Could It Be Your Thyroid?
The thyroid is an often ignored gland in your body that plays a massive role in your overall health. Sadly most doctors base all of their clinic decisions around one simple test that doesn’t provide a complete picture of thyroid health and functionality. The result: many people – especially women – are told that their blood test is “normal” and therefore all of the symptoms that they experience are either imaginary or dismissed as stress. What’s worse, many of these symptoms are just the beginning of what can be a life-long journey of unnecessary suffering and misery that can be corrected naturally.
What Does The Thyroid Do?
As I’ve mentioned above it is a very important part of the endocrine system. Its function or lack thereof, is felt by every cell in the entire body! The Brain, Red blood cells, Reproductive system, Digestive system are just a few examples of massive effect the thyroid plays in the body. Often referred to as the “Thermostat of the Body”, the thyroid regulates the rate at which each and every cell functions. What does that mean? Well, when your thyroid is healthy and functioning well – you feel energetic, sleep well, wake refreshed, and easily maintain a healthy weight. If your thyroid is operating below its normal level you feel fatigued, gain weight easily, have brain fog, lose hair easier, feel depressed, experience symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and can even experience other hormone imbalances – especially the female hormones in women. These are just a few of the symptoms experienced, the list is extensive.
Another analogy worth mentioning compares the thyroid to the accelerator of a car, when the body is healthy, its like “cruise control” on the open highway. However, if the body experiences chronic stress, poor diet, environmental toxin, and so on, the thyroid can also act as “the brakes” in this same analogy. This is especially true with chronic stress which, while dismissed out of hand by conventional medicine, can be debilitating. The thyroid will often shift into a lower level of activity as a protective mechanism to the body, so that the cells do not burn themselves out. This can be one of many causes of low functioning thyroid.
Understanding The Hormones
Ironically, the hormone that is most commonly tested by conventional medical practitioners isn’t even a thyroid hormone. Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) is actually released from the Pituitary which regulates the amount of thyroid hormone produced. Its assumed that by measuring TSH one can sense the production of thyroid hormone and therefore its overall effect in the body. When TSH levels are low, its assumed that the body needs less of the thyroid hormone. Likewise an higher TSH level triggers the thyroid to produce more hormone. Unfortunately this linear thinking missing a significant aspect of thyroid dysfunction. What’s worse, many conventional (and even many holistic) practitioners offer thyroid replacement therapy based on the TSH levels only.
Thyroid hormone production and regulation is much more complex than one test can determine, in fact there are 24 different types of thyroid dysfunction! Before we shift our focus on the many ways the thyroid and its hormones can become disordered, we need have a basic understanding of how the thyroid works. Its better to think of the thyroid as part of a system instead of just a gland. The pituitary releases TSH in response to ques from higher up in the brain that indicate that the thyroid needs to produce more thyroid hormone. Within the thyroid cells produce two types of hormones T4 and T3 (think of T4 as the inactive and T3 as the active form). A majority of the hormone produced is in the form of T4 and is bound by carrier protein which carries T4 (and a little bit of T3) to all of the cells of the body. In its journey about 60% the protein bound T4 is converted to T3 in the Liver. From there thyroid hormone travel throughout the body and attach to the thyroid receptor sites on every cell. This is the basis of metabolism.
Thyroid Hormone Replacement (Synthetic vs. Natural)
The most common medical treatment for thyroid is to provide thyroid hormone replacement. Conventional medicine provides synthetic T4 (Synthroid, Levothyroxine, etc) and occasionally synthetic T3 (Cytomel). Natural medicine practitioner will often provide a T4/T3 combo such as Armour Thyroid or Westhroid. Both approaches are not usually the correct approach. In fact only 1 of the 24 thyroid dysfunction patterns benefit from thyroid hormone replacement. Many of those who are placed on thyroid hormone replacement feel better for while but commonly their symptoms return. Why? Because its the wrong treatment!
What’s The Solution?
The most important aspect of establishing thyroid health is proper lab testing. Having a complete picture of thyroid function makes the diagnosis easy and the treatment effective. When you have a complete set of lab results it become obviously clear what and more importantly where the problem is within the thyroid system itself. Among the common patterns we see include thyroid gland dysfunction, pituitary dysfunction, thyroid receptor dysfunction, too much or too little thyroid binding protein (depending on estrogen and testosterone levels), T4 to T3 conversion, and so on.
Hypothyroidism (low thyroid output) has long been associated with Iodine deficiency, however in modern, westernized countries the primary cause of hypothyroidism is actually an autoimmune disorder, called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. In this condition the immune system slowly eats away at the thyroid gland until there’s nothing left. During this process its common to experience both hypothyroid symptoms (fatigue, depression, weight gain, hair loss, brain fog) and hyperthyroid symptoms (anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, heart palpitations). The symptom pattern shifts between these two extremes depending on what part of the thyroid is being destroyed – if the thyroid hormone storage cells are destroyed an uncontrolled amount of thyroid hormone is released resulting in excessive symptoms. Its surprising how many patients have been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s who given thyroid replacement hormones while their doctors wait for their thyroid to fail completely.
Curiously one common contributory factor I find is gluten intolerance. Studies have found cross-reactions between identical amino-acid sequences found in gluten and along the surface of thyroid cells. If someone develops a intolerance to gluten (which is on the rise for many reasons) then the immune system will go into overdrive treating gluten that enters the blood stream as an foreign invader – just like a bacteria! What’s worse is low thyroid output can cause intestinal permeability (aka leaky gut syndrome) which allows more gluten to enter the blood stream which worsen the immune reaction and can trigger an autoimmune reaction.
My Recommendations
If you or anyone you know suffers from fatigue, depression, weight gain, brain fog, or even insomnia, anxiety, and panic attacks, it is very possible that your thyroid is not functioning properly. Getting the proper lab tests from your conventional practitioner can be difficult, and getting proper treatment is nearly impossible. However, as a Naturopathic physician, I am licensed to order and interpret all of the tests needed to properly diagnose and most importantly treat the many thyroid conditions that exist. In many cases, these tests are covered by insurance, but are also available at a very reasonable out-of-pocket cost as well. I recommend scheduling a Naturopathic appointment at Blue Sky Wellness Studio today to uncover the cause of your symptoms so that you can begin to feel better immediately!
About the Author: Dr. Shawn Soszka is the Naturopathic physician at Blue Sky Wellness Studio and has been trained by Dr. Datis Kharrazian, the author of the best selling book “Why do I still have symptoms when my thyroid test is normal?” in the proper diagnosis and treatment of thyroid conditions. Dr. Soszka graduated from the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) in 2000 and is now a faculty member at NCNM.
