What's the cost of missing thyroid underactivity?

http://www.endfatigue.com/articles/Article_cost_of_missing_underactive_thyroid.html

WHAT IS THE COST OF MISSING HYPOTHYROIDISM?

1. Over 30,000 preventable deaths/year from heart attacks. Women with untreated hypothyroidism are more than twice as likely to have a heart attack. A study in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine noted that hypothyroidism "contributed to 60 percent of cases of myocardial infarction [heart attacks] among women affected by subclinical [even mild] hypothyroidism." It contributed more to causing heart attacks in these patients than smoking, elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes!7. Another new study supports this showing that subclinical hypothyroidism was associated with a 2.6-fold increased prevalence of ischemic heart disease.7a

2. Over 4600 miscarriages per year after 15 weeks of pregnancy—countless more before. Six percent of miscarriages are associated with hypothyroidism. Undiagnosed hypothyroidism is also associated with infertility. In moderate to severely hypothyroid mothers, the baby was also over 6 times as likely to die soon after being born.8

3. Learning disabilities—Children born to hypothyroid mothers have a lower IQ (average of 7 points). They are almost 4 times as likely to have an IQ under 85 and over twice as likely to have learning difficulties resulting in their having to repeat a grade.9

4. Hypothyroidism contributes to millions being unnecessarily disabled. Over 6 million Americans have Fibromyalgia and tens of millions more have chronic muscle pain. Undiagnosed or inadequately treated thyroid disorders contribute to these unnecessarily disabling conditions.1,2,3 Our initial understanding of this was elucidated by Dr. Janet Travell, who was the white house physician for President Kennedy-who suffered from excruciating back pain10. Dr. Teitelbaum's recently published research shows that 91% of these patients can improve with proper treatment—especially including thyroid hormone.2

5. Hypothyroidism is a major cause of gaining and being unable to lose weight. It causes fatigue, dry hair, coarse skin, depression, and "brain fog" as well. Americans are currently treating hypothyroidism, which is often confused as being depression, with Prozac! This is an even bigger problem in the elderly who are being misdiagnosed with depression or Alzheimer's/senility when what they have is hypothyroidism.

What makes this situation especially tragic is that, given the proper information, hypothyroidism is incredibly easy and inexpensive to diagnose and treat. Instead, because of lack of awareness on the part of physicians, Americans unnecessarily suffer with a major public health disaster.

Here's a good video on how Hypothyroidism really feels to many people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcBgo8IDiUU

bumping this for the newbies :)

Here's a great article on how hypo should be treated:

http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-diseases/best-kept-secret/

Wow, thanks for putting all this together! I couldn't have found all this on my own!

I'm adding this to the thread, since it's so very common, but not often talked about in the "doctor's office":

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/thyroid-resources/discussions/messages/17785295

Thank you thank you thank you! You seem to be a very caring and upbeat person, and I really appreciate all the links. Bookmarking this for sure!

http://hypothyroidmom.com/sick-to-death-my-life-with-thyroid-disease/