How Estrogen Hijacked The Thyroid Cab

Third In Our Thyroid Series

If you take HRT or the birth control pill and have low thyroid symptoms this post will be especially interesting to you.

Have you ever arrived at the airport or a train station and no taxis were available?

Our clinic is currently located on 40th and Lexington (we're moving soon) just downstream from Grand Central. Many times I’ve tried to hail a cab outside the clinic, only to watch a sea of taxis, full of passengers, roll right by. There were no cabs to be had…they were all occupied.

If you are taking estrogens and have experienced symptoms of hypothyroidism only to be told that your thyroid is normal, you may want to show your doctor this post. I’ve read that many doctors are confused by this particular thyroid pattern and it goes completely unnoticed by mainstream medicine. However, the problem isn’t the thyroid at all – estrogen is stealing all of the taxis.

Active thyroid hormone or T3 is necessary to establish a normal metabolic rate. If there are inadequate amounts of T3 produced it’s quite common to experience fatigue, depression, weight gain, dry hair and constipation. However with this pattern it is also possible for normal amounts of T3 to be produced and to experience the same symptoms. Just like someone arriving at Grand Central, T3 needs to circulate. It needs a taxi (a thyroid binding protein). Without a taxi, the hormone won’t be able to reach the tissues around the body where it is to have an influence. It is in effect, “all dressed up with no place to go.”

Birth control pills and estrogen replacement therapy put extra estrogen into the system which effectively hogs all the cabs. Estrogen attaches to thyroid binding protein. In this fairly common scenario the thyroid is producing thyroid hormone normally, but the T3 is not reaching the tissues necessary to influence metabolism.


Hint: A low T3 Uptake on your blood test is the hallmark of this pattern.