> Jackie.Miller" <[log in to unmask]>


>  What are other symptoms of childhood thyroid problems and does anyone know
>  of some good articles?

Following is not the longest list, but a very good one.  I shortened it, you
can find it by searching the archives.  If you go to www.emissary.net/thyroid
and click on advanced search you can search by author and type in
[log in to unmask] for the author's address.  In other postings she tells some of
the symptoms that have gone away in her child.

<QUOTE>
>>  Symptoms I have found in children of hypothyroid mothers are overactivity
> (ADHD) and mental retardation (Cretinism).  Other symptoms which would
> apply to adults and children are, although the children may never know how

- itchy eyes
- sensitive to light
- mental fog and/or confusion - often described as I can't remember the right
word, can't read even though I have a degree in... or can't think anymore
- depression
- constipation - means not having at least one bowel movement a day, doesn't
have to mean that it hurts when you go
- cold hands and/or feet or just very sensitive to cold
- asthma
- difficulty with work that use to be easy, for children it's difficulty with
homework and when they're on thyroid med. they do their homework without a
problem
- for children, constant moaning and  complaining that their arms, legs, or
muscles hurt
- skin tags
- feet hurt when they walk
- exceptional short or tall
- may be only slightly overweight, but shouldn't be because they don't seem
to eat that much
- being stick thin
- says they're honestly full after just a few bites and isn't eating junk
food in between.  This can be from just a slightly swollen thyroid, that is
not even noticeable on exam
- a family history of thyroid, even if it's a great, great grandparent or
aunt.
- sensitive to sound
- vision problems, may have excellent vision, but eye muscles don't work
together, one may pull up or down, or other "odd" vision problem
- difficulty responding appropriately to what is said, due to the mental fog
- acne
- you can have great hair and skin and still have low thyroid
- pale or flushed skin<

Laurie/New Jersey
<UNQUOTE>


  >  Please do not send any horror stories of poorly treated children or inept
>  doctors to this request.  The doctor will more than likely see the emails
>  and he is one of the good guys.  Also, I don't want to inadvertently scare
>  my sister-all that is needed right now are facts.

I put this at the end, you can always snip it if you want, however, if you
just give the facts then the parent believes the doctor, "His TSH is normal
he couldn't possibly have a thyroid problem."  We should be able to believe
doctors like that shouldn't we?  It'a a normal expectation that the doctor
knows a lot and should know whether or not a child is hypothyroid.

The fact is, some doctors can see a child and know.  Just like my mother
suffered from a slipped disk for 10 years, the doctors told her it was "all
in her head" until she just walked into a doctor's office and he saw her
walk.  He knew right away what her problem was.

Other medical situations are the same way.  Seach the archives and you find
the story of the woman who searched until she found the answer for her
"autistic" child.  I don't think she believes autism exists apart from
untreated hypothryoidsim.  Laurie, I quoted earlier probably attributes her
son's "central auditory processing disorder" to hypothyroidism, now.   She
said her son's asthma is just about gone and that's pretty good considering
where she lives.  My wife's asthma is gone.  Years of thousands of dollars in
medical treatment and it went away with Armour Thyroid.  (Not the tiny doses
many doctors will give, she was up to 18 grains before she switched to time
released T3 under Doc Don and is now doing a lot better.  Somehow it's a
controversial treatment, it's almost like all this thyroid information has
been suppressed and the scare tactics are not on the side of us telling
medical horror stories, but someone telling the doctors how deadly it is, and
them becoming afraid of prescribing anything with T3 in it.  Afraid of
hydrocortisone in low dosages too, but they easily give real high dosages of
it for asthma attacks and other things, there's medical misinformation
disseminated to keep hypothryoid people from getting better, that's the only
explanation for Greg deGuzman sending an excerpt from a 1940's textbook
describing it perfectly, especially the fact that it frequently causes sleep
apnea.  My family doctor and ENT mentioned surgery and CPAP forced air
breathing machine, they failed to mention cure might equal increase in
Armour.)

The "horror stories" are medical fact.  The patient has confidence in the
doctor so he believes the doctor instead of figuring out the problem.  My
wife went to 5 different doctors and in 1996, I knew it was Wilson's
Syndrome, finally in 2001 she's getting treatment for it.  My son was tall in
kindergarten, short in second grade.  He had no appetite, would eat two bites
and truly not be able to eat any more.  His problems started in first grade
when he went blind in one eye for about a year.  Obviously it was neuropathy,
we had no  clue thyroid caused neuropathy back then.  There were lots of
signs for the doctor to find.  I posted to the listserv a few times out of
desperation, it was before I was over zealous about believing that
hypothyrodism is the cause of all kinds of disorders not commonly associated
with low thyroid.  No one on the list knew at the time and all they told me
was children won't starve themselves, he'll eventually eat when he needs to.
They didn't understand, didn't know what to do until when I thought he was
close to death or coma I ran across the Magic Foundation website, a clinic
specializing in children's growth problems.  I read about my son.  The
address is "www.magicfoundation.org/clinhypo.html  "  Was it enough for my
doctor to treat?  NO.  However, I knew about Doc Don by then and the day my
doctor refused treatment and would have let him die, I called and made him an
appointment.

He definitely improved on the medication.  He lost 3 important development
years, but he is much better than he was.  He's growing again and hopefully
he'll catch up to his full potential.

One must be wary, I diagnosed my wife long before the doctors I diagnosed
both my sons and my daughter.  The doctors did not do it.  I would still be
in chronic fatigue if I left it up to them, my wife might be dead from an
asthma attack or an inhaler with how sensitve she is to medications, One son
would probably have gone into a coma and the other 2 children who are mild,
would have always been struggling and tired until one day it hit them harder
and they collapsed.

My other son was mild, he started to want to cover up, he's still tall at the
90th percentile but he started complaining of aches and pains and being
mentally distraught. He would cry and stomp off over nothing.  First day on
1/2 grain of Armour, house got much more peaceful, he greatly improved.  My
daughter had low pulse, low blood pressure, and cold hands.  Greg mentioned
bradychardia earlier, that's slow heart rate, well it's slow because
hypothyroism makes it so weak and we have a lot of chest pain to the point
sometimes even though the cardiologist thinks our heart is perfectly fine we
may even feel like we are havinf a heart attack.  (Costochondritis is
frequenly a hypo symptom that goes away with ADEQUATE treatment and on the
costochondritis frequently question on the Mayo Clinic web site, a patient
asks why he feels like he's having a heart attack.  And cost is only an
inflammation of the caritlage in the ribs.)

So, if you want to truly present the facts to her, that's the way our medical
system is.  They know less about hypothyroidism than they did in the 1940s,
but they certainly learned how to maintain all of the side effects with
medication.

Skipper Beers

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