Thyroid, Depression and Mental Health

Psychia­tric, Psycho­lo­gi­cal and Emo­tio­nal Aspects of Thy­roid Disease i.e. it’s not all in your head!

It’s a com­mon sce­na­rio for hypothy­roid patients, espe­cially when you are undiag­no­sed due to your doctor’s over-reliance on a faulty TSH range, or trea­ted with thy­ro­xine T4-only medi­ca­tions: You go to the doc­tor; you com­plain about your depres­sion, or your anxiety, or your emo­tio­nal swings, or your ina­bi­lity to con­cen­trate, and onto your doctor’s favo­rite anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, lithium, or bi-polar med you go — begin­ning with the free­bies on the shelf from his friendly and sui­ted phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal rep. Sound familiar??

But the pro­blem with this sce­na­rio is that your depres­sion or anxiety or other men­tal health pro­blem is not a uni­que and unre­la­ted ill­ness. It’s most likely due to having a low free T3, the active thy­roid hor­mone, and/or adre­nal insuf­fi­ciency. And this is espe­cially com­mon for patients trea­ted with Synth­roid, Levoxyl, Elto­xine, Levothy­ro­xine and other T4-only medications.

And this pro­blem is not limi­ted to depres­sion. Low thy­roid hor­mo­nes, and the com­mon occu­rrence of slug­gish, poorly func­tio­ning adre­nals, can play a role in a variety of emo­tio­nal and beha­vio­ral symp­toms and dis­tur­ban­ces, inc­lu­ding anxiety, exces­sive fear, mood swings like bi-polar, rage, irri­ta­bi­lity, para­noid schi­zoph­re­nia, con­fu­sion, demen­tia, obsessive/compulsive disor­ders, and men­tal aberrations.

So if your phy­si­cian or psychia­trist fai­led to check your thy­roid func­tion with the correct lab tests (free T3 and free T4, plus anti­bo­dies), and your adre­nal func­tion with a 24 hour adre­nal saliva test, and ins­tead presc­ri­bed his or her favo­rite band-aid psycho­trophic medi­ca­tion, you are left with medi­ca­tions that can inc­lude unnee­ded fluo­ride, that can clash with your other meds, that can make your hypothy­roid worse, or can leave you with clas­sic side effects…besides the cost.

The mother of the crea­tor of this site is a clas­sic exam­ple of the tra­gedy of poor assess­ment or treat­ment of thy­roid func­tion. After she batt­led cli­ni­cal depres­sion and anxiety for years while on Synth­roid (and we now know due to the thy­ro­xine treat­ment), she relin­quished all con­trol of her health to a doc­tor who gave her elec­tric shock the­rapy – a treat­ment which only slightly les­se­ned her chro­nic depres­sion and dulled her memory and inte­lli­gence for the rest of her life.

Dr. Ridha Arem, in his book, “The Thy­roid Solu­tion: A Mind Body Pro­gram for Bea­ting Depres­sion and Regai­ning Your Emo­tio­nal and Phy­si­cal Health”, sta­tes:

Scien­tists now con­si­der thy­roid hor­mone one of the major “pla­yers” in brain che­mistry disor­ders. And as with any brain che­mi­cal disor­der, until trea­ted correctly, thy­roid hor­mone imba­lance has serious effects on the patient’s emo­tions and behavior.

Thy­roid hor­mo­nes thy­ro­xine (T4, as the sto­rage hor­mone) and triio­dothy­ro­nine (T3, as the con­ver­ted and direct active hor­mone) not only play a part in the health of your meta­bo­lic endoc­rine, ner­vous and immune sys­tem, they in turn have an impor­tant role in the health and opti­mal func­tio­ning of your brain, inc­lu­ding your cog­ni­tive func­tion, mood, abi­lity to con­cen­trate, memory, atten­tion span, and emo­tions. On her web­site, Chris­tiane North­rup, MD sta­tes that T3 “is actually a bona fide neu­ro­trans­mit­ter that regu­la­tes the action of sero­to­nin, nore­pi­neph­rine, and GABA (gamma ami­no­buty­ric acid), an inhi­bi­tory neu­ro­trans­mit­ter that is impor­tant for que­lling anxiety.” She also sta­tes that “If you don’t have enough T3, or if its action is bloc­ked, an entire cas­cade of neu­ro­trans­mit­ter abnor­ma­li­ties may ensue and can lead to mood and energy chan­ges, inc­lu­ding depression.”

