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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Thyroid Book Follows Tradition of Broda Barnes MD, December 10, 2007
This review is from: Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy (Paperback)
I recommend to you the book by Barry Durrant Peatfield, "Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy". Peatfield was a general practitioner in the British National Health service who came to America and trained at the Broda Barnes Institute. He returned to England and started a thyroid private practice. His book summarizes over 25 years of clinical diagnosing and treating thyroid illness. One section of the book is devoted to the question, "Why thyroid blood tests can be unreliable". Here is what Dr. Peatfield says: "Anxiety in the medical establishment about rules and dogma has led to a slavish reliance on blood tests, which are often unreliable and can actually produce a false picture of the true situation" "I have sadly come across very few doctors who can accept the fact that a normal, or low TSH, may still occur with a low thyroid." "as a result of this test (TSH), thousands are denied treatment" Peatfield lists several reasons why thyroid blood tests are flawed: 1) They measure hormone levels in the blood. What we really want to know is tissue levels, not blood levels. 2) The blood tests do not measure cellular receptor hormone resistance. 3) The blood tests do not measure conversion block. Some patients cannot convert their inactive T4 to active T3. 4) The thyroid tests do not account for adrenal insufficiency. 5) Paradoxical low TSH may occur with a low thyroid function. These sentiments are shared by the teachings of Broda Barnes MD, and the Broda Barnes Foundation. However, Peatfield's book elaborates beyond the classic teachings of Broda Barnes by including chapters on the adrenal as well as a chapter on iodine supplementation. I found this book excellent, and it belongs in every medical library dealing with thyroid disease. Jeffrey Dach MD
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forty-five-year undiagnosed thyroid problem, January 1, 2008
This review is from: Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy (Paperback)
I am Herman's wife, a woman sixty-three years old, diagnosed with hypothyroidism six months ago. My symptoms began in my teens and grew worse as time progressed: coldness, infertility, bouts of severe depression, etc. My father had this disease for over fifty years before his diagnosis at about age ninety. My infertility doctor couldn't find the problem, and my mother, a medical doctor, didn't catch on that her husband and daughter showed the sypmtoms. The author explains the causes, symptoms, and treatment in terms both technical and easy to understand. The reader can merely learn why the thyroid runs amok or can delve into what the various hormones do. Since the thyroid is the body's thermostat, if it doesn't work properly, neither does anything in the body. All diabetics should be checked for hypothyroisism. For self diagnosis, if one's early-morning temperature measures below 97.6 degrees F, one probably has hypothyroidism. The blood test for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone is less accurate, especially if one's adrenal glands are stressed out.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
great book for laymen, October 9, 2008
This review is from: Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy (Paperback)
This is a very helpful book and the most valuable part for me was the very small section (only one page) about having to build up the adrenals first - easy to overlook, as I almost did. Be warned: if you have had low thyroid for several years (in my case over a decade before I finally self-diagnosed - partly thanks to this book and also thanks to the excellent "Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic" by Mark Starr, M.D. - and thus was able to take the first steps towards recovery) then you will almost certainly have adrenal exhaustion. Although I initially ignored the warning about adrenal exhaustion, I found that even taking three times the normal dose of thyroid for over four months did not help. I had to stop, take adrenal support tablets for several weeks, and then restart thyroid at a smaller dose. I continued taking adrenal support tablets for several months too. I am finally seeing noticeable improvements. Even a spring in my step, which I never expected to enjoy again, after over a decade of thinking I had ME/CFS or something even worse. I am giving the book only four stars because it does not contain clear enough indications of dosages. For instance, in the tiny section on adrenal supplementation, it refers to adrenal tablets but ignores the fact that there are several dosages, one containing about three times the dose of the other. When it says you might need to take two or three, which one does it mean? Why not mention actual dosages, instead of vaguely referring to "two or three tablets" of undisclosed strengths? P.S. The MUST-READ book on low thyroid now is "Stop the Thyroid Madness", passionate and comprehensive. I also recommend the book "Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It". [Later note: I recommend a well-researched book called "Outsmart Your Cancer" - anything that can HEAL cancer is also a general healer and should be able to help much else in the body as well as "Trick and Treat" by Groves which turns modern eating advice on its head, backed up by plenty of evidence, and "Never Fear Cancer Again" by Raymond Francis, a brilliant distillation of what is truly needed for health. All 3 should be on the "top 10" of any list of books on health. Also, the supplement Papaya 35, a super concentrate with fermented pawpaw.]
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