THE "DIVINATION TESTS" FOR THE THYROID GLAND

For decades, women have struggled to be heard about their symptoms.

The process has not been easy. For a long time, they've been led to believe that many of the health challenges we've covered in the thyroid disease articles are only in their heads. It wasn't until the medical community began to define thyroid problems as widespread that testing for these problems reached mainstream medicine. This offers much-needed confirmation to many patients who finally get proof with test results that something is wrong with their body.

On the other hand, what happens if you are one of those women (or men) whose test results are "normal"? There is a long-standing practice in which general practitioners determine thyroid health from a patient's TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone, also called thyrotropin) levels. They want to see that these values ​​are in the normal range of 0.5 to 5.0, and if they are, then these doctors are guided by what they have been taught, which is that the patient's thyroid is okay It can be extremely frustrating to hear that everything looks fine when you know something is wrong.

Now there are doctors who are trying to investigate thyroid problems more thoroughly. They see many patients whose TSH levels are normal despite a number of symptoms that seem to indicate otherwise, so they try to get a more complete picture of thyroid function by testing free T4 and T3 thyroid hormones at the same time. Thanks to this, women are taken more seriously these days than before.

Even with this development, however, we are stuck in the phase of choosing outdated thyroid tests because every thyroid test is built on the outdated assumption that the problem with people's health is a sick thyroid. And as you already well know, a problematic thyroid gland is not the problem itself. It is an indication of something much bigger: the Epstein-Barr viral load . If the latest information you hear or read somewhere says otherwise, the source you've chosen is out of date and should be considered a throwback to the dark ages or even the time of the dinosaurs and a relic of outdated thinking.

Until the medical community recognizes the fact that EBV is the real culprit in thyroid problems, and not just an adjunct to other factors mistakenly thought to be drivers of ill health in people, thyroid research will remain of limited utility. Even if new, revolutionary thyroid tests come along, and they will, they won't be enough. Medical research can come up with the best, most modern methods of testing thyroid function and still be completely off the mark. What doctors and labs really need are more sophisticated EBV tests —tests that track where the virus is in a person's body, the way it travels through a person's body, its levels in different organs and glands, and how eats and mutates.

So the premise of testing thyroid hormone production in itself no longer meets the requirements. These tests mislead health professionals and patients alike by making everyone focus on one effect of the virus (thyroid damage) rather than the much bigger picture that it is a virus that is causing this damage while also ravaging others parts of the body. Precisely because of this, we will not go into depth regarding the various tests.

Thyroid hormone studies

However, tests such as T4, T3 and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) are what we currently have and they are pieces of the puzzle. If you get test results that show abnormal thyroid function, and you and your doctor interpret them as signs of a virus affecting your thyroid, not that your thyroid is weak and you have misguided, then they can point you in the right direction.

As we have already explained, many resourceful doctors and patients have begun to notice that these tests can show normal results even when all other signs point to something being wrong. And since the accuracy of these blood tests is unfortunately inconsistent, Anthony William calls them "guessing tests." Initially, thyroid hormone readings can vary widely depending on the time of day and the patient's stress level. This is very similar to the "white coat syndrome" that many people experience when they walk into the doctor's office and have their blood pressure taken. Just sitting under the monitor can cause the palms to sweat and blood pressure to rise above normal levels, impairing the accuracy of readings.

Likewise, sitting in the lab or exam room where your blood is being drawn can cause your adrenal glands to activate, which completely changes your blood chemistry because suddenly the adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) and cortisol (also known as hydrocortisone) flood the blood in preparation for a crisis situation, disrupting homeostasis. These high levels of adrenaline and cortisol can make a blood test look like you're producing more than enough of the thyroid-related hormones T4, T3, and TSH—whether or not you really are. Or the adrenaline and cortisol can saturate your brain and oversaturate the pituitary gland that produces TSH and this again can cause blood test results to deviate from their normal values.

Even if the sight of the needle doesn't bother you at all, the disruption of homeostasis can affect your blood chemistry. If you are someone who experiences chronic stress, you may be living with persistently elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol, or, as we discussed earlier, these levels may be high from compensating for your underactive thyroid, or you may have adrenal fatigue. In adrenal fatigue, the adrenal glands can produce adrenaline and cortisol unevenly, sometimes flooding the blood with them and sometimes holding them back. In this case, the adrenal glands can be overactive when they draw your blood, even if the doctor's office is your favorite place in the world, and so the results can again be inaccurate.

There are cases of patients who have a thyroid blood test one week, come back the next to have their blood tested for a different purpose, and the thyroid profiles on the two tests come out with completely different values. Evaluating the results of just one thyroid test is too limiting. This means that doctors can unknowingly miss whether a patient has thyroid disease. For blood pressure, many doctors and nurses have learned that the best way to deal with inaccurate readings is to take several blood pressure readings in one session and average them. A similar approach would also help with thyroid testing, although in reality you need to test your thyroid once a day for 30 days and then average at the end of the month.

That would be more helpful, though it still won't solve everything because the tests themselves are outdated. We have hope that in a few decades the medical community will finally realize the true, viral cause of thyroid disease and testing will be better. Until then, healthcare professionals and patients alike will be dealing with thyroid tests that are too broad in scope and don't take into account the subtle hormonal changes that can signal thyroid disease. Thyroid hormone "guessing tests" are so imprecise that it would almost be more accurate to make a fist for 10 seconds, release it, and see if it takes more than three seconds for the color of your palm to return as an indication for a thyroid problem.

