The most common questions asked are “What is an Endocrinologist?” and “Why do I need a specialist?” In the earliest days of medicine, doctors functioned as healer, surgeon, dentist and therapist. The healing arts were as much about relationships as they were about healing. Understanding the root of disease focused on our environment as much as our mental health and medicines were made from the plants and foods around us with most illnesses resolving themselves. Humans being curious and scientific creatures explored and uncovered bigger and more complicated systems of control in the body that eventually led to the separation of the specialties. That original thimble sized amount of knowledge has now spilled over into oceans and oceans of data – so much so that we hardly know what to do with all of it.
How does that answer the question? Well, it really doesn’t but this is the foundation that the house of Endocrinology is built upon.
An Endocrinologist has expertise in all the major hormone systems of the body, typically described as containing the Brain, Thyroid, Adrenals, Ovaries, Testes, and Pancreas. What seems like a completely unrelated set of body parts are actually all related to controlling all the other organs and metabolism. Let’s discuss and example of how these systems might be linked: A woman develops an overactive thyroid problem. Since her thyroid is running on overdrive due to disease, it sends a signal to the adrenals to increase the production of stress hormones to keep up with the thyroid. These stress hormones cause the ovaries to shut down production of eggs since this clearly not a good time to get pregnant. The stress hormones send signals to the brain to increase comfort-seeking behavior. What the patient experiences is a loss of menstrual cycle, high blood pressure, fast heart rate, shortness of breath, anxiety, increase in habitual behavior (like eating or drinking) and sleep disturbances. Now we’ve taken a generic symptom like anxiety and linked it to the thyroid.
These correlations explain why when looking up symptoms of particular endocrine issues you see a laundry list of symptoms. Hopefully, this also exposes why it can be so hard to get to a correct diagnosis when there are multiple symptoms and they are all over the board.
Not every sniffle and cough signal a warning that the endocrine system is amiss but if you have addressed the most common reasons for a symptom and you and your provider aren’t arriving at a solution that makes you well – then this may be the time to find an Endocrinologist.
Dr Christofides