your-thyroid-fritz/#.UEz8kJGyOnM
This article is brought to you by our friends at the Citizens Commission on Human Rights in Florida, a
non-profit that is not only dedicated to educating Americans about
their rights in the mental health sector, they are also actively
involved investigating and exposing psychiatric violations against human
rights.
