The Thyroid Connection PDF Download Free

There is a lot of information in this book that anyone new to the discipline of functional medicine might find rather helpful. But if you are familiar with its basic tenants, and either work with a functional medical practitioner or researched and learned on your own, you might find a lot of it is quite repetitive and there’s really nothing much in the way of groundbreaking new information offered here. It all tends to send like the same information repackaged as a completely different and exciting new plan – which the author spends a great deal of time building up to for most of the book. So finally getting to the highly anticipated Myers plan, you find yourself with what essentially boils down to a super restrictive and repetitive Paleo diet. Very disappointing.

Now please don’t misinterpret my review and assume that I think traditional medicine is the holy grail for us all. That is sadly not the case. It has let me down time and time again as I struggle with ongoing symtpoms like hair loss and thinning, sudden and worsening loss of skin and muscle tone, fat gain, fatigue, lethargy, anxiety, depression, dried up and wrinkled skin, short term memory loss, brain fog, sleepless nights, etc. etc. Yet despite it all, my endo thinks my labs are totally fine. Elevated level of cortisol, higher than normal TSH indicating subclinical hypothryoidism, estrogen dominance, etc. were all obvious issues to me when I looked at the lab results I requested from my primary. Otherwise, I would never know I had any of these conditions. I also ordered a Vitamin D test and sure enough, found a deficiency as well. So yes, a functional medical doctor’s perspective has a lot of potential to help you far more than a traditional MD ever could. Dr. Myers is absolutely well justified in saying they are neglectful, especially when it comes to ordering simple standard tests that can shed a lot of light on your problems, and will also insist “you’re fine” when you never felt worse. I recently told my own endo that I felt like I was stranded inside a dying body. Her response? “You are,” she said. “We all are. Yes it might feel terrible but this is a part of aging and we can’t do a lot about it.”

Incidentally, for those new to functional medicine who are lost and don’t know where to start to begin uncovering the true root causes of their symtpoms, Dr. Myers offers a helpful section on the types of tests you should ask for to start getting a far more thorough and accurate picture of your overall health, which most primaries and endocrinologists routinely fail to do, and she is also quick to say you should work with your doctor or functional medical specialist on your issues. Your primary might strongly push back on the tests you requests, but if so, you should see a functional medical dr. and will need them in any case to help interpret your results. They are not going to look at very sub-optimal numbers in the so-called “normal range” and say everything is perfectly fine!

This book certainly could have benefitted with more help from the editing department, since a lot of redundancy extolling the many virtues of the Myers Plan up front begins to feel like a droning sales pitch. It isn’t revolutionary, it’s basically Paleo repackaged as the Myers plan. If you’ve got certain issues like gastrointestinal distress, the super restrictive auto immune paleo diet can help you figure out exactly which foods are irritating your gut. I personally discontinued gluten, thus far for three months, and I’ve seen absolutely no change, but I think only people with gluten sensitivity or an established celiac disease should cut this food group out of their diet if it is well established that it is a cause of certain symptoms. And of course dairy is another inflammatory group which I agree should be eliminated for at least one to three months, but if no changes to general well being or symptoms are realized, I see no reason for cutting it or any other wrongfully demonized food group out of your diet.

Finally arriving at the Myers plan, it is laid out in a 28 day format with the same information for everything you should do or eat each day, presented word for word, 28 times, which could be a lot more consicely stated and knock out an additional 30 pages of the book by saying, do these few things every day and change out your meals from the provided menus.

In summary, I found it a mixed bag. to those only just discovering what functional medicine is all about, and tired for others who’ve either researched on their own or are working with a functional medical practitioner to help realize their health goals.

