On Wed, 3 Jul 2002 12:06:20 -0700, Ballew Kinnaman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

 Does anyone have practical
>(based on common human motives) reasons why doctors,
>in order to monitor thyroid health, will avoid the blood tests
>that measure thyroid-produced hormones and look, instead,
>at just one pituitary-produced hormone?


I took my 9 year old daughter to see a pediatric endo at the National
Institutes of Health.  In discussing her normal thyroid labs (TSH 2.66), I
also mentioned that my Mom has below normal free T3 and free T4 when her TSH
gets as high as 1.0.   He said that while her hypothalamus should be
checked, it was not always necessary to have a free T3 and free T4 in the
normal range.

My understanding of what he was saying was that the pituitary was the best
indicator of what the body needs, so in my mother's case, probably her
pituitary was satisfied and all was functioning normally with her very low
levels of free T3 and T4.  (Nevermind that she is cold and has early
dementia among other symptoms.)

I think doctors have a belief that if the body needed more thyroid hormones,
the pituitary would ask for them by way of increasing the TSH and that this
is a better indicator than the actual hormones themselves which have
variablilty in requirements among individuals.  Of course we all have
individual requirements for all of these things.

Dr. Derry did an interview with Mary Shomon on the About.com site in which
he reviewed the history of thyroid testing.  He said that many tests have
come and gone, each being discarded because it did not correlate well with
the clinical picture.  He says that when TSH was discovered, they seemed to
make a decision that this was finally the right test even though it does not
correlate with symptoms.

Nancy

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