Information About Thyroid Cancer

A little knowledge may help you avoid a real pain in the neck. Understanding the sometimes subtle symptoms of a thyroid condition can help you get the treatments you need before the situation can grow serious.

You may be at risk for thyroid disorder if you’re:

1. Female. Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are far more prevalent in women than in men.

2. Over 60. Thyroid disease can strike at any time, but the risk increases with age.

3. Caucasian. Concentrations of thyroid antibodies suggest the presence of autoimmune disease in 14.3 percent of whites, 10.9 percent of Hispanic Americans and only 5.3 percent of African Americans.

4. Someone with a family history of thyroid disease. Up to 50 percent of first-degree relatives are at risk.

5. Pregnant. Women with autoimmune diseases in their family are at increased risk for developing thyroid problems during and after pregnancy.

6. Someone who consumes too little or too much iodine.

7. Exposed to large amounts of radiation, especially during childhood.

8. A smoker. Studies show a confirmed association between smoking and thyroid disease.

9. On certain medications such as lithium and amiodarone.

Thyroid disease can take several forms. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, the most common thyroid disease in the U.S.; hyperthyroidism, which develops when the body is exposed to too much thyroid hormone; hypothyroidism, or underactivity of the thyroid gland; thyroid cancer; and thyroid nodules, or lumps in or on the thyroid gland. Any of these can become serious.

Symptoms can include:

• Fatigue

• Forgetfulness

• Difficulty with learning

• Hair and nails that don’t grow properly

• Dry, itchy or delicate skin

• Puffy face

• Bowel problems

• Increased sensitivity to many medications

• Rapid or irregular heartbeat

• Nervousness, anxiety or irritability

• Trembling hands

• Unexplained weight loss or gain

• Intolerance of heat or cold

• Muscle weakness or soreness.

An endocrinologist, a doctor who specializes in glands, may be best able to determine if you have a thyroid disease and the best treatment. This can include medication, surgery or radiation.

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists created a new self-assessment tool as part of its “How’s Your Thyroid? Who Needs To Know?” campaign.

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For those people affected by either hair loss or hair thinning there may be many possible causes behind the visible symptoms. One of the potential causes is thyroid related. To be more specific, an enlarged thyroid or goiter may be the cause of your hair loss.

Since there could be many reasons why you are experiencing hair loss, it is always wise to get a correct diagnosis from a medically trained professional. In that way, you can ensure that you take the right steps to treat the underlying medical cause and so prevent any further hair loss or thinning.

Many of us have heard about the thyroid gland but apart from that may not know too much about it or what its function is. Your thyroid gland is a small organ that sits around the front of the throat, in the same area as your voice box. This organ is essential to normal body growth during the early stages of your life and later on helps govern the body’s metabolism.

You have probably heard or read about under-active or overactive thyroid glands. This is where the thyroid organ is still functioning, yet is classed as not working according to ‘normal’ levels. As your metabolism defines the rate at which your body absorbs energy, an under-active thyroid gland has been linked to cases of overweight adults.

An enlarged thyroid is a condition that tends to affect more women than men. Precisely why this is so is not yet clear, yet it is known that the cause tends to be a deficiency in iodine. It is also a condition which tends to be become more common in the older generation. However in most people an enlarged thyroid does not cause any problem and is generally not uncomfortable.

Usually a simple blood test is all that will be needed in order for your doctor to ascertain if you have an enlarged thyroid, or if your hair loss is the symptom of something else. Of course what that ‘something else’ could be is a myriad of conditions that can require further tests.

If you are diagnosed as having an enlarged thyroid which is contributing to your hair loss you’ll be pleased to hear that treatments are effective and simple. However, the downside is that you will need to continue the treatment for the rest of your life. If you do stop, then the symptoms will begin to reappear.

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Although the T3 treatment has appeared as a miracle drug at the beginning, it is not yet used as a standard medication and in some countries it is still considered experimental. The reason the T3 therapy is still unavailable in many countries is its potential side effects and the risk for some more sensitive patients such as women are. Caution is a necessary evil in these cases.

The primer concern of the scientists is that most hypothyroid patients are in fact women and the severe side-effects experienced from the T3 medication will affect more sides of their lives. The received treatments were recommended as safe and no additional information about possible risks of the therapy was given. Many women researchers see the negligence as a scarification of the women’s health for the financial interest of the research companies.

Assembling to many other new discovered therapies, the “miracle” medication using T3 has not yet been sufficiently tested and especially not on the most riskful categories represented by elder persons, women and minority groups. Further more, many women that could have been easily saved if treated properly, died from different heart diseases related to hypothyroidism as the possible connection between the two conditions was ignored.

The newest and most important question persisting is whether the T3 therapy has different effects upon women and men. Women in postmenopausal period are especially sensitive to the thyroid therapy as they have lost the estrogen protection and are more susceptible to heart diseases.

A small research on 33 patients around the age of 46 was made during a ten week treatment with T3 hormone. The primer tasks investigated were the long-term effects, the implications of therapy on patients of the age 65 and more, the effects on postmenopausal women with no hormonal substitute and the effect on those on hormone replacement. Further clauses of the research were the effects of the therapy on children, on pregnant and breastfeeding women, how T3 affects different races and ethnics, hoe the treatment can interfere with other medications and how it can affect associated diseases like cancer, diabetes or heart conditions.

Until all these questions don’t get a certain answer, the T3 therapy remains an experiment and can only be used under the physician’s observation. You should know not to use T3 unless it produces major benefits for your own pathology. You must be fully informed about the risks of this treatment.

Possible side-effects of the therapy are hyperthyroidism and depressions. All patients undergoing experimental medications must give their informed consent before starting the therapy.

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