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believe me, luck has very little to do with it. i was first diagnosed with hypothyroid when i was 12, only after about 5 years of bad health and unexplained weight gain. various doctors had me on every program imaginable and, when they failed, would always revert to the position that it must be that i wasn't "doing my part" to follow the programs. one doctor actually told my mom that i must be secretly hiding junk food. my mother insisted that he explain to her exactly how a 10 year old purchases junk food secretly as she never had it in the house and that i, when given the option of the occasional ice cream, always refused (turned out i was lactose intolerant as well, so ice cream made me nauseous).
it wasn't until she actually threatened to sue one of these doctors for refusing to run all the tests that they found out that i had severe hypothyroidism. they subsequently found out that my mother and grandmother have it too and later my cousin was diagnosed. after all that, my mother wouldn't accept just any old doctor. i've been driving 6 hours round trip to see a specialist for the past 12 years. even with superb doctors seeing me, my hormone levels were completely erratic.
it was pure luck, however, that one of my doctors happened to read a report by a doctor in Europe that showed a significant correlation between soy and hypothyroidism. all those years doctors had been telling thyroid patients that they needed extra iodine and no one really bothered to establish exactly why that was. one reason: an anti-nutrient in soy actually disrupts the body's ability to use iodine and tyrosine to make thyroid hormone.
another significant problem: many hypothyroid patients are on porcine hormone replacement. more and more pigs are being fed a steady diet of soy. guess what? pig thyroid hormone levels have been dropping too, making medications even more unstable.
i cut soy out of my diet (and that of my livestock) and have been getting better and better. cutting soy is never going to fix the problem, but it's making managing it a whole lot easier. i've made it through the winter thus far without getting sick (a quite often occurrence before), i've actually been able to enjoy being outside without thinking i was going to freeze to death (hypothyroid causes severe cold intolerance), and my hair has STOPPED falling out!!!
i found out long ago that you have to MAKE doctors do their job. there are fantastic ones out there, but, sadly, they are few and far between.
