Raena Morgan: Hello and welcome, we're visiting today with Dr. Stephen Langer. He wrote Solved: The Riddle of Illness, and his specialty is the thyroid. Welcome, Dr. Langer. Dr. Stephen Langer: Thank you. Raena Morgan: There are lots of symptoms to hypothyroidism or thyroid being out of whack as it were. Fatigue is one of the major symptoms, isn't it? Could you discuss that? Dr. Stephen Langer: It is. Let me just reiterate that hypo means under active thyroid because a lot of people get confused with hypo. It means under active thyroid and just to remind people, the thyroid hormone controls the metabolic activity of every cell in your body. Raena Morgan: Alright. Dr. Stephen Langer: So, if you have an under active thyroid, which frequently people do, undetected, and it controls your metabolism, and your metabolism is sluggish, I mean, what's the upshot of a sluggish metabolism? It's fatigue, cellular fatigue, I mean, it's fatigue on a cellular level, but it's perceived by our brains as just ongoing inability to be able to carry out the functions of normal day-to-day life in other words, chronic fatigue. A lot of patients that I see are misdiagnosed because the doctors don't know what's going on with chronic fatigue symptoms; chronic fatigue syndrome. Raena Morgan: So chronic fatigue syndrome, you're saying, is a symptom of low thyroid. Dr. Stephen Langer: No, actually, chronic fatigue syndrome, I don't want to get too complex. Chronic fatigue syndrome definitely exists. Raena Morgan: Okay. Dr. Stephen Langer: It's rare. I rarely see people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Chronic fatigue syndrome does exist. What I'm saying is that anybody who is chronically tired and the doctor can't figure out what's going on very often gets the title of chronic fatigue syndrome erroneously. They should not be called chronic fatigue syndrome. They do have chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue syndrome is a diagnosis where everything is excluded, including thyroid problems, and they're still tired. To date, there's no definitive treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. There is a definitive treatment for the chronic fatigue of low thyroid. Now, if a person comes in chronically fatigued and they need thyroid these are the people that go to sleep tired, and they wake up tired, and they're too pooped to pop during the day I mean, they have no stamina whatsoever; they're concentration is off; they're mental faculties are off; and frequently these people have, obviously if they're adults, have to go work and frequently they have families and they have kids who they can attend to in the way that they like to. They're ineffective at work; they're ineffective in their relationships. So what do you think happens? They become depressed. Raena Morgan: Sure. Dr. Stephen Langer: So, because they're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired; so they go in and they tell their doctor they're tired and depressed. Guess what they're diagnosed with? Raena Morgan: Antidepressants, or that's what -- Dr. Stephen Langer: They're diagnosed with chronic depression. So they're diagnosed with a psychiatric condition; whereas their depression is not primary, it's secondary. I mean, if you felt worthless and tired all the time because you couldn't carry out your functions, of course you'd be depressed, everyone would be depressed. I'm here to tell the people who are watching this, that frequently it's due to physiological reasons in other words the nutrition, cellular reasons that can be addressed nutritionally and addressed, if need be, by being put on low dose of thyroid medication. Usually a combination of the two addresses the chronic fatigue problem within 30 to 90 days, people start getting their energy back and their depression starts to lift; their concentration starts to get better; they start to be able to be able to think straight and they become human beings again, that are functional. Raena Morgan: Well, thank you, Dr. Langer, that's very promising, very promising i