Well-Women Guide to Fertility and the Thyroid
Does hypothyroidism affect fertility? You bet it does....big time. If you have hypothyroidism, you could find it very difficult to get pregnant. But also if a man has low thyroid or hypothyroidism, this will affect his fertility too. Neither of you may even know that your thyroid is underperforming or worse still, if you have all the symptoms of hypothyroidism, there is every chance you have had a blood test at your GP's and it has come back normal, causing you to rule out the fact that you are hypothyroid. Causing you to rule out the fact that this could be the reason you are not conceiving. Treatment for infertile women runs into thousands. It is also stressful, frustrating and heartbreaking. It's sad because it could be as simple as being prescribed a good thyroid medication like Armour Thyroid. Many women have conceived once the thyroid is treated and restored to correct function. Having said all this there will be occasions where the patient's thyroid really is normal and therefore tests for fertility and spending out money will be perfectly warranted. What I am finding hard is that what if the patients thyroid really is responsible? In my mind, a GP should consider testing thyroid function whenever a woman and her partner comes to them saying that they have been trying for a baby without success. The female is usually under suspicion as the reason for failure to conceive. The big BUT is: The TSH test performed by GP's is unreliable It's a no win situation as the test usually comes back normal. The answer? The 24 hour T4 T3 urine test However, we must also consider the husband/partner in all this. There is also a likelyhood that he is hypothyroid or low in thyroid hormone. Adrenal fatigue could be the reason for this as men are just as much subject to stress as women and in some cases, where the man is the main breadwinner and in a position of responsibility, more so. Hypothyroidism affect the mitochondria in the sperm needed for their ability to swim towards the egg. Diet is also responsible, as is exposure to chemicals in daily life such as fluoride in toothpaste and in some places, also in tap water and certainly in tea, and lifetyle choices such as smoking and drinking. (oestrogen dominance occurs in both males and females caused by exposure to parabens and pesticides etc) Oestrogen dominance also interferes with thyroid hormone production.
The B complex especially folic acid, Vitamins C and E, the trace minerals selenium and zinc and amino acids l-arginine and l-lysine will assist in preparing both men and women for pregnancy especially if they are hypothyroid and special pregnancy supplements for women are available to be used pre conception, during and after. The amino acids above are particularly important to men for sperm quality as is zinc and selenium. Sadly, hypothyroidism can also cause miscarriage and if a woman is having repeated miscarriages, then their thyroid function should and must be tested. You must consider whether either partner is having hypothyroid symptoms in the first place. Depression, weight gain, feeling cold all the time, fatigue and exhaustion, hair loss, brain fog, muscle cramps, muscle and joint pain. Many of the wonderful doctors who recognise symptoms and do not go on blood tests alone and who also treat patients with Armour Thyoid have found that within a few months, many women are conceiving and going on to have normal full term pregnancies. Thyroid hormone treatment in combination with much needed supplements that feed the thyroid and adrenal glands mean that so many will not suffer the agonies of miscarriage and infertility. Also, those with untreated hypothyroidism through a lack of diagnosis may go on to have a much more severe degree of hypothyroidism later on in the pregnancy. I myself was suffering from Hashimoto's disease in my 4th pregnancy after suffering the miscarriage of my 3rd baby. It remained untreated and consequently, I went on to suffer both high blood pressure and gestational diabetes in my 4th pregnancy. It took me a long time to recover after the birth which was highly medically managed. I was extremely distressed throughout the pregnancy through illness and the fact that at the 12 week scan when a space in the baby's neck was measured, I was told that I had a 1 in 180 chance that the baby would be Down Syndrome. I chose to proceed with the pregnancy and refused further tests such as amniocenthesis. I wanted to take my chances. My thyroid was never mentioned throughout the pregnancy. I was paranoid that I would miscarry again and frequently inhabited the maternity unit for scans to make sure the baby was ok. The stress caused my blood pressure to rise and rise and they decided that if it rose any more than 140/93, i would be taken in for a caeserian section. fortunately, I went into labour myself. My daughter, Niamh was born at 39 weeks, the labour was traumatic and I had to have an epidural. There was nothing wrong with her I would have loved her anyway, no matter what, but I was relieved, of course. i had decided to proceed without medical tests and was prepared for her to have some sort of problem, but she did not, so I had worried throughout the pregnancy for nothing. My thyroid was not mentioned until I became very ill, about 6 months after her birth. I was still not treated at this point and in fact, I was not treated with thyroid hormone until 2006!! Had I been treated in 1997, I would not have miscarried but then I may never have gone on to have Niamh either. So good things come out of bad and it was meant to be. Untreated hypothyroidism is a danger to our health, and to the health of our unborn baby, please see my pregnancy page. It is also the contributing factor to failure to conceive and GP's are still not listening to us, despite our symptoms. If you have hypothyroid symptoms, please insist that your thyroid is checked, or buy a thyroid urine test to check for yourself and give yourself peace of mind. Remember the TSH test carried out by doctors is unreliable. The range is too wide and in the UK, this is 0.3 to 6.00, so if you fall within this range, even with symptoms, no matter how severe, they will tell you there is nothing wrong This is totally unacceptable and we are finding that we are having to seek private treatment for a condition that the NHS should be providing us with. We should be able to choose what treatment we receive too. T4 in the form of synthetic Levothyroxine may not suit us. Also, we may be someone who can't convery T4 to T3. Please read my Thyroid pages for an explanation of this. T3 is the important thyroid hormone. Synthetic Levothyroxine only contains T4 and nothing else, so doctors are relying on our ability to convert T4 to T3. What about the other thyroid hormones? Armour Thyroid is made from dessicated pigs thyroid glands and while this may sound yuck, has made thousands of women well. Why? because it contains all the thyroid hormones we need including the very important T2. In his book, "Solved: The Riddle of Illness", Stephen E Langer explains how Armour Thyroid helped many women to become pregnant when they had been trying for a long time. It helped many women who had suffered the trauma of repeated miscarriage, and it helped men who were the hypothyroid partners women trying to conceieve and getting knowhere because they did not know it was their man's fault simply because he did not know he had low thyroid function and/or was slipping through the net because his tests kept coming back normal. All I say on this is, that if any of this sounds like you, then take the advice above and do something about it. Do not suffer any more.
Please click here to go to the Pregnancy page
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