Temperature and Hypothyroidism

[DrMariano2]

@Jean 780 wrote:

I’ve speaking last year’s with Dr Fletchas. He explain me that your body and brain are working better with iodoral.
After one week on 12.5 mg of iodine + levo + armour, I perform better on brain function (concentration, well being, arousal…) but my body temperature shut down to 36.8 degré instead of 37.2 without iodine

Why iodine shut down body temperature ?

Do you have an explanation for that ?

If high dose of iodine lower thyroid sensitivity, I need to stop it. But I feel better with iodine

What temperature do you mean? Oral or Axillary or Rectal?

37.2 degrees Celsius = 99.0 degrees Fahrenheit.

36.8 degrees Celsius = 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

If a person is healthy, generally the oral temperature is going to be very similar to the armpit or axillary temperature. Broda Barnes MD found in a study of 1000 healthy soldiers during World War II that the oral temperature is within 0.1 degrees of the armpit temperature.

Oral temperature is an unreliable measure of a person’s metabolism because of the high frequency of sinus infections, oral infections, allergies, and upper respiratory infections which affect a person with hypothyroidism. The presence of these conditions will raise the oral temperature above what represents metabolism. When monitoring temperature to determine metabolism (and hence thyroid function), the armpit or axillary temperature is the better temperature to obtain.

I find the left armpit temperature to be the best and most convenient temperature to monitor, given the mass of the heart contributing to the final temperature.

The rectal temperature will be about 0.8 to 1.0 degrees Fahrenheit higher than axillary temperature.

---

The normal range for axillary temperature is between 97.8 to 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit (36.6 to 36.8 degrees Celsius).

---

Thus an axillary temperature of 99.0 degrees F (37.2 degrees C) in a healthy person treated with thyroid hormone is a high temperature. I would generally reduce the dose of thyroid hormone if this was the case.

An axillary temperature of 98.2 degrees F (36.8 degrees C) is normal.

---

In a 1992 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, temperature was found to vary through the day. It is lowest around 6 AM, highest around 4-6 PM. There is a mean variation of 0.9 degrees F (0.5 degrees C). The average oral temperature was found to be 98.2 degrees F (36.8 degrees C) in a group of 140 healthy men and women.

---

Dr. Carl Wunderlich, a 19th Century German Physician, in the 1800s, found by measuring the armpit temperature of over 1-million people, that the average armpit temperature was 98.6 degrees F (37.0 degrees C).

Apparently, this appears for WHATEVER reason to be a higher temperature that what was found by Broda Barnes MD in World War II and the more recent 1992 study in JAMA.

I wonder, perhaps, if the lower temperatures in the modern age are because of a higher prevalence of hypothyroidism because more people with hypothyroidism survive now due to antibiotics and other medicines and public health systems such as sewers. Perhaps, Dr. Wunderlich could have had a badly calibrated thermometer for those days or given poor public health services and the lack of antibiotics, perhaps his study included many people who had ongoing infections and fevers.

[DrMariano2]

@gu3vara 803 wrote:

Thx for the info about armpit temperature!

Could you tell more about the reliability of the armpit temperature, should it always be considered a reliable way of monitoring thyroid function (along with labs of course) ? Are there other factor that can influence it, like stress?

Temperature (arm-pit) interpretation is necessary because it does not always correlate with thyroid hormone level and one’s metabolism:

Temperature is generally the sum of:

1. Thyroid hormone signaling
2. Norepinephrine/stress signaling
3. Infection/allergy or other nearby and recent inflammatory process.

There are other factors which may also increase temperature. But those are the big three.

Norepinephrine signaling is the primary signal for stress. It increase the activity of brown fat cells to increase temperature. It increases metabolism. One way it does this is to stimulate the production of deiodinate enzymes that convert T4 to T3 – thus activating whatever thyroid hormone there is.

Norepinephrine, particularly in the presence of low cortisol signaling, generally does not do a good job of increasing temperature (it does give the perception of being hot, but actual temperature is low). But it does increase temperature in some people. For example, occasionally, I see patients who are within the norma range for arm-pit temperature (97.8 to 98.2 degrees F) but are also low in thyroid hormone and are stressed.

[leanguy]

In women is vaginal temperature not accurate? Why would it be higher? I’m asking this for someone else 🙂

[DrMariano2]

@leanguy 811 wrote:

In women is vaginal temperature not accurate? Why would it be higher? I’m asking this for someone else 🙂

Vaginal temperature is accurate. The thermometer is going to give a number consistently.

The problem is: Has anyone done a large enough study to determine how vaginal temperature relates to armpit or rectal temperature? Hint, hint.

For example, is it 0.5 degrees higher than armpit temperature? 0.7 degrees? 0.8 degrees? How is it different from rectal temperature?

I don’t know the answer to that.

However, the recent study in the Journal of the Americian Medical Association I referred to, only used 140 persons, as opposed to the over 1 million people used in the study done in the 1800s.

A question I would have about the recent study is: How sure is it to state that the average temperature is 98.2 degrees F rather than 98.6 degrees F when you only have 140 people in the study, as opposed to over 1 million people in the older study?

[Author]

Posts