Paul Saladino· MD
so if we just go to the basics of thyroid stuff I'll show this basic diagram and then I'll let you kind of break it down for us a little more so I think that it's helpful to show people what these terms mean so when people talk about the thyroid axis they're talking about this connection between the hypothalamus which is a portion of your brain kind of at the the optic chiasm and the center part of your brain is the hypothalamus and hypothalamus releases TR h which is thyroid releasing hormone it goes down through the blood supply and the brain to the pituitary gland which is sort of this this kind of like cluster of grapes it's a small you know gland that sits in the sella turcica and your skull below the brain and the pituitary gland releases TSH which is thyroid stimulating hormone many people will be familiar with TSH TSH is something we measure in the blood as doctor semen and I will talk about it may not actually be the best measure it may not be super accurate and then the thyroid gland here is in your neck clearly and that's where the TSH binds to receptors and then you get t3 and t4 mate generally that the thyroid gland makes mostly t4 and then in the peripheral tissues t4 is converted to t3 so we can talk about all these processes and the there are di Odin ace enzymes that are needed to convert t4 to t3