Your body is a mass of energy, a molecular structure at a very high speed of vibration. Your brain is an electronic switching station. When you think you activate brain cells and that sets up a vibration in your body and that vibration is sent off in to the universe. You can actually photograph it leaving the body. People pick up a vibration and you feel it. When you are consciously aware of energy or a persons vibration you call that a feeling. You say, “I feel this way or I feel that way” If you are in a negative vibration, if you are focused on something that is not very nice, is pretty dark and you are putting yourself in a bad vibration. When somebody picks that up they think, eww, they want to get away from you. they don't’ want to be around you. When you are focusing on good things, and on positive and up beat things, you are activating the positive pole in those brain cells and you are moving yourself into a positive vibration and people pick that up.
You cannot trick it though. It is spirit never expresses itself other than perfectly. Religion calls it spirit, science calls it energy. Albert Einstein says, everything is energy. That’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy, this is physics. If everything is here, if nothing is created or destroyed, the good you want is here. And what you want to do is get in harmony with it. Get on the frequency that the good you desire is on.
Hi,
I’m writing in to you because I am both helpless and hopeless in my life with chronic illness. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s at 13 after gaining 40 lbs with no change in diet or exercise. I take synthroid 88. I also have endometriosis with which I’m forced to take hormones (birth control) to stop the growth. I had to have my left ovary and Fallopian tube removed last November because of how extreme my case is. I also have a small cyst on my pituitary gland.
I am heartbroken because I cannot lose any weight or feel good. I hike and walk with my dog 3x a day as well as eat mostly plant based and almost completely off gluten. I experience flare ups that debilitate me, my face and neck swell, I can hardly swallow, etc. not to mention the pain that comes with them. I’m exhausted, depression and mood swings. I’ve also had what I think is fluid retention, my legs are full and have cellulite and varicose veins (I’m 26.) every day I grow more and more scared, confused, and lost in my conditions. I understand this is a Hashimoto's podcast but I figured id mention the other conditions bc they are all in the endocrine system. I simply want to feel healthy and my doctors never give me any answers. I’m on a ton of supplements. My stomach is a mess too. It has been 13 years of consistently feeling horrible in my body and about my body. I need help or guidance. I try to do all my own research but I’m exhausted, lost, and not sure what I’m doing wrong.
Amanda
Amanda, I am so sorry you are struggling. Let’s see if we can break down what’s going on and what changes you might be able to make. This is tough. You are dealing with a lot and that makes it hard to get through the day sometimes, I’m sure.
I might sound like a broken record here but let’s first look at diet. You have to be completely off gluten first and foremost. You should probably avoid all grains for at least a month but three months would be ideal considering what you have described here. Debilitating flare ups, face and neck swelling and not being able to swallow. Your immune system is probably on fire and cutting out all gluten and grains will help calm things down.
You are on a mostly plant based diet. What does that look like? Is it really high carb? Meaning lots of grains or gluten free pasta and breads? Or is it mostly veggies and plant based fats like avocado, olive oil or olives, coconut oil and coconut products?
Your plate should be ¾ veggies at each meal and ¼ protein. So, why are you mostly plant based? How can you get more protein in your diet? Are you willing to eat more animal based proteins? More fish and chicken perhaps? I am not a fan of all plant based diets for healing or putting in to remission autoimmune conditions. For one, I have not spent a lot of time studying how to do it “right”. I know what has worked for me and my clients and eating a lot of veggies is really helpful but eating higher carb type diets do not help Hashimoto’s. The reason for this is they can contribute to blood sugar imbalances which makes everything worse when you have Hashimoto’s and you also have endometriosis which isn’t helped by blood sugar imbalances.
Speaking of the endometriosis, you are on the pill to help control it. Very common conventional medical treatment.
Endometriosis- for those of you that don’t know what it is- it is a condition where tissue that is like the lining of the uterus, grows elsewhere. The lining of the uterus is the endometrium and it thickens during a normal menstrual cycle. This lining thickens so it can receive a fertilized egg and if it isn’t fertilized, you menstruate or bleed.
If you have endometriosis, the thickening happens outside the uterus and cannot shed like a normal cycle so it is stuck and can cause pain and inflammation. There can be scar tissue and can cause fallopian tubes to close leading to infertility.
Things you can do outside of what your doctor is doing for you are:
Take foods out of the diet that are inflammatory to you. The best and cheapest way to know that is to do an elimination diet like the autoimmune protocol.
Remove soy, alcohol and foods that might be increasing estrogen in you. Grains, processed foods because of food additives, poor quality fats like vegetable oils and trans fats and anything cooked in them. Dairy and poor quality meats, tap water and water in plastic bottles. There can be estrogen type molecules in the water and the chemicals from the plastic leach in to the water.
Avoid things like phthalates which are linked to a lot of health problems including messing with estrogen receptors. You find these in personal care products, candles, vinyl, laundry detergent, nail polish and plastic wrap with the #3 on it.
Avoid diesel fuel and spilling gasoline on yourself.
Birth control pills have high levels of estrogen- they are actually contaminating the water in some areas and affecting fish.
Some essential oils can even be harmful to someone with estrogen issues. Jasmine, clary sage, geranium, lavender and tea tree. Use only eco-certified oils and know how to use them.
You can take the supplement DIM which will help promote healthy estrogen metabolism which you can get from the cruciferous family of vegetables. Eat a lot of veggies and a ton of fiber which will help clear out extra estrogen.
Milk thistle and dandelion root can help detox extra estrogen from your body.
Regular exercise which it sounds like you are getting. Dont’ kill yourself working out though. Go for long walks- like 45 minutes to an hour as many days as you can squeeze in. It will help keep hormones, blood sugar in check.
