THE MANY FACES OF THYROID DEFICIENCY

A young housewife who feels rundown, tires easily, is sleepy much of the time, and strangely oversensitive to cold weather.

A middle-aged man who has managed to distinguish himself in his career by fighting all his life against his low energy reserve but now has become tired of fighting and convinced there must be some physical explanation for his problem even though none has ever been found and more than once he has been told to consult a psychiatrist and more than once has done so without benefit.

A victim of severe recurrent headaches.

A barren couple.

A child or adult unusually prone to infections, particulary respiratory, but not limited to them.

A sufferer from severe rheumatic pain and a potential heart attack victim.

A woman whose skin is abnormally rough, scaly, almost fishlike and patients with other skin problems, including eczema, psoriasis, and acne.

At least one man or woman in a state of severe mental depression.

A woman with a menstrual problem—painful flow, or irregular flow, or sometimes excessive flow that suggests possible need for hysterectomy.

These are a few of the people who will pass through my waiting room on almost any routine day. There is one striking common fact about them: Varied as are their symptoms, the cause of their illness in every case is the same—low thyroid function.

Of all the sly, subtle problems that can affect physical or mental health, none is more common than thyroid gland disturbance. And none is more readily—and inexpensively—corrected. Yet none is more often untreated and even unsuspected

In my years of experience, I have seen patients who for much or all of their lives have had health difficulties that should have suggested the possibility of low thyroid function (hypothyroidism) and whose whole lives could have been changed by simple treatment for it. Yet the thyroid disturbance went unsuspected in many and in others, even when briefly suspected, went unverified and untreated. Nor is it difficult to appreciate why this could —and still does—happen so often.

*1\269\2*