Why is my thyroid not working? — Part 3

We’re going to continue our conversation on why my thyroid is not working Part 3. I want to start by just going and reviewing just a few things from our last article, part two, and part one. What we spoke about are many individuals who are suffering from thyroid conditions. They go and get a diagnosis by their doctor, they get their pharmaceutical medication, usually, it’s some sort of thyroid hormone replacement level. They start taking the medication, they don’t feel better, they continue to get worse with time. And then over time, they continue to start taking other additional medications for the other symptoms that they’re experiencing, that are not being addressed. And so we talked about, one of the things is that you want to make sure that you are getting analyzed appropriately. Those are different markers that need to be run through blood work to verify if you truly have a thyroid condition, or if it’s some other mechanism that is involved with the thyroid, some downgraded versions. Sometimes there are other organs or tissues or systems that could be disruptive or are dysfunctional. And when they’re not working properly, you’re going to start to have symptoms that are very similar to thyroid symptoms. So I call that a misdiagnosis.

So the next component that we’re going to talk about is probably one of the most important components in regards to the thyroid. Because of this condition or problem that most thyroid individuals are dealing with, so if you have a thyroid condition or now, it is likely you are dealing with this specific problem. The statistics tell us about 90% to 95% of all thyroid cases are due to this specific condition. And that condition is called Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Now, Hashimoto's thyroiditis is such a common problem. Basically, it’s an autoimmune disease, meaning that your own immune system is attacking and destroying the tissues of your body. In this specific case, it would be your thyroid. Some other types of autoimmune diseases that you may be familiar with would be rheumatoid arthritis, type one diabetes, lupus, those sort of things. So those are pretty significant conditions. Many individuals who are dealing with those types of conditions are very ill and Hashimoto's thyroiditis is no different. It’s just as significant and it’s just as problematic. The difference is, it’s the thyroid, and not some other tissue, like the pancreas or the intestinal tract. So what happens is the immune system starts to attack and destroy and literally eat away and kill the thyroid over time. As this continually eats away and destroys the thyroid, day by day, month by month, year by year, eventually the individual starts to experience symptoms. And those symptoms are going to be thyroid symptoms, right? So they’re going to have fatigue, they’re going to have weight gain, they can’t lose the weight. They can’t, they have no energy to go do anything. They’re losing their hair, they’re irritable, constipation, anxiety, depression, all these things that are associated with traditional thyroid problems. So the person goes into their doctor and lets them know that they have a thyroid. The doctor says, “Well, it sounds like you may have a thyroid issue,” they run the bloodwork and the whole story goes on again. So this person is set off on the wrong stage because they’re not being diagnosed appropriately. Most of the time, when you get this thyroid diagnosis, you’re going to give it a medication, like levothyroxine. Synthroid, some sort of thyroid hormone replacement. Then over time, as you progressively get worse, it’s just taking additional medications to address the symptoms and never addressing the underlying problem. In this specific case, it would be the autoimmune disease, which is Hashimoto's, which is the most common cause of thyroid problems. So if this is so common, if it’s such a problem, then why isn’t your doctor running these tests? Why aren’t they analyzing? Why aren’t they testing for this, and by the way, you can test for this very simple, it’s very inexpensive, it’s very easy little blood tests that can be done. Because autoimmune diseases are very, very dangerous. They can be very disruptive, causing tonnes of inflammation, and on top of that, they increase the risk of other autoimmune diseases. So if you have an autoimmune disease right now, say you have rheumatoid arthritis, or you have also celiac disease, those are autoimmune diseases. So if you have a thyroid condition, this is your problem, you actually have Hashimoto's. So what is important to understand is that if you are giving a thyroid hormone, it’s not going to help you. Because it’s not going to address the immune system if the immune system is the cause, meaning if you have Hashimoto's disease. As the immune system continues to destroy and kill the thyroid, well, you can keep on taking the thyroid hormone, and maybe it makes you feel better, maybe it makes things look good on paper, but it’s not fixing the problem because it’s not addressing the immune system. I use this example, all the time in some of my live events, so it’s a bit aggressive, but if I were to come up to somebody every single day, and literally punch them in the face for 30 days straight. Now, over time, their face would be bruised up, flames swollen, maybe a black guy, and maybe they have a broken nose. It’d be a mangled situation if I kept punching him in the face every single day. Now, and that scenario, is their face the problem? And I say that jokingly, obviously, of course, it’s not the problem. The problem is me punching them in the face. But think about this in the Medical Avenue right now, if you have Hashimoto's disease, which is no different than me punching someone in the face because the immune system is attacking, destroying, and killing the thyroid. Well, then what sense does it make to only address the hormone production of the thyroid and not fix the immune system that’s causing the issue? It makes no sense whatsoever. And the main reason is there are no real treatments in the medical model. There are no drugs, there are no pharmaceutical drugs, if things worsen to the point, maybe they give you a steroid, maybe they give you some immune suppressors, but that’s not going to fix the issue, the immune system is still going to be the problem. So as it continues to attack, attack, attack, attack, you get sicker, you become more problematic, your medication starts to go up or it goes down. It’s like you’re having all these crazy symptoms, rollercoasters of a ride, and you’re never getting any better not getting the answers. And then what happens over time is that you’re being told, “well, I think you’re depressed. I think you’re a hypochondriac, I think you need to be evaluated by one of our psych team.” And you start to believe this stuff, which is really sad because I talked to a lot of patients who are dealing with Hashimoto's and thyroid conditions. And they’re being told us information, they’re thinking, “well, maybe I’m just not really sick. Maybe I’m making this stuff up and starting to believe that.” And that’s not the truth. The truth is you really have a bad problem going on, and no one’s evaluating you, and no one’s giving you the best recommendations. When you’re dealing with whatever problem, if it’s your thyroid, if it’s some other symptom you’re experiencing, you have to find out what is the problem in this situation? If Hashimoto's is the diagnosis, then you don’t have a thyroid issue. Think about that. You don’t have a thyroid problem. So the reality is the problem is your immune system. So unless the immune system gets addressed, unless the immune system is handled, and being looked at appropriately, and find out exactly why the immune system is attacking the body, you’re never going to get better. And that’s what true functional medicines are. That’s what we do here in the office.