Millions of women are unknowingly walking around with hypothyroidism that wouldn't register on today's tests. Sometimes it takes months or years of living with an underactive thyroid to develop to the point where the lab can detect it. Meanwhile, one must live with deteriorating health and no answers as the virus progresses. On the other hand, we can pretend that everything is fine, but that won't help anyone.

None of what we've discussed so far means you should give up on thyroid testing. You just need the above information to be able to interpret the results with perspective. If you are going for a thyroid test, ask to be tested for TSH, free T4, free T3 and thyroid antibodies.

Research on reverse T3 (rT3) is currently a fad that is not worth dwelling on. Although it reflects real problems, it can detect so many at once that it is difficult to understand what each result means. It's fine for your doctor to order the test, but it may not help you determine your condition to a reliable degree.

Thyroid antibody tests

Thyroid antibody tests deserve special attention because of all the thyroid tests they come closest to detecting viral activity. However, again, it all depends on the point of view. The medical community now believes that the antibodies found in these tests are autoantibodies (also called antithyroid antibodies and antimicrosomal antibodies)—ie. antibodies that the immune system makes to attack your own thyroid tissue. Antibodies are taken as evidence that your body is attacking your thyroid gland, which is why they give you an autoimmune diagnosis. In reality, this is not what happens. This interpretation is entirely based on assumptions. When scientists first discovered antibody activity and couldn't figure out why it was happening, it was a convenient theory to say that the body was apparently malfunctioning. The problem is that neither conventional nor alternative medicine has yet abandoned this theory. It remains an undeveloped science.

Remember that your body is not only attacking itself. The antibodies that show up in tests like the thyroid peroxidase (TPO) test are actually your saving grace. They don't go after your thyroid, they don't damage the gland at any level. These antibodies are created by your immune system to target the real troublemaker: EBV .

Part of what confuses the medical community is that medical research and science have yet to discover the individual thyroid immune system that we have discussed in the articles on thyroid disease . The special lymphocytes that we have been talking about and which have not yet been cataloged are distributed throughout the thyroid gland, like soldiers who guard it. Although they are temporarily taken away from the thyroid gland during the transition from the second to the third stage, the thyroid gland - a highly intelligent gland - sends an emergency signal to return the specialized lymphocytes as soon as it knows that it is under attack. Once they come back, the lymphocytes work in symbiosis with the antibodies your immune system produces, letting those antibodies into the thyroid gland so they can attack the EBV there and get it out of your body. The confusion here is that the medical community, seeing antibody activity, thinks that must be the source of the problem. This is completely wrong. Your special lymphocytes and these antibodies work together to protect you.

So when you look at the results of any thyroid antibody tests, remember that if antibodies appear, they are due to viral activity in the thyroid gland, not a faulty response by your body. If antibodies do not appear, this does not mean that EBV is not present in the thyroid gland. Like the others, this is a test that is still being refined. Unlike thyroid hormone tests, it is not blood chemistry that can confound antibody tests. Rather, the weakness of antibody tests is that they are not yet broad or sensitive enough to detect smaller amounts of antibodies. When EBV is in its early stages in the thyroid, your immune system has not yet used all of its alarm bells, so the antibody activity may not be enough to register in lab tests.

Furthermore, there are so many varieties of EBV , with mutations continuing to evolve, and this diversity means that there is also diversity in the possible responses and antibody formations that they elicit, with some antibodies targeting these mutations that are not in the view of blood laboratories. Current tests detect only some of these reactions and formations, or simply put: you may have antibodies in your body that the test results do not show. These are varieties of antibodies that are literally "off the charts" because they are uncharted territory - they haven't been discovered, so blood labs don't look for them. If a blood laboratory does not know that an antibody exists, it will not be tasked with looking for it. Funding and permission are needed to look outside the known, although you hardly need us to teach you about red tape and regulations. We are sure that you are familiar enough with them in one way or another.

Your very own thyroid expert

Given that these scientific methods of diagnosis are still in development, when it comes to determining if you have thyroid disease, you need to become your own best expert. If your test results don't give you any clues, know that if you're experiencing any of the late-stage symptoms we've discussed in the thyroid disease articles , they could be a major indication that your thyroid has already been affected by EBV . and continues to be affected even as EBV progresses in your body.

Above all, remember that your thyroid is only one part of what's going on with your health. Although all the medical attention to thyroid testing may seem the opposite, and past test results may have made you feel like you're either making up a problem, or like your thyroid is in terrible shape and it's your fault this, don't let it get you down. Today's thyroid health "guessing tests" are ultimately not intended to get to the root of your health problem and offer you answers. They are for determining whether someone should start taking thyroid medication, a topic we will cover in a separate article.

Other Thyroid Articles:

"The truth about the thyroid gland" ;
"Thyroid diseases - how it all begins" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 1)" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 2)" ;
"Thyroid Diseases - Explaining Your Symptoms (Part 3)" ;
"Thyroid cancer" ;
"[Video] Do you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis? - Anthony William talks" ;
"Anthony William on Life Without a Thyroid Gland" ;
"Anthony William reveals the truth about iodine" ;
"Anthony William reveals the truth about zinc" ;
"Powerful healing foods for the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements for the thyroid gland" ;
"How celery stem juice helps with thyroid diseases" ;
"Tea for the treatment of the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal broth for the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal juice for the thyroid gland" ;
"Medicinal Thyroid Smoothie" .