I jumped to making this poll way too quickly. I should have included an option for *no* physical illnesses, and an option for knowledge that one's mother has had thyroid health issues in the past...
Quote:
Originally Posted by -jimi-
I have ADD and I've had it long before I developed things like hypothyroid and deficiencies. I can't actually say my ADD got worse with physical illness. I actually think I would be more hyper if I was healthy, now it has to stay inside my head because I'm tired from being ill.
I think there is another type of connection, autoimmunity and neuropsych issues are connected genetically, no doubt about it.
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According to what I've read, hypothyroidism is generally a lifelong (progressive) condition. If your hypothyroidism wasn't diagnosed earlier, it might be because your symptoms were either too subtle (only slight hair loss, weight gain, etc.) or your blood tests were within lab reference ranges, which have been widely criticized as having too wide a "normal" range, over the years.
I also suspect the researchers are onto something with looking at thyroid antibodies in expectant and nursing mothers. With TSH they only get part of the picture ("
girls" but not "boys" do show a correlation for combined/inattentive type ADHD) but with looking at thyroid
antibodies (known as "TPOAbs"), they seem to find a stronger correlation across the board (see quote below).
Remember that in areas of the world where iodine is easy to obtain, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis is the number one cause for hypothyroidism, and Graves Disease is the number one cause of hyperthyroidism... and that both are autoimmune disorders. Since so many people are "subclinically" hypothyroid, they rarely get an actual diagnosis. Meanwhile, recent study data seem to show that
even subclinical hypothyroidism could be enough to influence child neural development.
I know it's only one study, but just to illustrate what I'm talking about, here's a quote from the 3139 child/parent pair
Generation R Study's conclusions:
Quote:
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Our findings imply that the elevated titers of TPOAbs during pregnancy impact children's risk of problem behavior, in particular, attention deficit/hyperactivity. The observed effect is only partially explained by maternal TSH levels. These findings may point to a specific mechanism of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in children. Nevertheless, we can only speculate about public health implication of the study, as there is no specific treatment for TPOAb-positive pregnant women with normal thyroid function. Further investigation is needed to explore whether TPOAb-positive pregnant women and their children can benefit from close monitoring and early detection of developmental delay in populations at risk.
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Where they say "normal" thyroid function, I think of the thousands of women who have been told their test results are "normal" and so their thyroids/hormone levels can't be imbalanced, even though they have been suffering from numerous symptoms best explained by hypothyroidism, and even though many of them do benefit from T4 &/or T3.
more to say but I have to go!