OK, we lay people have always called it colic, when we cannot
seem to get an answer for an inconsolable baby that has to be
walked night after night (as my husband so lovingly did.)  It's
been going on a long time in history from the various BF grandmas
that have related it.

This firstborn daughter had an alternative thyroid test done, due
to no MD taking it seriously when half her crown hair fell out
at age 15-16.  All her blood work had continued to be normal.  But
her basal temperature was low.  So we did a 24 test on urine.  It
was sent to the Broda Barnes Thyroid Research Institute in Trumbell,
CT.  The late Broda Barnes MD, a male, wrote a classic book,
Hypothyroidism, the Unsuspected Illness, 1976.

Pat, the director, sent it on to Belgium, were end product (not
what was circulating in blood) was analyzed by an endocrinologist,
Dr. Theirry Hertough, (sp) and she was indeed hypothyroid.  Here
in the US, it is beginning to be accepted that there is thyroid
resistance, similar to insulin resistance.

In the health history, the director said to make sure to document
her infanthood, especially the infrequent bowel movements.  By the
way, she also had classic "spoonnail" of the toenails and a
largish tongue, both additional hypothyroid symptoms as I learned
by the time she was a teen.

The unsoothable baby with "colic" and the infant who just eats
and sleeps are both exhibiting hypothyroid symptoms.

It  turned out so with both my daughters taking thyroid hormone
now, as does their dad who also has a very low basal temperature.
(This can be taken under the armpit before getting out of bed
in the am or by taking the temp of the first morning urine.)
He is a night person and late ariser as were both my daughters,
even as infants and young children.  It is possible they are
also on a 25 rather than 24 hour circadian rhythm.

The explanation I have found for this is that without thyroid
medication their body temp just does not rise to awaken them in
the am.  They could just sleep until noon.  When they do get up
and eat and then eat once again at dinner, their temp up to the
rest of us.  Their brain is finally warm and they are raring to
go, just when I am winding down and wish to go to bed at 10 to
11pm.

Over the years in my mastectomy fitting business, I found that a
lot of women with breast cancer are hypothyroid and are also night
persons for as long as they can remember.

Just thoughts about this crying baby and others when everyone thinks
it is what the mother is eating.  I think thyroid history should be
questioned in the family.  Often it is not diagnosed for years.  If
a teen or adult has hypothyroidism, the question needs to be asked
"When did the very first symptoms appear?"  It seems that teenage
growth and sexual maturation putting additional stresses on the
body are when people first notice symptoms, but in hindsight they
were there since infancy.
Judy Ritchie

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