From:   [log in to unmask]

I have been searching for some article/study discussing the connection
between hypothyroidism and costochondritis (if only to send to a somewhat
snotty
internist who said flatly that none exists).


Is it really important?  You know, doctors have this terminology thing.  It's
why we pay them the big bucks.  I was looking into a skin condition I thought
I had on my arm, the text said I would have a "lesion" which I took to mean a
big hole in my skin.  I didn't, so I thought maybe I was wrong.  A couple
weeks later I somehow ran across one doctor's simplyifying definition of a
lesion.  It was "any boo - boo on the skin."  Yes, they get us by terminology
sometimes.

In 1988, I had "chest pain."  I was examined by a cardiologist and my heart
was fine.   In 1996, another doctor diagnosed it as "costochondritis."  I
mentioned it because she thought I needed a chest X-ray for some other reason, so I
thought a problem might show up on X-ray if they were looking.  Nothing
showed up, and she told me it was "costochondritis" so we knew what I had.  No more
need to worry about it because the doctor knew!   Did it change the substance
of the pain?  Of course not.  However, "chest pain" is a well known symptom
of hypothyroidism, probably in most text books.  If we're talking about
costochondritis is it any different than chest pain?  I doubt it.  They don't know
what causes costochondritis, you know.  That idiopathic return which means to
me, they don't know because they are "idiopathic"....idiots themselves.  It
didn't go away until both my thyroid and adrenals were treated.

Hypothyroidism causes chest pain.  I don't think that statement is so hard to
find.  Costochondritis is chest pain.  May Shomon's website used to listen
the "association."  Many of those ills that she said were "commonly associated
with hypothyroidsm" are things that are frequently cured with thyroid
treatment.  That doesn't say to a doctor that it's caused by hypothyroidism, nor that
treating hypothyroidism will cure it.  A doctor is more likely think it means
he has 2 or 3 additonal conditions he can treat at the same time.  If you have
hypertension due to a low thyroid, and he gives you a medication to lower
blood pressure at the same time that he prescribes thyroid meds, you may never
know your blood pressure dropped because your thyroid was treated.  You also may
never feel much better because the side effects of the blood pressure
medications are ones that correspond with low thyroid.

I guess you could show up that doctor with a specific statement about
costochondritis.  But, he might just accept one about chest pain, unless he can tell
you what the difference is between the known symptom of chest pain which is
caused by hypothyroidism and costochondritis.


Skipper




_______________________________________________________________

   Control Your Self-Serve Thyroid Account
Rules - mailto:[log in to unmask]
Subscribe - http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?SUBED1=thyroid
Unsubscribe - mailto:[log in to unmask]
Our Home Page - http://www.Emissary.Net/thyroid/index.html
Thyroid Archives - http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/thyroid.html
_______________________________________________________________