We are functional medicine doctors who analyze the body using modern testing, right we use blood work we use hormone analysis, things that we can really focus on trying to find what is the real problem with this individual so we can hone in and focus on what does the customization need to look like? How can we customize their program for them to get the best results? And I can tell you by just giving them hormones to make everything look good on paper, so their TSH looks normal and their thyroid is normal, based on what your doctor is telling you. That’s never going to get you anywhere, there has to be a much more customized approach to your needs. Understanding that you have Hashimoto's is the first step, obviously. But knowing what to do and how to handle that is the next step. This is so important if you have a thyroid condition right now and you have not been analyzed by anyone to see if you have Hashimoto's, you need to reanalyze. Again, if you have a thyroid condition, you have not been analyzed for Hashimoto's disease, this is important, this could be the potential change in your life, and you get your life back on track and feeling better again. So we’ve got to focus on you as an individual and not as the condition you are a human being with a problem underneath the surface. You are not the symptom, you are not the disease, your body is in a bad environment and we need to get it back to strong homeostasis so you can function better again.

Just to recap, if you have a thyroid condition, and you have not been analyzed for this type of disease process called Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease, your immune system attacking your own tissues, then you are missing the big picture and could be missing the component that can get you back on track again. So you need to find someone like myself who can help you analyze that. And by the way, the testing for that is very inexpensive, or convince your doctor to run the test. But I will give you this one warning. If your doctor does run this test, it is very important that you get the numbers, don’t let them tell you that everything is normal. You want to see the numbers I have seen this happen before, I had a patient their doctor ran the test, and just so you know, the antibodies which will be analyzed there’s two different antibodies, one is called thyroid Peroxidase or TPO, and thyroglobulin antibodies, those are two antibodies that should be run if you have a hypothyroid condition. Now, what happened in this story was, the doctor ran the test, and I reached out and said, you know, can we get the results of the antibody test? And he responded in an email back to me saying “thyroid as normal.” Okay, fantastic. But my question was, “what are the antibodies look like?” So I had to call the office to get this. Now here’s the reality. On one of the antibodies, the range is 0 to 35. So if it’s above 35, this individual has a positive result for Hashimoto's. So when I finally got the results, her numbers, this antibody came back at over 800. So over 800, which is above 35, and the doctor said that everything is normal. Well, why would he say everything is normal? Because the TSH was normal. That’s why he said it was normal because they’re not addressing the underlying problem, which is the autoimmune condition. So this is a perfect example. And I can tell you tons of stories of other patients who their doctor has told them, “oh, we knew you had Hashimoto's. We just never told you or we tested that a long time ago.” But there’s really nothing they can do. So they’re not going to give you the information or the treatment options. This is why you have to find a functional medicine practitioner who can help you guide you through the process of getting this better.

If you’re looking for help and you want to have a consultation with me, you can always give our office a call. We’ll be more than happy to set up an initial consultation with you to discuss your situation and potentially what other evaluation or testing that you have not had run that needs to be evaluated to make sure you get the best results ever so you can get back to being healthy again and positive quality of life. If you if this information is great, please like it and share it. I really appreciate that.