You know, when I was originally dx'd, my dr. thought I just had trouble converting t4 to t3. (edited to clarify-05/07/03 This is because your body requires certain nutrients to convert t4 to t3, and I had been a long-term vegetarian. She told me to take Selenium (to help with conversion), and suggested that I might be able to get off thyroid meds.

However, about a year later, I was dx'd with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which means that I actually have anti-thyroid antibodies in my bloodstream. So, they harm the thyroid and prevent it from doing it's great job! This is an autoimmune condition.

From my understanding -- while some autoimmune conditions can be reversed, and some very few people claim to have reversed their Hashimoto's thyroiditis -- if you have the autoimmune version of it, you are likely to be on thyroid meds for life.

I think the goal in that case is to get the best meds. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study showing that thyroid patients experienced better memories, concentration, mood, and quality of life on T3 therapy. (Armour or cytomel.)