50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Empowering Patients, November 7, 2006
This review is from: The Thyroid Hormone Breakthrough: Overcoming Sexual and Hormonal Problems at Every Age (Paperback)
I am drawn to Mary Shomon's books as an historian. I tell my classes each semester that in the late 19th century and early 20th century that the most diagnosed disease supposedly plaguing women was variously described as " neuresthenia" or "hysteria."
The symptoms attributed to this disorder were as diverse as the patients diagnosed as suffering from it. Patients suffered from hysteria if they ate too much or too little, slept too much or too little, if they were sexually hyperactive or frigid, if they were irritable or passive. Of course, taken together the symptoms could describe every person who has ever lived at some point in their lives.
Doctors attributed this widespread condition to the supposed weakness of women's physical and mental constitutions. Believing their female patients to be frail and sick by nature, the male medical profession missed the link between their female patients' suffering and the likely anger and depression they experienced from prevalent sexism, career discrimination, limited educational opportunities and the frustration stemming from men's sexual ignorance.
The disease "hysteria" or " neuresthenia" was a product of the exclusively male medical fraternity's gender ideology, the belief that women's bodies were deficient, inferior versions of the male anatomy, ever-prone to break down. As the sexual component of hysteria became more widely acknowledged by the 1920s and 1930s, it suddenly disappeared as a diagnosis and became a medical fossil like phrenology.
I tell this story because doctors too often refuse to acknowledge that their science is not always a cold, clear-eyed analysis of objective reality but that they, too, are products of a sexist, racist culture and that these attitudes shape how they perceive their patients and diagnose their symptoms. This is why Mary Shomon's works have been so fascinating to me. Ms. Shomon has made a career of uncovering the mythologies surrounding one of the most common, and under-diagnosed maladies affecting women's health in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: hypothyroidism.
As Mary points out in several of her works, most doctors continue to base their diagnosis of thyroid disease exclusively on the numeric values derived from a Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) blood test. Most doctors, Mary writes in her new book "The Thyroid Hormone Breakthrough," will tell patients, "Just one blood test and we'll find out what we need to know."
If patients don't fall within the numeric values defined as indicating thyroid disease, doctors will ignore other convincing signs of thyroid illness, such as weight gain, hair loss, and a family history of thyroid illness. Such doctors will dismiss the patient (usually a woman) as a victim of hypochondria or depression. Incipient in this attitude is the idea that neurosis is the normal mental state of women, who certainly can't be trusted to know if their bodies are healthy or not. Because of these attitudes, Mary points out in "Thyroid Breakthrough," only one in five people with thyroid conditions are actually being treated, a catastrophic failure of the medical profession.
Ms. Shomon suffered some blistering criticism from endocrinologists when she began her patient-centered crusade back in the 1990s, but that field has recently been re-evaluating its definition of healthy TSH values. Many doctors have started to move towards the Shomon's viewpoints. She should regard this as a triumph largely due to her tireless efforts.
In "Thyroid Breakthrough," Shomon provides valuable details on hypothyroid symptoms, possible genetic and environmental causes of thyroid conditions like Hashimoto's Disease and dietary changes and alternative therapies that patients can use to improve their health.
Ms. Shomon also for the first time explores the phenomena of perimenopause, the transitional period women go through before full menopause, and how the thyroid can affect health during this period. Perimenopause is yet another factor that doctors may dismiss as a mental health problem rather than recognize as a natural stage of life that physicians must consider in their evaluation of women's health.
Mary's message in Thyroid Breakthrough" is direct and simple. Health is too important to leave in the hands of doctors alone. Patients have to know their bodies, be conscious of physical changes that occur in perimenopause, be aware of new medical breakthroughs and pester, if necessary, their doctor with pointed questions. Patients shouldn't fear switching physicians nor be bullied into accepting a diagnosis that fails to explain the way they feel. Women own their bodies, not their doctors. Mary Shomon's latest book is an excellent owner's manual.
- Michael Phillips
Author, "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001"
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mary Shomon Anticipates My Needs Once Again, November 10, 2006
This review is from: The Thyroid Hormone Breakthrough: Overcoming Sexual and Hormonal Problems at Every Age (Paperback)
As scary as it is to admit in a public place such as an Amazon book review, this book is a lifesaver because apparently Mary has been tracking my life and decided to write just for me. I'm 41, so I'm staring down peri-menopause, and I have had all the sex drive issues related to someone with Thyroid disease. I cannot tell you how fantastic it is to have such a well-written, thoughtful book with useful information available. I feel badly for all the women before me who needed a book like this and didn't have one. This book should be required reading for doctors everywhere. I will certainly be loaning my copy to my physician.
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