The Symptom Pattern of Wilson's Syndrome

Having symptoms on the list does not mean that you have Wilson's Syndrome.

It simply alerts you to the possibility. The reason is that some, many or all of the symptoms on the list could each have separate causes. Take fatigue for example. Fatigue is a very common feature of a low thyroid condition but it can, as you know, have other causes: poor sleep, chronic infection, iron deficiency, lack of exercise, allergies etc. As you can see, the picture considered only from the point of view of a few individual symptoms can be misleading. This is why, even with a traditional low thyroid condition (hypothyroidism) which has been in medical textbooks for over one hundred years, approximately half of the current cases in the U.S. go undiagnosed. It can be said, however, that the more symptoms you have, and the more they fit the typical pattern (below)in conjunction with chronic low body temperature, the more likely you have Wilson's Low Thyroid Syndrome.

There is a pattern to the symptoms associated with Wilson's Syndrome.

The pattern will affect those symptoms on your list that are caused by Wilson's Syndrome. Symptoms that don't fit the pattern are likely caused by something else. Most people affected by Wilson's Syndrome (though not all of them) will be very aware that:

Most of their symptoms began at pretty much the same time - coincident with a major physical or psychological life stressor like the birth a child, a death in the family, a major injury, illness or surgery, a divorce, loss of a job/career, etc. A smaller number of sufferers will not be able to remember when their symptoms started. It could have begin with a stressor a long time ago. Some symptoms do come on very slowly, but this seems to be less common.

Symptoms not only come on together, but they also persist together (they don't come and go independently).

A new stressor is a time when additional symptoms may appear and familiar symptoms get worse.

The symptoms exhibit this pattern because they are connected by the same cause, insufficient T3 active at the cellular level. Did the core of your symptoms arise at a time you can identify? Or have they been around for a long time? Have they been increasing in number and/or severity, particularly at times of stress?

An additional sign that points in the direction of Wilson's Syndrome is that the typical test for hypothyroidism (called the TSH test) will return results below 5.0. Doctors interpret a test score below 5 to mean that you cannot have hypothyroidism despite symptoms which to them might look that way. This misleads well intentioned physicians who consider the test to be infallible. It's why Wilson's Syndrome is considered a discovery.

Wilson's Syndrome does not show up on the usual tests. The symptoms are there, just not the confirmation by the TSH test. If you wish to know more about this, read Why Wilson's Syndrome doesn't show up on thyroid tests or How Wilson's Syndrome was discovered - a synopsis. .

As you've gathered from reading about symptoms and their pattern there is no test that confirms Wilson's Syndrome. It is the same situation that existed for traditional hypothyroidism for 75 years. The only test is one called a clinical test. Try the known remedies. If one of them works, it confirms the diagnosis. Thankfully the remedies for Wilson's Syndrome are not excessively arduous or expensive although the WT3 protocol is certainly more difficult than the botanical remedy discovered by Dr. Friedman.