I’m curious about dealing with achy body, lethargy, headaches, allergies, insomnia, fatigue, depression, being overweight. How do you lose the weight and feel good? Is this even possible? It’s discouraging having hypothyroidism and hashimotos and just wondering if somehow things got better?

I’m 33. Tired everyday, achy in my body, stiff, no energy, headaches, no desire for much of anything, 70lbs overweight, most days I just want to stay in bed. I’m feeling hopeless.

achy body—- copper toxicity, avoid dairy, oxalate issue. 

oxalates are: naturally occurring in foods like legumes, nuts, seeds, leafy greens cruciferous veggies, blueberries and dark chocolate.  These foods contain oxalic acid. They are considered an antinutrient to protect plants from being eaten by animals, bacteria and insects. They can be bitter tasting and impair digestion and absorption of nutrients. Oxalates bind to minerals and keep our gut from being able to use them. While oxalates are in alot of foods, most foods really, too many of them can cause inflammation and pain. 

Maybe you are particularly sensitive to this antinutrient. Maybe you eat these types of foods in excess right now?

You can try to avoid the higher oxalate foods mentioned and make sure you cook, soak, ferment and sprout much of what you eat as this will reduce the oxalate content. 

You sound like you need to heal your gut and take a good look at your diet. It wasn’t clear if you were gluten free and dairy free yet. If not, I would definitely start there and see how you feel afterwards. 

What does healing your gut entail? 

gut repair protocol with something like GI Revive from Designs for Health or Repairvite from Apex. you have to do what we call, weed, seed and feed the gut to heal it. You have to weed out the bad stuff like microbial pathogens, usually with a supplement protocol, you seed the gut with probiotics and feed the gut with good quality foods that help keep the beneficial bacteria healthy.

Take this one day at a time. If you struggle to get out of bed, just make yourself get up, drink some lemon water and walk around your living room. You need to get moving, walking so your body can start to move fluids around. 

Drink 2 liters of water a day. Start now. Don’t guzzle it but sip it all day long. Your body will thank you. Water keeps our cells communicating with one another, keeps our blood fluid and free flowing and also helps us to get rid of waste products in our body. 

How is your blood sugar? Are you tired in the afternoon, more than usual? Do you sleep through the night or wake up around 1-3 am and can’t fall back asleep? This is your blood sugar being dysregulated and so you will have to look at what kinds of foods you are eating, how much and how often. Overwhelming, I know so before you do that, take the gluten and dairy out of your diet. It is a must for Hashimoto’s. 

I get feeling hopeless. I am sorry you are feeling that way right now. You can feel better. Take it one moment at a time, one bite at a time, one sip of water at a time, one step forward at a time. After awhile, a little becomes a lot. You just have to look forward.  

Most people seem to take levothyroxine in morning on empty stomach, but I can't wait for coffee. Does it really affect meds that much? I don't eat anything else, and take my coffee with a squirt of liquid stevia and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. The nurse at my doctors office insisted that I use nothing but water because my tsh won't stabilize. I'm thinking of waiting until after coffee and a small breakfast, maybe around 10-11am, because I don't often eat in the late morning/early afternoon. I tried taking it at night for a brief time, but was waking at 230-3am thinking it was time to get up. I can't do middle of night or set alarm early because of trouble falling back asleep once I wake. 

Coffee interferes with intestinal absorption of levothyroxine.  A 2008 study found that taking T4 medication with coffee or drinking coffee shortly after taking T4 medication like Levo.. lead to less of the medication being absorbed. They also found that Maalox and Bran taken with medication lowered absorption even more than coffee. 

When it comes to your thyroid, coffee does more than reduce absorption of medication. Most of us with thyroid problems have blood sugar regulation problems too and coffee makes this worse. This causes spikes in cortisol which tire out our adrenal glands and mess with our immune system.  High cortisol slows down the production of thyroid hormone even more than we are already dealing with. So if you have adrenal fatigue or any autoimmune thyroid condition, you will want to avoid this. 

Coffee also causes us to crave sugar and carbs mostly due to messing with our adrenals. When they are tired our body wants some energy which can come in the form of sugar and carbs. 

Coffee contributes to hormone issues which we already have with hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism. It is playing a role in estrogen dominance- either too much estrogen in relation to progesterone or and imbalance in estrogen metabolites.  Also it plays a role in PMS, heavy periods, cellulite and breast cancer. Estrogen dominance stops the conversion of T4 to T3. 

I did not know coffee is a gluten cross reactive food. Half of us with gluten sensitivity will also react to coffee along with milk products, corn and most grains. Their protein structures are all similar and our immune systems are on high alert so we can react to these things too. 

Coffee can contribute to and cause osteoporosis, insomnia and poor sleep especially if you don’t metabolize caffeine well. If you find you can’t drink caffeine containing drinks past 1pm or you are wide awake at night then you probably don’t metabolize caffeine well and should avoid it. 

One thing you can do if you can’t take them at night is to take them as soon as you wake. So, when you wake up, have them by your bed if you can and take them before getting out of bed. 

A research study in Italy found that tirosint, a gelcap version of levothyroxine was absorbed well even with coffee. 

If you are on Armour or other natural desiccated thyroid hormone you can take it under your tongue. Personally I am on a compounded medication and I sprinkle it under my tongue in the morning and eat after it has been absorbed, about 20 minutes later. 

It is tricky with adrenal fatigue because you want to eat within an hour of waking when trying to heal the adrenals so making this work with medication means some planning needs to be done. 

You might want to ask yourself if you are on the right medication. If this isn’t working for you to wait an hour then ask your doctor to try something new. Remember that you are the customer at your doctors office. If you don’t get what you need as far as being listened to then go to someone else. Save your money to seek out a functional medicine doctor if needed. 

Are you making enough stomach acid? Hot lemon water, ACV or HCl supplementation might be needed when you take your meds. 

PPI’s, antacids, calcium, magnesium, aluminum and iron can suppress stomach acid leading to less absorption. Take other medications 4 hours after thyroid meds. 

If you are on an acid blocker or PPI, you may want to take a good look at getting off of those. Most cases of acid reflux or heartburn are because we are not making enough stomach acid.. 

That is it for me today. I want to thank you for listening and I want to quickly say something about this disease. 

It can leave us apathetic to where we just don’t care. You have to care. You have to fight that feeling. You only have this one opportunity to be here right now so we need to make the most of it. Please don’t let this disease steal anymore of your life than it already has. Don’t let it have you. Take control and start moving forward even if that means you get up and walk around your house or down your driveway or down the street. Just get up and move and drink water and make one good food choice today. Your body will thank you. I promise. It wants you to be well, and I want you to be well too. 

That’s all. 

Please leave a review on iTunes if you would and share this podcast with anyone you know who has a chronic illness, especially a thyroid condition. 

Have a question you want answered? Send it to helpforhashimoto’s at gmail dot com or go to my website, www.outofthewoodsnutrition.com and fill out the form there. Put the subject, podcast in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you.