Does the Thyroid Gland Play a Role in Depression, Anxiety and Psychosis? – Is the TSH enough to diagnose thyroid dysfunction?

Ever wondered if your thyroid gland is playing a role in your depression, anxiety or psychosis? A month ago, I saw a 24 year old male who was admitted for increasing feelings of low mood and thoughts of suicide. On assessment, he showed symptoms of severe depression with no psychosis. Further investigations revealed a TSH of 5.5 and a normal T4 and T3. An endocrine referral was made and the endocrinologist told me this is “mild subclinical hypothyroidism”. Whilst this is true from the endocrinologist’s perspective, does it hold true from the psychiatrist’s perspective? And….what about the patient?

Read the full article on Psychscenehub.

This article is written by Dr Sanil Rege. Sanil is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Mornington, Victoria and co-founder of psychscene.com. He is pursuing an MBA at the Melbourne Business School.  You can follow him on Google+