Some people with hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid glands, are organizing and agitating. Their complaint? That traditional means for diagnosing and treating the condition don't work for all patients.

Grass roots patient-activist organizations with names like ThyroidChange and Thyroid Patient Advocacy, and the doctor-founded National Academy of Hypothyroidism, say that the current screening test for hypothyroidism leaves out some symptomatic patients and that the main medication used to treat patients, doesn't always alleviate many symptoms.

They are calling for doctors to be open to other therapies, including a combination of synthetic hormones and the use of natural, animal-based ones.

"There are so many unhappy thyroid patients," says Ridha Arem, an endocrinologist and director of the Texas Thyroid Institute, who founded the journal Clinical Thyroidology. He believes recommended screening and treatment options for hypothyroidism—which occurs when thyroid glands fail to produce enough hormones to keep the body's metabolism working properly—aren't always adequate.

Many of his mainstream medical counterparts disagree. "The vast majority of people are fine on the standard therapy," says Jeffrey Garber, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical Center and chair of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists Thyroid Scientific Committee. Still, he says, "there's a whole group out there who just thinks we're clueless."