“Even in medical school thyroid was kind of a mystery”

-Ron Hunninghake, MD

Conventional medicine is preoccupied with simply treating symptoms without carefully investigating the underlying causes of those symptoms.

The thyroid system regulates energy and energy is important in healing and in how well the body functions.

Even in medical school thyroid was kind of a mystery. The tests were confusing. There was nothing practical, they were over-complicated and hard to get a grasp on. For me, Dr. Wilson’s book was the first book that explained thyroid physiology in a practical and usable way in terms patients can also understand.

The book was the first to explain what was really going on physiologically. It reminds me of the saying I heard from a professor while in medical school he said that when it comes to lab tests, “Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

The big thing was T4 to T3 conversion.

Dr. Wilson’s work is a big part of what I do every day.

I know that T3 benefits fibromyalgia patients. 50% of my fibromyalgia patients improve with T3 therapy. Brain fog (foggy mental function) and Fibro fog (brain fog typical of fibromyalgia) often respond the best to T3 therapy.

To me, when patients don’t do well on thyroid treatment that’s almost diagnostic of adrenal fatigue.

In addition, I’m often less interested in very fast results and in being able to reset people’s system so that they’ll be able to remain off T3 therapy than I am with wanting to help people feel better as safely and conveniently as possible. Therefore I often start patients on 1/2 grain of Armour thyroid, which contains T4. But if the 1/2 grain is not enough, instead of increasing the Armour, I’ll add low dose sustained-release T3. I’m kind of giving them a low dose T3 therapy, with Armour as the stabilizing influence. I pay attention to their adrenal systems as well. A lot of the people who have trouble with thyroid treatment can’t handle it because they’re so adrenally depleted. However, on low dose hydrocortisone such patients almost never have side effects to the thyroid. They start much more smoothly on the thyroid when they already have adrenal support going. I often give patients a cortrosyn challenge test and give them cortisol as described in the book, Safe Uses of Cortisol by William Jefferies, MD.”

By the same token, low doses of thyroid can sometimes improve adrenal function (as reflected in adrenal saliva testing).

Although the results may take longer, many patients can still benefit from a conservative low dose T3 therapy approach. Though there are some patients who feel better fairly soon with such an approach it’s normally a longer haul, which is characteristic of a more naturalistic approach. In some patients I use a “mini cycling” approach where I give them a 7.5 mcg dose of sustained release T3 once a day. In a sense, they “wean on” during the day, and “wean off” at night. I have seen several patients who have seemed to do quite well with that over time.