Dr. Barry Durant-Peatfield, in his book Your Thy­roid and How to Keep It Healthy, sta­tes

“Brain cells have more T3 recep­tors than any other tis­sues, which means that a pro­per uptake of thy­roid hor­mone is essen­tial for the brain cells to work properly.”

He feels that up to one-half of depres­sion is due to unre­cog­ni­zed hypothy­roi­dism. And this figure could be higher when you con­si­der the high amount of thy­roid patients who are suf­fe­ring from depres­sion while on the infe­rior treat­ment of T4-only.

A clas­sic article writ­ten in 2003 by Hein­rich MD and Grahm MD, and found in the Jour­nal of Cli­ni­cal Psychiatry, out­li­nes the rela­tionship bet­ween thy­roid disease and psychia­tric and psycho­lo­gic mani­fes­ta­tions, tit­led Hypothy­roi­dism Pre­sen­ted as Psycho­sis: Mxe­dema Mad­ness Revisited:

http://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/pccpdf/v05n06/v05n0603.pdf

Low cor­ti­sol can be an addi­tio­nal problem

In addi­tion to low T3 levels cau­sing psychia­tric and psycho­lo­gi­cal disor­ders, low cor­ti­sol levels can be an addi­tio­nal cul­prit — even when you feel you are ade­qua­tely trea­ted for your thy­roid. Low cor­ti­sol results in cell recep­tors fai­ling to ade­qua­tely receive thy­roid hor­mo­nes from the blood, and can explain cer­tain emo­tio­nal and beha­vio­ral symp­toms even when a patient is on thy­roid meds, such as the need to avoid lea­ving one’s house, see­king peace and quiet, una­ble to tole­rate stress, low tole­rance to loud noi­ses, rage, emo­tio­nal ups and downs simi­lar to bi-polar, panic, obses­sive com­pul­sive ten­den­cies, hyper sen­si­tive to the com­ments of others, pho­bias, delu­sions, sui­ci­dal ideation.…and more.

What’s the solution?

If you recog­nize any of the men­tal health issues men­tio­ned above – or even have friends or family mem­bers who have been trying to point these out to you—find a doc­tor who will test your free T3, plus anti­bo­dies. If you find your free T3 below mid-range, or if you have an autoim­mune attack going on against your thy­roid (which will make labs use­less since you vas­ci­llate bet­ween hypo and hyper), you need to dis­cuss the addi­tion of Cyto­mel (synthe­tic T3) to your current thy­ro­xine medi­ca­tion. There is a gro­wing body of doc­tors and researchers who are using T3 as an adjunct to anti-depressive the­rapy, since impro­ving your T3 levels can raise brain levels of the neu­ro­trans­mit­ters sero­to­nin and nore­pi­neph­rine to the opti­mal level they need to be.

Even bet­ter, accor­ding the expe­rience of many, is switching to desic­ca­ted thy­roid, which gives you the entire com­ple­ment your own thy­roid would be giving you — T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin. There are nume­rous tes­ti­mo­nies of patients rid­ding them­sel­ves of chro­nic depres­sion and other emo­tio­nal pro­blems when they dosed high enough with desic­ca­ted thy­roid to put their free T3 towards the top of the range. (SEE LINK BELOW)

If you find that your free T3 is high or above range, yet you con­ti­nue to have men­tal health issues, the mis­sing piece in your puzzle may be your adre­nals. Click here for adre­nal infor­ma­tion.

Want to order your own lab­work?? STTM has crea­ted the right ones just for you to dis­cuss with your doc­tor. Go here: https://sttm.mymedlab.com/

***Click here to read ins­pi­ring sto­ries from patients whose depres­sion and other men­tal health issues went away on desic­ca­ted thyroid…and in some cases, when they added cor­ti­sol due to diag­no­sed low-functioning adrenals.

Click here to read a gro­wing list of artic­les you can read about the thy­roid and men­tal health issues.

***Need more infor­ma­tion on hypothy­roid and men­tal health? Check out the STTM book with a chap­ter totally dedi­ca­ted to men­tal health, depres­sion, and more!