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The thyroid organ is under constant use but as stated previously in these pages, it is a gland that gets little respect or attention. It should also be noted that a large part of the control of the release of the thyroid hormone is via the adrenal gland.
Your thyroid cooperates in a three (3) way system that allows the thyroid gland to function properly. The first part is the brain, through the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. The second part is the thyroid itself, and the third but maybe the most important part of the equation is the body. It basically works like this:
The hypothalamus scans the blood and checks if the thyroid needs to be stimulated to produce more of its primary hormone. If it does, then the hypothalamus tells the pituitary to make TSH which is thyroid stimulating hormone. Then the thyroid is stimulated by the TSH to produce a hormone called TT4 or total T4. Once the thyroid makes this hormone, TT4 is then circulated and through a couple of conversions in the body, eventually becomes FT3 or free T3, which is the active hormone.
So when doctor only measures TSH and maybe TT4, they are completely missing at least 1/3 of the conversion process that happens in the body. And for these conversions to occur, the body has to have several micro-nutrients, that allow the body to make the FT3. Also, there is another hormone in the body called rT3 – or reverse T3. rT3 acts like an emergency brake in the body and can literally stop the FT3 from working.
Sounds complicated but it really isn’t, if you understand the process and the conversions and what the body needs to make all this happen. You need to run blood tests to measure all of these thyroid hormone levels to determine if the thyroid hormones are actually functioning.
