Description

The thyroid is not a subject that immediately springs to mind when we chat socially about our health. We marvel how some people have boundless energy while others are always tired and weary

There are nervous, anxious, agitated people who can never sit still. It is easy to assume that people differ in these ways because of their characters or lifestyle but a substantial number have developed these characteristics through no fault of their own. These are the suffers from thyroid problems

Dr Tom Smith describes in his easily accessible style the symptoms, different types of thyroid problems, complications and the various treatments available today

Contents

Part 1

• The thyroid — How it works
• The normal thyroid
• How iodine affects the thyroid

Part 2

• Explaining thyroid disease
• Overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism)
• Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)

Part 3

• Treatment
• Treatments for an overactive thyroid
• Treatments for an underactive thyroid

Part 4

• Problems associated with thyroid disease
• Thyroid emergencies: Storm and coma
• Behavioural and psychological problems
• When thyroid disease affects the eyes
• Thyrotoxicosis Factitia: When the patient is the cause
• Thyroid cancer

About the author

Dr Tom Smith. Having graduated from Birmingham Medical School Dr Tom Smith spent two years in hospital house positions before entering general practice, first in Birmingham and then South Ayrshire. He then became medical adviser and later medical director of a major pharmaceutical company where he organised and helped to publish clinical trials of new drugs and took the Diploma in Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh

Dr Smith has been a full time writer since 1977 with many popular medical books to his credit together with weekly medical columns in several regional newspapers. He also finds time to practice as a locum for the family doctors in his home area of South West Scotland. Tom is married with two children