I’ve very pleased to learn you are also familiar with Price. I meet so few in the medical profession who have even heard of him.

I understand your dilemma with the infant vaccines. My husband is a research scientist in biochemistry and even with his knowledge we often are on the fence about how to proceed with some of these decisions. We followed the suggested vaccine protocol for our 11 yo son but I didn’t question very much when he was an infant. Now I seem to want to turn every decision inside out to make sure I have considered all the options ;-).

If I had to do it now, I would probably choose to space the vaccines out more, even if it is less convenient and more costly to our own pockets, and perhaps I’d opt out of some vaccines.

Currently, my husband and I are discussing the H1N1 flu shots (he’s the only one who usually gets a flu shot annually). I don’t see a benefit, but his infectious disease colleague recommended it for our son, but didn’t say why (his school aged sons got the shot). I suggested we gather some more information about the vaccine so we can make an informed decision, not a knee-jerk reaction. We’ve seen such a huge increase in resistance to cold viruses in the past few years with our Vitamin D supplementation that I’m inclined to instead make sure we suort our immune system instead of resorting to iffy shots (and I’ve never had a true flu).

It’s a sad statement to make, but our health care system can definitely make you sick. The one exception is after you suffer from major physical trauma. But this is the system what we have, and we have to make the best of it. What’s most important is that you take responsibility for your own health, just like what you did. I agree with your philosophy that ultimately, what we eat (along with stress management, moderate exercise, and proper sunlight exposure) makes a huge impact on our health. Your hypothyroid situation is not too uncommon. It’s important to replenish nutrients and vitamins that you’re deficient in, but it’s more important to ask why is the deficiency happening in the first place.

If you follow Weston Price’s work, take a look at pictures in his book of the native’s teeth when they ate completely off the land, and compare against those that ate processed, Western diets. Smaller jaw and more dental crowding also means a smaller airway to breathe through, especially when on our backs and in deep sleep.

My wife and I are going through another dilemma with vaccinations for our 8 month old son—we’re torn between going with the flow (conventional Western medicine) or following our gut instincts (that there’s something not right with vaccinating against everything just because it’s possible). In the end, we’ll probably go ahead with the shots, since many are required for schools. I have a feeling that decades down the road, we’re going to regret it.

The flip side of all the testing, procedures, and spending is that we aren’t any healthier and sometimes even get worse from all the inappropriate treatment.

In my own case, despite “excellent” health care and supposedly good health (I’m rarely ill), I have very thick medical file at my HMO network due to years of infertility, basal cell skin cancer, lipoma removal, tendonitis, arthritis, and many seemingly unrelated annoying health issues. Turns out I was hyperglycemic, hypothyroid, and am gluten -sensitive, and was Vitamin D deficient.

I’ve given up wheat and other grains, all high sugar/high starch foods and as a a result, my insulin levels are kept normal and my BG remains in a very tight normal range throughout the day, instead of spiking high then low from roller coaster insulin production. That has improved every area of my life and my weight is normal and stable.

I now take natural desiccated thyroid hormone, which has also improved my health tremendously. I had to go outside of my HMO network for the best care for my thyroid condition. Synthetic T4 alone did not improve my hypothyroid symptoms or quality of life enough; it merely returned my TSH to a place that pleased the endocrinologist.

I supplement Vitamin D 5000iU a day now (despite living in So Cal) and am not only NOT deficient, but I keep my 25 (OH)D level in the higher end of the normal reference range (>60 ng/mL).

My only regret is that I didn’t know enough about how to take charge of my health years ago, despite what many would consider a high degree of health-awareness. My years of infertility (not to mention the massive amount of money wasted during that time on fruitless tests and procedures) probably were due to mild hypothyroidism, but no one caught it, despite the many TSH tests (there was a definite slow rise in results over the years, always in the “high-normal” range which is now considered suspicious.

In recent years I have saved my HMO insurer many thousands by not seeing the HMO docs because they often can’t see the forest for the trees.

my best to you and your father.