The TRH Stimulation Test: The Most Sensitive Thyroid Test
THE TRH STIMULATION TEST:
THE MOST SENSITIVE THYROID TEST
The TRH Stimulation Test to detect a low thyroid. Up until 10 or 15 years ago, the TRH was the test that doctors use to detect a low thyroid. They stop using it when the routine blood test became available but as we shall see, the two tests are radically different.
Currently, doctors evaluate three blood test to see if your thyroid is low, TSH, T3 and T4. If the thyroid is low, and it does not produce enough T3 and T4, the pituitary gland, a gland in the brain that controls the thyroid will begin to produce more TSH. One of the ways that doctors can detect a low thyroid is by checking the TSH level, if it is high, greater than 5, hypothyroidism is suspected. The TRH Stimulation Test is a very different test. If your thyroid is low, as we mentioned, the pituitary will start producing ad storing a lot of TSH. If we inject TRH, a compound of the hypothalamus, which controls the pituitary, it will stimulate the pituitary and cause it to release a lot of TSH. Once again, if ones thyroid is low the pituitary will be full of TSH and upon stimulation of TRH; it will release it into the blood. If we could look into the pituitary in someone with low thyroid, we will see a lot of TSH. Obviously, we cannot do that, but we can do the best next thing, which is to inject TRH and stimulating the pituitary. It is like opening up the pituitary and seeing what is happening.
Routine TSH test can be terribly misleading; it frequently misrepresents what is happening in the thyroid and the pituitary. More and more doctors and certainly patients are coming to realizing this. On one blood test, perhaps the TSH might be high and the other one might be low, depending on a myriad of metabolic conditions. A low metabolic state may deceivingly lower TSH levels and for a number of other reasons TSH values may appear to be normal, even though one has a low thyroid. Clearly, the better test is the TRH Stimulation Test, which looks right into the pituitary gland.
The TRH Stimulation Test in a normal person will raise the TSH to greater than 10; in a person with a low thyroid this number will be much higher. Doctors in the past only used this test because the routine blood test was not able to detect a TSH lower than 7. So, they used this test not realizing that there was another important reason for using The TRH Stimulation Test, it is a challenge test that helps us look beneath the tip of the iceberg.
When the routine assays and doctors were able to pick up a lower level of TSH value they abandoned the TRH test. This was a terrible mistake and countless number of people has suffered because of it. Dr. Kellman took the TRH test off the dusty shelves of medical archives and began to use it on his patients. He has tested over 13,000 patients and in a large percentage, he detected what the patient themselves suspected: hypothyroidism. Based on this test he treated with bio-identical thyroid hormone and their lives have changed radically for the better. So many patients finally have their lives back.
The TRH Stimulation Test has changed thousands of lives and it can change your life too.