Avoid sugar. All of it. Eat some fruit- like one piece a day and that is it.
Buy filtered water or Reverse Osmosis water and add back minerals with something like trace minerals.
You need to be eating, again, lots and lots of veggies. Bone broth, leafy greens, blueberries, coconut oil, you can do flax, ground, in smoothies, chia- both of these are fiber. You need lots of fiber.
Magnesium. Foods that have magnesium like pumpkin and sunflower seeds, avocado, banana, swiss chard, spinach and even black beans (not part of an elimination diet necessarily)
Eating fatty fish like salmon, tuna, sardines, anchovies, trout. Or supplement with the highest quality fish oil you can afford.
Ok. On to the exhaustion. This can be related to unmanaged blood sugar and to adrenal fatigue. Also, Birth control pills- any contraceptive that is estrogen based will rob your body of good gut bacteria, magnesium, zinc, most of the minerals your body needs, B vitamins and vitamin C. This will exacerbate all of the stuff you are already dealing with.
Good gut bacteria- Do you have intestinal permeability or leaky gut? Probably. There are trillions of bugs in our gut with several hundred different kinds of bugs living there. The “good” guys that live there develop our immune system to some degree and play a role in the response our immune system has against things that come through. These good guys thrive when we are eating real whole foods. They are able to keep the “bad” guys in check. They help us break down some foods, and help us use vitamins and minerals. They like fiber that cannot be digested before it gets to them. It is called insoluble fiber. This helps keep the lining of our intestines in tact. The bad guys grow when we have poor digestion, our immune system is off or even when we are stressed out.
If you have ever been on antibiotics and have not taken a probiotic afterwards, you likely have compromised gut flora. A candida overgrowth can also affect the good guys. Stress will help the bad guys thrive as well.
You probably need a B Vitamin complex too. Before you supplement with anything though, you need to make sure you are digesting your food. If your digestion is not working, it is pointless and you need to be taking high quality supplements. Not all are alike. This is one case where you usually get what you pay for, unfortunately.
So, consider a more paleo type diet here Amanda- this is high in plants and protein should be at about 100grams a day.
Let’s talk a bit about Levothyroxine (bascially the same thing as synthroid). Some studies show T4 only medications like this one, do not work for some. Some people continue to be symptomatic and we all know that most doctors are not treating symptoms, just labs. TSH and T4 levels are not reliable markers for whether or not your thyroid is doing well. Testing Free T3, Reverse T3 and the ratio between the two is most helpful. “Signs, symptoms and body temperature are the best measure of cellular thyroid deficiency” according to the book “Evidenced Based Approach to Restoring Thyroid Health”. This book says that people with low tissue levels of active thyroid hormone but have “normal” TSH and T4 will benefit from a medication containing T3. It has been shown that T3 medications will improve fatigue, depression, weight gain, PMS, Fibromyalgia and the list goes on.
If your gut is not healthy, you are likely not able to convert the T4 only medication to T3 which is what your cells need. If you have a TSH above 2 and are symptomatic, it is likely you need thyroid treatment. This book also says that if a patient is symptomatic, a normal TSH level should not be used as the sole reason to not treat a patient.
Let’s move on to Hashimoto’s
This is the autoimmune disorder. Medically termed chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis. The thyroid is the most common organ affected by autoimmune disease. It is the most common cause of thyroid problems in the united states. It is also more prevalent in women than in men. Many of us have symptoms of hypothyroidism first and if we are lucky we are diagnosed with the autoimmune disease right away though in conventional medicine that doesn’t seem to matter. The treatment is the same and if I hear one more person say their doctor says that diet doesn’t matter I will blow a gasket. Diet changes would have saved my son. Diet changes would have changed the way my kids grew up.
Undiagnosed or untreated thyroid problems are the underlying cause of a a lot of cases of depression.
There are a lot of factors present in this disease and I am just going to go over some.
Environmental factors like Heavy metals, especially cadmium, lead and mercury. Mercury affects thyroglobulin antibodies but seems to not affect TPO antibodies. Cadmium can affect fat tissue in that it will cause oxidation or free radical damage. Taking Vitamin C can protect against that. We also need selenium to remove cadmium from the body. This can deplete selenium which then affects the thyroid as we need it to neutralize the hydrogen peroxide that is created in the thyroid.
Halogens are a big one. Chlorine, fluorine, and bromine. Chlorine stops iodine from getting in the thyroid, Fluoride decreases T3 and T4 and raises TSH in the blood. Bromine completely displaces iodine and increases TSH. You need high exposure to be affected but if you are drinking a lot of tap water, brushing with fluoride toothpaste, using fluoride mouthwash and have fluoride in your water supply- you are getting a lot. Bromine is in processed bread products, look at cleaning supplies too. It is everywhere.
Okay, I think that is where I am going to stop. I have to finish studying so I can take my exam for anatomy and physiology. Amanda, I hope this helps you. Please, write back if you have more questions and keep me posted on how you are doing.
Please head over to my website to get my free ebook- 5 things your doctor won’t tell you about hypothyroidism. I created a facebook group for support. It is called Help for Hashimoto’s. Join me there. It’s new so the only one in the group is me and one of my friends. Let’s grow it to something great.
I sent out a great recipe for breakfast yesterday in my newsletter. sign up because that is likely the only place I will share recipes I have created. I do not develop recipes very often because I hate doing all that work and have the possibility of it not turning out. It takes a lot out of me to cook so I share good stuff when I make it in my newsletter.
Send me your questions. Helpforhashimotos@gmail.com and find me on instagram and facebook.
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