Hypothyroidism

I highly recommend Dr. Broda Barnes' book based on my family's personal experience with its author and his groundbreaking work. I first heard of Dr. Barnes and his theories on the importance of hypothyroid diagnosis and treatment back in the 1970's, when he was semi-retired and living in Fort Collins, Colorado. My mother, then in her late 50's, asked him to see her when her doctor was unable to diagnose or treat her numerous symptoms adequately. I went with her. After thoroughly examining her, her history, her blood work and the basal body temperature chart she'd kept beforehand at his request, Dr. Barnes prescribed hypothyroid medication and also made dietary suggestions that were decades ahead of their current popularity. He also gave her a copy of his then just-published book, which he inscribed to her. Within weeks, my mother's health and body shape were back to normal. We both stayed in touch with Dr. Barnes until his death. Today (2004), my 86-year-old mom is healthy, slim, active and still taking that same medication. She plays 18 holes of golf twice a week and walks the entire course. She still has Dr. Barnes' signed book; in fact, she takes it with her to appointments whenever a doctor mentions changing her prescription from natural to synthetic compounds.I am now the same age my mother was when Dr. Barnes attended her and showing the same symptoms she had then. I'm so glad to find his book still in print. I've just ordered my own copy so I can help my doctor recognize the most probable cause quickly and easily. With luck, I'll be playing golf with my mother again soon.Dr. Barnes, you and your work live on in your excellent and highly readable book. Thank you for all you have done for my mother and for many, many others.

I am SO glad I got this book; I was sick with unknown things and problems from chronic fatigue to being overweight for all my life. A hospital doctor told me about this book particularly; He has hypothyroidism himself and when I was in the ER with something else (Turned out to be urinary tract infection) he told me I had all the symptoms of it, and he gave me the title of this book. It's such a relief to know that the doctors calling me a hypochondriac for all these years were full of BS and were just sadly uneducated about this illness. This is just a great book and really thuroughly explains hypothyroidism, causes, effects, symptoms, treatments, etc etc, I could go on and on. Great book. Get it!

Excellent source for the lay person on diagnosing your hypothyroidism and understanding why standard thyroid test are not always "right". Easy to follow instruction and a lot of common sense application. Not for the purest as it is not scientific enough. This book helped to improve my quality of life and got me and my doctor on the right track to treating my disease. Have recommended this book to many friends and gave a copy to my doctor.

This text was an absolute delight to read. Dr. Barnes presented his theories on hypothyroidism and its relation to various disease states in a clear and easily readable format. This text can be used by obviously the layperson, but also the professional alike. As a physician assistant in family practice medicine, I have recommended this text to many of my patients. One of my biggest challenges is to convince my peers in medicine to accept Dr. Barnes' theories and put them into practice. One of the most difficult is the use of synthroid (T-4) vs natural dessicated thyroid. As stated in his book, those patients on the synthetics alone may have two symptoms left that won't dissapear: a dry, rough skin and retention of water. When these patients are switched to the natural thyroid, those symptoms are gone within 4 to 6 weeks and do not return. This has convinced Dr. Barnes that we have yet to isolate the entire hormone - perhaps there is another factor other than T-3 and T-4. This man was light years ahead of his time,and the medical profession needs to become more aware, and indeed I believe this is happening; slowly, but it is. This man has researched the thyroid gland for 52 years of his life! Even if you were to take three steps ahead and fall back two, you are still one step ahead, and over a 52 year period that is quite a bit of knowledge. The number of patients Dr. Barnes has helped over the years is staggering; he deserved a Nobel Prize in medicine.

Despite the fact that Broda Barnes was an M.D., his book Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness is the bible for alternative medicine's view of hypothyroidism. Frankly, I think Dr. Barnes was a pioneer in identifying the many ways thyroid problems affect us that conventional medicine today doesn't recognize. If you've ever wondered if hypothyroidism is causing certain symptoms, or how it may be affecting you, this book is excellent. It also describes the controversial -- but still used by some -- Barnes Basal Temperature method of diagnosing hypothyroidism. Amazingly, Dr. Barnes also describes an optimal diet in his 1976 book that is remarkably similar to the popular "Zone" diet which is finding favor with many people with hypothyroidism today, 20 years later. Dr. Barnes really often seems to be one of the only doctors who truly understand the impact of thyroid disease on overall health and the difficulty medicine seems to have with it. Here's a quote from his book. "It may seem almost incredible that scientists can sit quietly on earth and follow the activity of the heart of a man walking on the moon and yet they have had so much difficulty in measuring the amount of thyroid hormone necessary for health and in developing effective and reliable tests to determine when thyroid function is inadequate." Dr. Barnes is also one of the doctors who regularly prescribed Armour Thryoid, the naturally- derived T4/T3 drug, for his patients instead of the sythetic T4 only preparations (i.e., Synthroid, Levoxyl, generic levo-thyroxine) that are currently popular. He says in the book: "[Synthetic] thyroxine...proved to have only one-tenth to one-twentieth of the metabolic activity of the natural Levo-thyroxine." Dr. Barnes also felt that doctors needed to gauge symptoms as well as blood tests when treating patients. Again, from his book: "The efforts though the various tests to measure thyroid activity by determining the amount of hormone stored in the gland or alternatively the amount present in the bloodstream fail to do what really counts: provide an indication of the amount of thyroid hormone available and being used within cells throughout the body. They are somewhat akin to trying to get an idea of a thrifty man's spending habits from the amount of money in his wallet or the size of his bank account. The amounts of money in wallet or bank account, like test for the amount of hormone in gland or bloodstream, tell us nothing about how much is being spent." Mary Shomon, Editor, The Thyroid Disease Website and Newsletter, http://thyroid.miningco.com