I want to also point out a quite shaky attempt at diagnostic “testing” with the use of a few brief questionairres, which Dr. Myers is not the only practitioner guilty of incorporating into a book. I think these “diagnostic pop quizzes” are irresponsible from a medical standpoint. Why? Well, if you check off a certain amount of “yes” answers to a series of questions in a given questionairre, that, according to Myers, automatically indicates you are diagnosed with that disease. Again, I believe this is inaccurate, irresponsible and might do you more harm that good if you go out and buy a bunch of supplements without the benefit of testing or consulting with a functional medical dr., in a fruitless attempt to treat a condition you don’t actually have.

Leaky gut is in my opinion one the most prevalent, and likely wrong, diagnoses that these practitioners tend to make, and there is insufficient evidence to prove it even exists. SIBO, IBS, and other disorders of the intenstines and stomach DO exist, and it’s important to visit a gastroenterologist for proper diagnoses and treatment based on your individual circumstances. Regrettably, Dr. Myers isn’t the only one to offer these little “pop quizzes” designed to diagnose you with just a few questions based on a set of non specific symptoms which could be tied to any of hundreds of other conditions. For example, in another MD’s book about hormones, I took all the pop quizzes and was sure I must be suffering from low testosterone, since all of the symptoms I had were an exact match for this imbalance. Imagine how surprised I was to get all of my hormones tested and find out exactly the opposite was true – I had rather high testosterone and plenty of other hormonal imbalances to boot. When one hormone gets out of whack, they all do, and the patterns that hormonal imbalances might follow are different from individual to individual.

My final impression is to take the recommendations and plans here with a grain of (sea) salt. Indeed there is a lot here that can help you improve your health, but certainly enough that may cause you harm as well. As a former lacto vegetarian myself, I can’t imagine eating artery clogging bacon and sausage every other day and expecting to feel great. As someone who suffers with gastritis and chronic bladder inflammation, you won’t find me in the same neighborhood with a glass of lemon juice. A tiny drop of that in my system, rather than cleansing or clearing or helping anything whatsoever, would simply make me feel like there was a sharp knife in my instestines all the time. So you want to be aware of any conditions besides thryoid issues you might have that could get worse by following the dietary suggestions made here.

A must read for anyone with thyroid issues. I have been going to Drs. for years with no solutions to my thyroid problems. My story is similar to “pcrodgers” review below. I have not had all the testing done yet. I do have all the thyroid symptoms. I did the 28 days and took the supplements and vitamins required. It works. I feel much better. Also I have an open left leg wound of ~10 years and a strange skin infection on the other leg (foot to thigh) with blisters, and an another open wound that started 1 year ago. Drs. didn’t know what to do and send me home. I went to the Mayo Clinic and after spending $14,000, they sent me home with nothing. This is true swear to God. Anyway, after 2 months on the Dr. Myers diet and supplements — my right leg skin infection with wound (possible yeast infection) cleared completely up. Everything healed. The left leg wound started to heal with 50% improvement. The Drs. at the wound clinic couldn’t believe their eyes. (I’d been seeing them for 5 years — they just monitor the wound) They said to keep doing what I am doing. I don’t buy Dr. Myers supplements, I purchase the same alternatives at less cost. Of course she is going to promote her products but you don’t have to buy them. Other brands work as well. I highly recommend this book and see if it works for you.

This book helped bring me back from the edge! My body was on a slow spiral downward… despite running 3 days a week at a competitive level. Low BMI… ate reasonably well… no previous health problems. I could not figure out why I felt “off”… My conventional doctor could not figure out why, although the one thing he found gave me the clue to search for the right thing… “my thyroid numbers were a little off… not clinical… but getting there”. I could not get into endocrinologist for 5 months! In that 5 month span, my thyroid went clinical, and while I was desperately waiting, I started on the diet suggested in this book. Not just a little… I was all in. By the time I went to the Endocrinologist, I had been on this diet for 2 months… and my numbers were back in range, and I am feeling so much better. I am not back to 100% yet… and you shouldn’t expect a silver bullet either… but I at least feel like I am on the right path and have hope. Thanks Amy Meyers!!!