More Hormonal Issues

Thyroid problems are often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in women. The symptoms, exhaustion, weight gain/loss, loss of libido, feeling cold or over-heated, and nervous or emotional are dismissed as being related to another big hormonal event like pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or menopause. Events that make women even more vulnerable to thyroid problems.
I mention it in regard to yesterday’s post about sex. Steve at Insider Fatherhood mentioned that being hypothyroid can have a libido-destroying effect. The thyroid, a little butterfly-shaped gland in the neck, produces several metabolic hormones that can cause a host of problems from rapid weight gain, or loss, to nervous disorders, infertility and even mental redardation in children born to women with untreated thyroid problems.

In some countries, all women are screened for thyroid problems during pregnancy and after giving birth. In most, however, only women with pre-diagnosed problems are checked. So, if your insticts are telling you that your exhaustion, loss of libido and temperature are not normal, natural, new mother discomforts, ask your doctor to check your thyroid hormones with a simple blood test. Treatment is usually a daily dose of synthetic hormone.