<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

To answer DippyChick's question:

Absolutely!  If CD is "caught" early enough, I believe an ailing thyroid can
recover.  Gluten consumption for gluten sensitive individuals can trigger
your body to produce auto antibodies to many different tissues & organs, the
thyroid gland being a very common target.

I have personal experience with this phenenomenon.  For years before I got
diagnosed with CD, I always had a TSH that was on the high side of "normal."
  (High TSH means poor thyroid function.)  I suffered with all the symptoms
of hypothyroidism, but no one would treat me for hypothyroidism because I
was still considered "normal."  (WHATEVER THAT MEANS!)

After I went GF and began to feel like a normal person for the first time in
years, my TSH began to decrease showing that my thryoid function was
improving.  After nearly a year on the GF diet, I started feeling terrible
again with all the old symptoms of fatigue, depression, muscle pain, etc.  I
went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  To
make a long story short, I finally figured out that I had been ingesting
minute amounts of hidden gluten several times a week for the past 5 months
(in Lawry's Seasoned Salt).  I removed the source & voila!  I began to feel
normal again.  After this experience I compared my thyroid function tests
from before & during this bout of gluten exposure.  During the time I was
being "glutenated" my TSH kept getting higher & higher showing worse & worse
thyroid function.  Soon after I removed the hidden source of gluten, my TSH
began dropping back to more optimal levels.  (Lower TSH means more thyroid
on board.)

I later noticed two large palpable nodules on my thyroid that were
suspicious for cancer.  The doctors decided to remove them to see what they
were.  They weren't cancerous, but 75% of my thyroid gland was non
functioning, hardened white scar tissue.  Only a tiny bit was even
functioning.  I ended up losing the whole gland.  I believe years of gluten
consumption had triggered my body to attack my thyroid gland.  In other
words, gluten FRIED my thyroid gland!  I believe I could have saved my
thyroid if I had been diagnosed with CD decades earlier.

Valerie in Tacoma

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *