About Dana Trentini

About Dana Trentini Hypothyroid Mom

Dana Trentini, founder of HypothyroidMom.com

Photo by: Helle Sydendal/PH Medier

Hypothyroid Mom is the WINNER of 2 WEGO Health Activist Awards:

Health Activist Hero & Best In Show Twitter

Who knew this little butterfly-shaped gland at the base of my neck known as the thyroid gland could affect my life so completely?.

I am Dana Trentini, the founder of Hypothyroid Mom.

Hypothyroid Mom has over ONE MILLION followers.

What’s crazy about all this?

I never blogged, used Facebook or Twitter ever before the launch of Hypothyroid Mom in 2012.

I know this may sound crazy but I know deep within me that Hypothyroid Mom is what I am meant to do.

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism the year following the birth of my first son Benjamin in 2006. Low thyroid symptoms overtook my life. I was overwhelmed with fatigue. The pregnancy weight was impossible to lose. My hair was falling out. The heels of my feet were cracked and my scalp itched. My legs were numb to the touch. Unusually heavy menstrual bleeding, chronic constipation, and constant infections plagued me. Kidney stones landed me in the emergency room. A healthy woman prior to pregnancy now I had blood levels indicating I was at high risk for a heart attack and pre-diabetic. What had happened to me?

“Doctor knows best” or that is what I thought. I followed their thyroid drug protocol to the letter never once thinking they might not know everything there was to know about hypothyroidism, especially when I became pregnant again in late 2008. I assumed that in New York City, one of the greatest cities in the world, they would have all the answers.

The 2007 Endocrine Society’s clinical guidelines for the Management of Thyroid Dysfunction during Pregnancy and Postpartum clearly included the following recommendations:

  • If hypothyroidism has been diagnosed before pregnancy, thyroid hormone replacement medication dosage should be adjusted to reach a TSH level not higher than 2.5 mIU/L prior to pregnancy.

  • If overt hypothyroidism is diagnosed during pregnancy, thyroid function tests should be normalized as rapidly as possible to TSH levels of less than 2.5 mIU/L in the first trimester (or 3 mIU/L in the second and third trimester).”

Throughout my first trimester, my TSH flew higher than the above recommended 2.5 mIU/L, soaring up to 10.0 mIU/L, endangering the life of my fetus and I miscarried.

I had lost a child, all because my doctors had not read the published guidelines. And my child was not alone. According to a study published in the journal Thyroid in 2010, three waves of mail surveys were distributed to 1601 health care providers, all members of the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists or the American Academy of Family Physicians. Of the 575 providers who completed the survey, only 11.5 percent (66/575) had actually read the Endocrine Society’s 2007 pregnancy guidelines.

I failed to be an advocate for my child and I will live with that regret for the rest of my life.

It’s important to give you a bit of background on my education and work experience. This is not to brag or toot my own horn but to help you better understand my story.

  1. I was determined, ambitious, and persistent from straight out of the womb winning my first school-wide speech contest in 4th grade all about elephants and then having my name announced over the PA system of my high school as top of my class most years.
  2. I graduated in 1993 with an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience from the University of Toronto with High Distinction (the equivalent of summa cum laude) appearing on the Dean’s list 3 out of my 4 years of study.
  3. Landing a perfect 100% on my first year biology exam at the University of Toronto was deemed extraordinary. I was awarded the prestigious Stanley Kosta Todorow Life Sciences Scholarship as well as the University of Toronto In-Course Scholarship. I was also a two-time winner of the Canada Scholarship. Looking back now all these years later, that biology course was the start of my love affair with the science of the human body.
  4. After then graduating with my Bachelor of Education at the University of Western Ontario on the Dean’s List, I worked for several years as a high school science teacher in a specialized school for intellectually “Gifted” students at the Toronto District School Board.
  5. I then set my sights on attending an American Ivy League university and was blessed to be accepted by Columbia University where in 2002 I obtained two Master’s degrees simultaneously – M.A. in Organizational Psychology and Ed.M. in Counseling Psychology.
  6. I was selected for the coveted role of team leader of a distinguished Columbia University professor’s research team during the course of my studies. It was an honor to serve as his team leader and I know first hand the amount of time that goes into every published study. I was publicly acknowledged for my collaboration with my name “Dana Trentini” included in the study Race, Color-Blind Racial Attitudes, and Judgments About Mental Health: A Shifting Standards Perspective published in 2004 in the Journal of Counseling Psychology.
  7. When I graduated from Columbia, I landed a plum job at JPMorgan Chase in New York City. I was a senior consultant serving as an executive coach and talent development specialist for 10 years. Together with a small group of incredibly smart and talented people, I helped create a program called “The Career Advancement Program”, CAP for short. It was designed to help talented employees advance to more senior positions within the firm including the illustrious investment bank, and the advancement of women and minorities was my specialty.
  8. I’ve had the privilege over the years of holding a seat on the Board of Directors of several for-profit and nonprofit organizations including serving as Vice-President on the executive committee of the New York City Chapter of the Association for Career Professionals International.

I was no stranger to scientific research so why not use my science background and research skills to learn everything I could about my thyroid disease? I devoured every, single published research article on hypothyroidism that I could find.

After years of intense research and a quest to find the top thyroid health professionals, I am now in the best health ever. At the age of 40, I got pregnant naturally with my second son Hudson and gave birth to him in 2010.

Dana Trentini, Hypothyroid Mom's Miracle Boys

I had helped hundreds of employees rise to senior positions in one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world. “Why not take my skills and experience and shine the light on thyroid disease which is so desperately needed?” I thought.

It would take a strong, powerful, relentless movement to bring thyroid disease into the spotlight. With 750 million people worldwide with thyroid disease and over half undiagnosed, I was determined to find every single one. And Hypothyroid Mom was born.

In 2015, The Atlantic featured Hypothyroid Mom in their online article Sleepy, Stressed, or Sick? Then on April 11, 2016, Hypothyroid Mom was featured in The Wall Street Journal article Doctors Hear Patients’ Calls for New Approaches to Hypothyroidism. And then came the day that I signed a book contract with Perseus Books Group/Da Capo Press (Hachette Book Group) along with New York Times bestselling author Mary Shomon. My tears blurred the page. There I was fulfilling a vow that I made to my child with the book Your Healthy Pregnancy with Thyroid Disease: A Guide to Fertility, Pregnancy, and Postpartum Wellness.

There is hope to be well with hypothyroidism because hope happened to me.

About Dana Trentini, founder of HypothyroidMom.com

Yes this is my miracle son Hudson in our photo above. Thanks to diving deep into the research on hypothyroidism, he was born.

There is hope, oh so much hope.

To great thyroid health,

Dana Trentini

Thyroid Consultation with Hypothyroid Mom