I’ve got no problem with the TSH test as a test for TSH. It’s really good for that, and I seriously admire its cleverness and accuracy.
In fact it probably is a good test for primary gland failure. I can’t see how the gland itself could go seriously wrong without driving TSH into the stratosphere.
What I hate is the idea that TSH normal ⇔ ‘Thyroid Symptoms, improve when treated with thyroid hormones’. I think there are other dysfunctions going on. The very idea of assessing the state of a system that complicated by measuring one variable (or even three) is ridiculous.
I’m pretty much ‘clear clinical picture ⇒ therapeutic trial, and sod the blood tests’ at the moment, as I think Gordon Skinner was. Of course the problem with that is you end up endorsing leeches and aromatherapy that way. I do have a lot of sympathy for basal metabolic rate, and for waking temperature as a proxy for that.
I think we both agree that some CFS/FMS is just thyroid dysfunction, and will improve with various combinations of thyroid hormones.
The only remaining question for me now is ‘Is all of CFS/FMS thyroid related, or just a significant portion of it’?
Lowe reckoned that it was 1⁄4 primary that had been missed, 1⁄2 central that there’s no test for, and 1⁄4 the mysterious resistance that he had to overwhelm with high doses of TSH. I see no reason currently to doubt his word, and I’m pretty sure that his work has saved my life (I wouldn’t have put up with CFS for much longer. It was awful, and there’s no way I’d have found out it was thyroid without Lowe.) So I want to dig into his ideas until I can convince myself that they’re either true or false.
If they’re false that’s really strange. There are now two different diseases, which came into being in the 1970s, which look exactly the same as hypothyroidism, only one of them is, and one of them isn’t. I have real trouble with that on Occam’s razor grounds.
And that’s assuming FMS/CFS/MDD are the same thing. If not then there are three new diseases and some misdiagnosed/mistreated thyroid stuff all pretending to be each other.
I’m really really busy at the moment. I’m so sorry. I’ve been looking for someone who knows more about this than me for months, and now you show up willing to talk and I’ve got urgent other things to do. But let us resume discussion at a later date. I’ve written quite a lot about it here as the idea developed, feel free to debunk it all in absentia mea. I’ll come back to all this soon, I’m absolutely sure. I’m obsessed.
I’ve printed off that paper, it looks really interesting. I’m going to try very very hard not to read it instead of doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing. Thank you very much, and hope to resume discussion soon.
Hi FriendlyBuffalo, welcome to Less Wrong!
I’ve got no problem with the TSH test as a test for TSH. It’s really good for that, and I seriously admire its cleverness and accuracy.
In fact it probably is a good test for primary gland failure. I can’t see how the gland itself could go seriously wrong without driving TSH into the stratosphere.
What I hate is the idea that TSH normal ⇔ ‘Thyroid Symptoms, improve when treated with thyroid hormones’. I think there are other dysfunctions going on. The very idea of assessing the state of a system that complicated by measuring one variable (or even three) is ridiculous.
I’m pretty much ‘clear clinical picture ⇒ therapeutic trial, and sod the blood tests’ at the moment, as I think Gordon Skinner was. Of course the problem with that is you end up endorsing leeches and aromatherapy that way. I do have a lot of sympathy for basal metabolic rate, and for waking temperature as a proxy for that.
I think we both agree that some CFS/FMS is just thyroid dysfunction, and will improve with various combinations of thyroid hormones.
The only remaining question for me now is ‘Is all of CFS/FMS thyroid related, or just a significant portion of it’?
Lowe reckoned that it was 1⁄4 primary that had been missed, 1⁄2 central that there’s no test for, and 1⁄4 the mysterious resistance that he had to overwhelm with high doses of TSH. I see no reason currently to doubt his word, and I’m pretty sure that his work has saved my life (I wouldn’t have put up with CFS for much longer. It was awful, and there’s no way I’d have found out it was thyroid without Lowe.) So I want to dig into his ideas until I can convince myself that they’re either true or false.
If they’re false that’s really strange. There are now two different diseases, which came into being in the 1970s, which look exactly the same as hypothyroidism, only one of them is, and one of them isn’t. I have real trouble with that on Occam’s razor grounds.
And that’s assuming FMS/CFS/MDD are the same thing. If not then there are three new diseases and some misdiagnosed/mistreated thyroid stuff all pretending to be each other.
I’m really really busy at the moment. I’m so sorry. I’ve been looking for someone who knows more about this than me for months, and now you show up willing to talk and I’ve got urgent other things to do. But let us resume discussion at a later date. I’ve written quite a lot about it here as the idea developed, feel free to debunk it all in absentia mea. I’ll come back to all this soon, I’m absolutely sure. I’m obsessed.
I’ve printed off that paper, it looks really interesting. I’m going to try very very hard not to read it instead of doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing. Thank you very much, and hope to resume discussion soon.