Thyroid.About.Com, the Source for Dangerous Thyroid Information has Done it Again. Now You Don't Need an Endocrinologist at All!

The about.thyroid.com website, for alternative medical information has reached a new low. Patients with thyroid disease should NOT see an endocrinologist or thyroidologist. The post claims that "thyroid friendly" alternative types will listen to the patient and give them therapy based on symptoms, rather than hard thyroid hormone blood studies. The patients with cancer or needing radiation for Graves' disease are the exception, and need to see a thyroidologist. This is a very way out idea. Here is why. First, hypothyroid patients need to see a specialist at the first sign of disease. The careful examination of the neck by an expert will be able to feel a firm nodular surface of an early Hashimoto's thyroiditis. That will trigger an ultrasound. The ultrasound done real time by the endocrinologist could reveal a cancer nodule, goiter,or nodular goiter years before it can be troublesome to the patient. Waiting until the patient has cancer,or nodules that can result in a surgery is a poor concept,and is the major reason not to consider anyone other than an endocrinologist. Every patient with subclinical hypothyroidism with TSH >3.0 and slowly climbing yearly needs to see an endocrinologist,or thyroidologist PERIOD. Hashimoto's thyroiditis with progressively increasing TSH from 2.5 to 10 over 10-20 years, or has positive antibodies needs a complete endocrine/thyroid evaluation. TSH is a risk factor for thyroid cancer in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
Also TSH causes nodules to grow that are not cancer but look bad on a thyroid biopsy, and can result is surgery.Early detection of Hashimoto's can save surgeries and find cancer when it is small and curable. Also, in 35 years of practice,I have seen goiters melt away, and the antibodies disappear on T4 therapy. The disease will destroy the thyroid if you prevent the regrowth due to TSH. Failure to visit an endocrinologist to get an early diagnosis of possible troubles is a major mistake that will happen to some of those who read the posts on thyroid.about.com. Finally, that leaves only the few percent of all thyroid patients who are still complaining about symptoms when their T4, and TSH are normal, to seek those physicians, that prey on the patients ignorance and give them Armour, T3, Combo T4/T3, and compounded products, to treat symptoms totally unrelated to the thyroid disease. The impossible dream is that just treating thyroid problems will correct all the symptoms the patient have. That is not only a dream, but a pipe dream. They may feel better for a while due to the effect of T3 on the brain, but will suffer in the long run.

I challenge the website managers to allow comments, without deleting those that have a contrary opinion to it's alternative views. My comments given here in my last few blogs were sent as comments to the website. They were clearly received, but disappeared by the next day. The only comments that were allowed to appear were the "yes, I agree" type. The alternative thyroid audience will not like what I have to say, but there will be a few among them that will rethink their position.
Good Luck,
Dr.G.

A German Story of a Failed Treatment Plan for a Radiation Exposured Patient With a Toxic Nodule, and the Negative Long Term Effect on HER.

A 45 Y/O female presented to my center with a thyroid nodule. The history was positive for radiation therapy for a skin problem as a child in Germany. At age 30 she had symptoms of hyperthyroidism, and was diagnosed with a single toxic nodule by thyroid uptake and scan. The endocrinologist in Berlin referred her to a surgeon, who did a lobectomy removing only the lobe with the toxic nodule. 15 years later is when she arrived at my doorstep after a CT scan, done for another unrelated problem revealed a mass in the thyroid. A large scar over the left side of her neck was secondary to the childhood irradiation. A palpable mass was noted in the right lobe. The scar from the surgery was located over the other lobe area that was removed in Berlin. Her thyroid blood tests were normal, but the high frequency ultrasound was abnormal. There was a large nodule in the right lobe, but there were 10 nodules in all ranging in size from 3-10 mm. The left lobe was also enlarged and had nodules as well. Did the surgeon do a nodule removal only or was this regrowth? The ultrasound guided FNA of all nodules > 5 mm were benign. The patients problems began when the Berlin endocrinologist and the surgeon failed to factor in the radiation history in the surgery plan for the toxic nodule. The radiation history should have been the reason to do a total thyroidectomy to remove at risk thyroid tissue along with the toxic nodule. This would have removed the risk of cancer in the future, and would have prevented the progression of her goiter to the point that now she will need careful ultrasound and blood monitoring for the rest of her life. Any one of the nodules that were not biopsied could be a cancer, and if they grow another round of biopsies will be needed. The endocrinologists should have known that patients in their area have a high incidence of iodine deficient goiters. That toxic nodules arise out of those glands. Also that needed to remember that radiation therapy for benign conditions of the head and neck causes goiters, nodules, benign and malignant tumors. Her life would have been simple if they did a total as recommended, and simple thyroid blood T4, and TSH, would have been the only followup needed. Instead she will need yearly ultrasounds to follow the massive number of nodules that are present,or go in for another surgery now.
I wish her luck in the future,

Dr.G.