Customer Reviews

Solved: The Riddle of Illness

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After months of crippling fatigue, severe depression, rapid weight gain, swelling of the legs, and hair loss, I had hoped at least one of my many specialists would have considered the obvious: hypothyroidism (I even had thyroid anitbodies which they insisted was "normal"). By some grace of God, I happened to move to the same town where Dr. Langer practices, and found a great advocate in him. He has put me on the right track with dessicated thyroid and already I feel better than I have ever felt in my life. It makes me almost cry to think what my life would have been like had I not discovered this great book and exceptional doctor. Trust your instincts...if you don't feel well, you probably aren't well. Insist that your MD pursues your symptoms until they are gone. By the way, I still refer back to this book on a regular basis.

Solved: The Riddle of Illness (Third Edition), by Stephen
Langer,M.D. and James Scheer highligh the authors' tremendous
knowledge of nutritional medicine, and the relationship between
thyroid disease and many conditions, such as arthritis, obesity,
depression, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, sexual problems, and much
more.

Dr. Langer, who is consistently ranked very highly by the
many patients who frequently recommend him in my Thyroid Top Doctors
Directory, and his colleague Jim Scheer -- a renowned author of
fifteen books on nutrition and health, and more than a thousand
magazine articles -- have updated this new edition to provide a
comprehensive holistic/nutritional approach to understanding thyroid
disease.

Dr. Langer is one of the innovative practitioners who
truly recognizes the issues surrounding hypothyroidism -- from
diagnosis, to treatment, to the underlying autoimmune challenges. He
is one of only a handful of practitioners around the country who I
feel truly understand thyroid disease, and are in a position to be
able to help thyroid patients.

The book addresses difficulties in
diagnosis, and various factors an astute practitioner should take into
account -- besides just TSH results -- to make a thyroid
diagnosis.

Once diagnosed with hypothyroidism, far too many doctors
still tell you there's nothing you can do except take your thyroid
hormone to be well. But this book discusses ways to help enhance
wellness by providing the proper nutrition the thyroid
needs. Approaches recommended in the book may help with the
deficiencies underlying a condition, not to mention the symptoms that
frequently don't resolve despite conventional treatments.

A very
useful part of this book is the final chapter, "For Doctors
Only." If you have an open- minded physician willing to be a
partner with you in your wellness, giving her or him a copy of this
chapter could be particularly useful.

Says the book, "...a
broad and serious blind spot exists today in physical diagnosis, one
that needs immediate recognition. ...Awareness of widespread
hypothyroidism and the three-way approach to its accurate diagnosis
will enable you to do one two things: rule it out entirely or get
proper treatment for it. This condition is too important to go ignored
and untreated."

This book broke new ground back when the first
edition was published, and this third edition is still challenging
doctors and patients to take a closer look at the relationship between
hypothyroidism and disease, and the foundation of nutrition as it
affects the thyroid and overall wellness. It's a required book on any
thyroid patient's bookshelf, not to mention required reading for the
doctors who treat us.

Mary Shomon, Editor, The Thyroid Disease
Website and Newsletter...and author of "Living Well With
Hypothyroidism: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You...That You Need to
Know."

I consider myself very lucky for finding "Solved: The Riddle of Illness" in the amazon.com. Recently, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and only because I had enough guts to ask my doctor to check my thyroid for possible problems. Before the diagnosis, I had so many symptoms "without the cause" that, in late thirties, I thought my life is slipping away. The suggested cure was "lose weight and take it easy." In other words, it was indirectly suggested that "everything is in my mind." If I only had this book then! I could've escaped from much misery and anxiety that is hard to describe even in thousands of words! "Solved: The Riddle of Illness" is my best friend now. Stephen E. Langer, M.D & James F. Scheer discus hypothyroid problems and their symptoms clearly, thoroughly, candidly. (One author has the condition.) I admire the authors for showing respect to the ordinary people's medical intelligence and give the! m an incredible tool - the knowledge of illness - to better their lives. It is one of the best health books I've ever read. Five star scale is not sufficient to rate it. My visits to an HMO doctor's office last five minutes, and this book will stay with me forever. All the information shared gave me understanding of the debilitating illness. Now, I have hope that there is much I can do to control it and eventually to come back to normal life. Thank you, Stephen E. Langer and James F. Scheer, from the bottom of my heart! I recommend this book to everyone who has unexplainable depression, fatigue, who lost love of life, or who is simply genuinely interested in staying healthy. Not just 75,000 copies but millions should be printed and discovered by such lucky readers like me.

Eye-opening study of hypothyroidism. Author never gets too scientific for a layman to understand. Of course, all the lab tests which are ordered by the MD's come back with the notation that the person tested is not hypothroid. How can a test that everyone passes be a test? Well worth the time to read. Tells you a simple, non-invasive test you can do yourself. I will highly reccommend this book.

A friend suggested I read the book because all my complaints point to Hypothyroidism. My rheumatologist did a complete blood work up on my Thyroid and everything came back normal. A few months later I complained to my regular doctor and he did blood work and it too came back normal...my symptoms prove otherwise!!

I am beginning to doubt the doctors who have told me I have CFIDS and FMS and I should leave things as such. I think there is so much more they are overlooking. My normally thick and healthy wavy hair is coming out in clumps and it could beard a man at the end of the week with what I find in the drain, my pillow, in between my fingers when I scratch my dry and itchy scalp and in my hair brush!!

Whenever I read the list of symptoms that are common with hypothyroidism, most, if not all of them are applicable to me. If your doctors don't listen to you the first time, take this book with you and stick it in his/her face. Let them know that it is possible to have a thyroid problem, even if the conventional ways of proving it, are saying you don't!! I am doing that and am hoping to finally get to the bottom of this medical riddle!!!!

I plan to take this book with me when I see the doctor next week and hopefully it will open his eyes to what is really plaguing me.

I read this book and was amazed at the wealth of information. I have been to many Doctors who told me I was normal. Now I know after reading this book, that I've had many of the symptoms of Hypothyrodism for years and could not find a Doctor who was educated on the subject. Since reading this book, I found a Doctor who is schooled in alternative care and was open to read this book. He has been treating me and I feel like a new person. I gave him a copy of this book and he is using it with his patients now. I am forever grateful for this book.

I have the older version of this book and it is so good I'm sure this one is even better. I was amazed to see how many other diseases hypothyroidsim can mimic.

I've read a lot of books about hypothyroidism, but this, BY FAR, the best book I have ever read on the subject. It is also easy to read, and very very interesting. I was blown away by all the research and links to other health problems (heart attacks, cancer, skin disorders) presented in this book. I recommend it to anyone who feels they may have a thyroid disorder. It's amazing!

This was the first book I've read on hypothyroidism, so I can't compare it to others. I found the book excellent in content; it went over many different health areas that could be affected by low thyroid activity. Even though I am taking Synthroid, and my levels are supposedly normal, I too have suffered extreme fatigue, memory loss, weight gain, hair loss, etc. My doctor attributed these to getting older, with no chance it had anything to do with low hormone levels or incomplete medication. This book gave me hope and a way to get help. I thought it was straightforward and easy to read. It was written by doctors who seem to have pioneered (or gone back to) the concept of believing in what patients feel and describe versus what only they (the doctors) think the patients should do.

Symptoms of hypothyroidism may be caused by one of the two mechanisms. First, widely accepted by modern medical practice, is the inability of the thyroid gland to produce its hormones. This may be due to the primary failure of the thyroid or insufficient production of TSH by pituitary, appropriately called secondary hypothyroidism. Second, virtually unaknowledged mechanism of hypothyroidism is the inability of tissues to properly react to the thyroid hormones. By analogy with type 2 diabetes, this condition has been coined type 2 hypothyroidism. There is no discussion of this phenomenon in the book, and this is its major drawback.

The books lacks focus and attempts to give advice for various problems not only from the point of view of hypothyroidism. In many instances, such as management of obesity, for example, this is done poorly, and that chapter is full of unsubstantiated recommendations. So are many others. I expected more focused discussion of health problems in the context of hypoactive thyroid.

Chapter "For doctors" is more interesting, but pays much attention to the classical symptoms and signs of hypothyroidism, when there is no problem diagnosing this condition. The whole point of the book is to attract attention to the fact that clinical presentation of this disease more often than not is subtle and not obvious.

In summary, I would not recommend this book as the primary source of information on hypothyroidism.