Mary Shomon, is our Thyroid Disease Guide from our parent company, About.com. To visit her Expert Corner on Calorie Count Plus, click here.

About:

Patient advocate and writer Mary Shomon started her career as a communications consultant, and has since transformed her own health struggles into a mission to serve her fellow patients with thyroid, autoimmune, metabolic and weight loss challenges. She was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis in 1995. Since that time, she's been researching and writing about thyroid conditions, autoimmune disease, weight loss, metabolic problems, and the profound impact these issues have on our health.

In addition to being About.com's Thyroid Guide since 1997, and serving as a patient advocate, Mary has written a number of health books, guides and newsletters to help patients get the information they need to live well, communicate it effectively to doctors and practitioners, and move forward with conventional and alternative approaches. Mary's 2004 book "The Thyroid Diet" was a New York Times best-seller, an Amazon.com Top 10 Health book of 2004, and a semi-finalist for the Quills Awards.

Experience:

Mary has written numerous health books, including The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss(HarperCollins, 2004).

Her newest book Thyroid Hormone Breakthrough: Overcoming Sexual and Hormonal Problems at Every Age is already in multiple printings prior to its Nov. 2006 release date.

Living Well With Hypothyroidism, first published in 2000, became a best-seller with 20+ printings. A new, 2nd edition was published by HarperCollins in 2005.

Other books include Living Well With Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism (2005), Living Well With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & Fibromyalgia (2004), and Living Well With Autoimmune Disease (2002), all from HarperCollins. She co-authored "What Your Dr May Not Tell You About Parkinson's Disease," published by Time Warner.

Mary writes, edits and publishes Sticking Out Our Necks: Thyroid Newsletter, a bimonthly patient-oriented print newsletter on thyroid disease.

Education:

Mary Shomon belongs to the Endocrine Society, the world's largest professional organization of endocrinologists in the world, known as the leading source of research and advancements in endocrinology and metabolism.

She is also one of the first patient members of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare, a professional society dedicated to research and education in patient-doctor communication.

Mary Shomon holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgetown University in Washington DC.

From Mary Shomon:

We have as many as 30 million Americans with thyroid conditions, and the majority are not even diagnosed. Among those who know they have thyroid problems, the majority of us are still not feeling well. Clearly, something needs to be done to help patients get diagnosed more accurately and quickly, and once diagnosed, get the treatment we need so we can return to living well.

Unfortunately, too many of the so-called thyroid experts believe that diagnosing and managing thyroid disease is a matter of blood test levels. Many doctors dismiss thyroid disease as a mundane "take this pill and you'll be fine" disease, but patients know better. The truth is much more complex. "We're patients. . . not lab values!"

That has become my motto, and "battle cry," so to speak. We deserve to feel well.

Information, empowerment, and support is essential. Providing these necessary components is my focus for this site, my Thyroid-Info.com site, and my patient-oriented books and resources for patients.