\u201cIn the 1940s, Dr. Barnes realized that the blood tests were usually inaccurate. Consequently, he developed a simple test to confirm suspected low thyroid function using an ordinary thermometer. He found that normal underarm or oral temperatures immediately upon awakening in the morning (while still in bed) are in the range of 97.8 to 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit. He believed that a temperature below 97.8 indicated hypothyroidism; and one above 98.2, hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid). Dr. Barnes recommended that the underarm temperature taken immediately upon awakening be used to diagnose hypothyroidism. Unfortunately, even today’s highly sophisticated tests are no more accurate than the tests used in Dr. Barnes\u2019 era.<\/p>\n
Therefore, I instruct my patients to take their temperature orally (as opposed to underarm) immediately upon awakening in the morning as a guide to diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. At the same time I have my patients check their resting pulse rate which should be between 65 and 75. If a patient exhibits hypothyroidism symptoms and his temperature is below 97.8 Fahrenheit, I prescribe one grain (60 mg) of Armour Desiccated Thyroid daily. If no improvement is noted in two or three weeks, I instruct him to increase the dose by another grain. At each step, we monitor morning temperature and heart rate. If the suspected hypothyroid symptoms are still present and the temperature is still sub-normal, it is safe to continue to increase the dosage provided that the patient\u2019s heart rate goes no higher than the mid-70s, and no symptoms of hyperthyroidism are evident, (agitation, anxiety, poor sleep, tremor of hand, palpitations). Treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism with thyroid hormone is very safe. There is little risk of excessive thyroid dosage if: (1) the patient feels well; (2) the temperature remains below 98.2; (3) the pulse is less than 75 beats per minute; and (4) the thyroid function tests remain normal. (Note that most hypothyroid patients feel best with sub-normal TSH levels).\u201d -Dr. Ward Dean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIn the 1940s, Dr. Barnes realized that the blood tests were usually inaccurate. Consequently, he developed a simple test to confirm suspected low thyroid function using an ordinary thermometer. He found that normal underarm or oral temperatures immediately upon awakening in the morning (while still in bed) are in the range of 97.8 to 98.2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[605,615,614,591,596,613,424,616,142],"class_list":["post-2655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-armour","tag-basal-temperature","tag-blood-tests","tag-broda-barnes","tag-hypothyroidism","tag-pulse","tag-temperature","tag-thermometer","tag-thyroid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2655"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9498,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655\/revisions\/9498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.functionalps.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}