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The Holistic and Alternative Medicine Community
Grade: B+
The thyroid patients of America need to issue a huge thank you to the holistic and alternative medical community, because, for the most part, these are the doctors who actually understand thyroid problems, treat them properly, and put into practice their belief that, as I’ve proclaimed since 1997, “we’re patients...NOT lab values!”
Holistic and alternative practitioners – and here I refer to MDs, osteopathic physicians, and others who are in a position to diagnose and prescribe – are most likely to diagnose based on a complete clinical evaluation, and the full range of tests – i.e., Free T4, Free T3, antibodies testing -- and not just “by the numbers” seen on a TSH blood test.
Holistic and alternative practitioners are far more likely to work with Armour thyroid, Thyrolar, and T3, treatments that -- though safe, effective, and frequently less expensive than levothyroxine -- are laughed at or written off by many uninformed endocrinologists and doctors.
Holistic and alternative practitioners realize that success is a patient who feels well and is substantially relieved of symptoms, not a patient whose blood test results show a “normal range” TSH.
Holistic and alternative practitioners would earn an A, instead of a B+, if a few bad apples among them would stop charging exorbitant fees without warning, requiring thousands of dollars in tests through their own labs, or insisting that thyroid patients will only get well on a regimen of vitamins, herbs and supplements that only THEY sell -- at exorbitant markups of course.
