Living Well with Hypothyroidism: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You... That You Need to Know (Revised Edition) [Paperback]

Mary J. Shomon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2005 | Series: Living Well

The Most Comprehensive Resource Available on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Hypothyroidism

For millions of Americans, hypothyroidism often goes untreated ... or is treated improperly. This book, thoroughly researched by the nation's top thyroid patient advocate—a hypothyroidism patient herself—provides you with answers to all your questions, including:

• What is hypothyroidism?
• What are the warning signs, symptoms, and risk factors?
• Why is getting diagnosed often a challenge, and how can you overcome the obstacles?
• What treatments are available (including those your doctor hasn't told you about)?
• Which alternative and holistic therapies, nutritional changes, and supplements may help treat hypothyroidism?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As many as one in eight women have a thyroid condition. In Living Well with Hypothyroidism, Mary Shomon outlines the most common of these--too little thyroid hormones in the body. Weight gain, depression, fatigue, and what patients call "brain fog, Brillo hair, and prune skin" result. Because the symptoms of hypothyroidism mimic so many other conditions--chronic fatigue, PMS, clinical depression--it can be very tricky to diagnose, especially since patients with HMOs may not get the thorough testing they need.

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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"Hypothyroidism is a common, very treatable disorder that is also poorly managed by doctors. In this first-rate book by Mary Shomon...the disorder, its myths, and medicine's successes and failures at dealing with it are thoroughly examined. This is not a book that rehashes old facts on thyroid disease. Shomon instead challenges patients and their doctors to look deeper and try harder to resolve the complicated symptoms of hypothyroidism...In a fascinating chapter, Shomon, who also has a Web site (http://thyroid.about.com) and an online newsletter about the disease, explores recent evidence that the addition of the thyroid hormone T3 to the standard T4 (levothyroxine) may help some people feel better. In addition, the section on babies born with hypothyroidism, although brief, has the best advice on how to give medication to an infant that I've seen. As Shomon writes: 'or years, thyroid problems have been downplayed, misunderstood and portrayed as unimportant.' With he! r advocacy, perhaps no more." --Shari Roan -- Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2000

"If I could recommend only one book on thyroid problems for my patients, this would be it." -- Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D., Founder and Medical Director of HER Place Centers

"Vital for hypothryoid patients who want to get well, and for physicians who want to do so." -- Dr. John Lowe, Director of Research of the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 587 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Revised edition edition (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060740957
• ISBN-13: 978-0060740955
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Immune Systems

More About the Author

I'm Mary Shomon, and I'm a patient advocate, author, communications consultant, wife and mother. I've tried to transform my own struggle with thyroid disease into an advocacy campaign on behalf of patients with chronic diseases such as thyroid disease, autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue, among others.

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis in 1995, and now research and write about these conditions and their impact on health and weight. Since early 1997, I have served as founder and Guide for the award-winning About.com Thyroid website, and as editor of my popular patient thyroid news report, Sticking Out Our Necks.

In my patient advocacy role, I try yto bring much-needed attention to underdiagnosed and often overlooked health issues. My desire to cut through medical jargon and deliver information to my fellow patients in a form they can understand resulted in my first health-related book, Living Well With Hypothyroidism: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You . . . That You Need to Know, which was first published in 2000 by HarperCollins, and has gone to more than 20 printings before a 2nd Revised Edition was published in 2005. The book was a Prevention Book Club Selection, and Amazon Top-Selling health book, and its popularity launched a new series of consumer health books for publisher HarperCollins.

I am also author of the New York Times best-selling book The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss. (2004) "Thyroid Diet" was also a semi-finalist for the prestigious Quills Awards in 2005.

I am also author of Living Well With Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism" (2005) Living Well With Autoimmune Disease"(2003) Living Well With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia," (2004) and the The Thyroid Guide to Fertility, Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Success" (2005). My newsletter for thyroid patients, "Sticking Out Our Necks," was founded in 1997, and has become a popular resource for patients in both its email and print form.

I have served as the Guide for the popular About.com Thyroid site -- now part of the New York Times Company -- launching the site in early 1997, and managing the site and working as its sole researcher/writer since that time. That site, Thyroid.about.com, along with my advocacy site Thyroid-info.com, are the Internet's most popular and visited sites dedicated to thyroid disease.

I've been featured in hundreds of television, radio, newspaper, magazine and web interviews, including appearances on ABC World News Tonight and CBS Radio Networks, and interviews in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Ladies Home Journal, Health, Cooking Light, Elle Magazine, Woman's World, and the Los Angeles Times, to name just a few.

In my decade of consumer advocacy, I have never hesitated to take a stand on behalf of patients, and my independence from drug companies and medical/patient organizations that are funded by the pharmaceutical industry has allowed me to maintain an unbiased, truly patient-first advocacy effort.

In the past, my experience focused on grassroots outreach, and developing consumer marketing and public information campaigns while working in the social outreach, advertising and public relations industry -- designing campaigns for clients as diverse as furniture retailer IKEA, the World Bank, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Before I began writing in the health area, I also published several humor books. I co-authored the humor book, Scratching the Net: Web Sites for Cats published by Andrews McMeel in 1998, and wrote the Washington, DC bestseller, The Single Woman's Guide to the Available Men of Washington, published in 1993.

I have a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.