Living Well with Hypothyroidism:: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You...That You Need to Know: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You...what You Need to Know (Taschenbuch)

Shomon knows of what she speaks: she's a health writer and thyroid patient herself. She also manages a thyroid Web site and writes a newsletter on hypothyroidism. In Living Well, she offers an extensively researched guide to this complex condition. She covers conventional, alternative, and late-breaking approaches to treatment--such as challenging the gold standard of Synthroid as the thyroid replacement therapy of choice. (Synthroid replaces T4, the less active of the two thyroid hormones, and Shomon features new research on adding T3--the more potent thyroid hormone--to treatment.)

With her down-to-earth, patient-centered approach, Shomon explains everything from how to choose a thyroid specialist to how calcium, antidepressants, and a high-fiber diet affect thyroid hormone absorption. The book includes a chapter on depression, which is a typical misdiagnosis of hypothyroidism--as well as a symptom that often persists even after treatment. She also covers infertility (women who are hypothyroid don't ovulate as regularly and miscarry more frequently) and thyroid cancer, one of the less common causes of hypothyroidism. She explains how to spot hypothyroidism in kids, and ends with a glossary, international resources, and journal references.

Shomon creates a sense of community by excerpting e-mails from her vast network of patients--voices that bring a sense of humor so often missing from health books. One quibble: she could have avoided the antidoctor stance in the beginning of her book, where she blames physicians, rather than incomplete science, for the misdiagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. --Rebecca Taylor

The book is the only patient-written, patient-oriented book that tells the real story of hypothyroidism -- the risks, the real symptoms, how to get diagnosed, finding proper treatment, and going on to enjoy good health that lasts a lifetime. The book is a manual of living well for anyone who is hypothyroid, whether due to autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's Disease, radioactive iodine, surgery, or antithyroid drug treatments for Graves' Disease and hyperthyroidism, or surgery for nodules or thyroid cancer.

A detailed "Hypothyroidism Risks and Symptoms Checklist" you can fill out and take to the doctor helps you determine if you are hypothyroid. And the book includes a huge appendix filled with contact information on thyroid-related organizations in the UK, USA, Europe, and around the world, patient support groups, websites, health and wellness magazines, thyroid-related books, thyroid and health-related websites, and physicians and health practitioners who can make a difference in your health.

This book is for you if:

* You strongly suspect you have thyroid disease but are having difficulty getting a diagnosis by conventional means.

*You aren't sure if your various symptoms point to hypothyroidism, but you're trying to find out more.

* You've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, told to take this pill and come back in a year, and want more information about how to live as well as possible with your hypothyroidism.

* You are receiving what your doctor feels is sufficient treatment for your hypothyroidism and you still don't feel well.

* You're an open-minded health practitioner who wants to discover what other innovative practitioners are doing to help patients, and get a better understanding of the patient's perspective on this common but often overlooked disease.

Above all, this book is for you if you want to learn about living well with hypothyroidism, from the perspective of empowered patients and caring practitioners. Living Well with Hypothyroidism is different. This is your book, written by a thyroid patient, for other patients . . . people like the author, Mary Shomon, who are going through the familiar ups and downs of diagnosis and treatment.

Living Well with Hypothyroidism provides the information about hypothyroidism you probably won't find out from your doctor, the pharmaceutical companies, the patient organizations, or in other books about thyroid disease. Mary Shomon talks honestly, and without allegiance to any pharmaceutical companies or medical organizations, about the risks and symptoms of hypothyroidism, how to truly get a diagnosis, and the many treatments -- conventional and alternative -- to treat the condition and its unresolved symptoms. Ultimately, the book is about living well with hypothyroidism, having the knowledge, tools, and team of health practitioners who can ensure that you feel the best you possibly can.

In this book, you'll find out what your doctor won't tell you about risks, diagnosis, drugs, and alternative and conventional things that work -- and don't work -- to treat hypothyroidism and its symptoms. You'll also hear the voices of patients, real people who have struggled for diagnosis, tried to deal with their doctors, tried different medicines, suffered setbacks, enjoyed successes. Each person quoted in this book was determined to share his or her own story, ideas, humor, sympathy, hope, ideas, and pain with you. You will recognize your own experiences, fears and emotions, and be touched and moved by the incredibly honest and poignant quotes and stories from patients around the world. Above all, you'll know you are not alone.