Can you reverse Hashimoto’s?
Is it fixable?
I’ve talked about this before in episodes 52 and 55 but that was a long time ago for me so I am revisiting this topic again today.
I’ve said before that you will never not have Hashimoto’s so I don’t like the word remission. You can fix the reasons why you have it though.
If you are going to have any autoimmune disease, this is the one to have. It is one of the most common and probably the least destructive to your body and you can control how bad it gets once you know you have it. And if you manage it, your likelihood of having other autoimmune disease will be less.
The biggest problem with having hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s or any thyroid issue really, is that the standard of care just completely sucks most of the time. Doctors often don’t listen, you can’t try a different medication because they won’t prescribe it and you are often told your labs are fine when you feel horrible.
I was perusing a thyroid facebook group that I could access without having a facebook account. If you are on those groups- get off them. I find zero people who are interested in fixing their problems and are just there to agree with everyone else how terrible this disease is.
I’m here to tell you it is terrible if you let it be and it is manageable if you want to manage it. And this is where I come in because I can help you figure out just what you need to do to manage it.
In order to lower your antibodies which is really what remission would be there are several things that need to be considered.
You have to remember that Hashimoto’s is first and immune system problem. What does this mean exactly? Autoimmune disease occurs when the immune system attacks your own tissue. When immune cells called B cells and T cells are made in bone marrow and they are specific to self tissue, they will destroy themselves. It is said that some of these cells escape. There are some more complicated biochemistry things that happen that I won’t go into that lead to how things go wrong with this. One of them is what is called the bystander effect where the immune system is attacking a foreign thing and our tissue gets attacked too. The other is molecular mimicry where a tissue looks like a foreign thing and the body attacks the tissue by mistake. It is also thought that mental and/or emotional stress can be a trigger for the immune system attacking our tissue and neither the bystander effect or molecular mimicry have to be at play.
classic example of this is from my own life when I had an extremely stressful pregnancy and lost my baby in a thyroid storm. I had so much stress and worry and anxiety for a lot of reasons in that pregnancy and I didn’t know how to manage my emotions. I didn’t have to tools to deal with stress and I didn’t have a partner who had the tools to deal with my stress. It was a really terrible situation that resulted in tragedy. Not managing stress and having high cortisol just screws up your immune system.
we know a major cause of autoimmunity is genetics plus some kind of trigger like infections, toxin exposure, stressor, plus leaky gut
functional medicine tools are really helpful in figuring out triggers and figuring out the root cause of your hashimoto’s. We look at predisposing factors like genes, environment; triggers that caused the symptoms as just mentioned; mediators that will maintain the disease like nutrient deficiencies, cycles of inflammation in the body.
we further dig into lifestyle habits that can be changed, look at whether you can assimilate the nutrients you are taking in. Do you have floating stools? low iron? Do you have high CRP, Ferritin, or low albumin? Do you have poor exercise tolerance? Are you sensitive to jewelry, perfumes, air fresheners? Do you have issues with rashes? What about fear, anxiety around your thyroid condition? Really doing a deep dive with these things is super helpful to figure out where to start with YOUR condition. This is why there is no specific Hashimoto’s Protocol that is going to work for everyone because not everyone has the same triggers, predisposing factors, or mediators.
Second we need to consider gluten sensitivity. There is a clear association between autoimmune thyroid disease and sensitivity to gluten, unfortunately. This is an easy first step that seems overwhelming and hard to do. It’s not that hard. Take it one day at a time, one meal at a time even. I can put together simple meal plans with shopping lists for you to follow and I have a guide for by clients on how to easily go gluten free. Consider also gluten cross reactivity. Things like dairy, yeast, oats, corn, rice, millet and instant coffee all have been shown to cross react with gluten. This just means the proteins in these are similar enough to gluten that they might cause the same issues for you as gluten when you eat them.
We also have to consider if you have any infections. There’s a ton of bugs causing infections associated with Hashimoto’s. Do you have an infection? Good way to know is to start with a CBC with differential that I read for you. It is also helpful to know if you are lacking in the fat soluble vitamins A,D,E,K. If you have infections, it can be remediated pretty easily.
Is there inflammation? If your antibodies are high then you have inflammation somewhere in your body. Inflammation can be from poor diet, infection, toxins, trauma. We can stop inflammation by avoiding those triggers mentioned earlier and choosing a healthier lifestyle and diet.
Do you have blood sugar regulation issues or insulin resistance? This is common in PCOS and there is a connection between it and Hashimoto’s.
Do you have leaky gut or intestinal permeability? This is when molecules from inside the GI tract move across the lining of the gut or the gut wall through tiny openings. Leaky gut greatly contributes to the immune system attacking our tissue. If you have food intolerances other than gluten, migraines, gallstones, chronic fatigue syndrome or an autoimmune condition then you likely have some form of leaky gut. And if you have an autoimmune disease, you likely have to manage leaky gut long term meaning- every so often do a protocol to heal leaky gut. This can be lab tested but is expensive so I start with how you present clinically (inflammation, food sensitivity etc). Do you drink alcohol? Take corticosteroids? Have excessive stress or eat a lot of sugar? Other triggers for leaky gut are things like the standard american diet, an imbalance of gut bacteria, medications, and toxins.
What are your other hormones doing? Cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, progesterone, estradiol. If these are out of whack, your thyroid will be affected at some point. A common time for onset of Hashimoto’s is during pregnancy and postpartum. If you already have Hashimoto’s are want to get pregnant- it typically doesn’t get worse in pregnancy though it seems my stillbirth might be the exception to the rule. It also could have been that my doctor took me off my medication and that is why my baby died. I will never know and can’t dwell on it. That is not a good place to live- the wondering why.
Emotional Health- stress. Remember that I said stress was a trigger in me losing my baby. Stress increases our susceptibility to infectious disease (think colds, flu, etc), seasonal allergies, bacterial and yeast imbalances, poor sleep, leaky gut, decreased oral tolerance and more. Something as simple as listening to classical music has been shown to reduce hives. So we need to have an outlet to our frustrations and stressors. Hobbies, a sense of control, change the way we interpret stress and most importantly a sense of community and social connectedness. In person- not online. Something we all have been lacking in. I have been listening to The Life Coach School Podcast while I work out. It has been really insightful so far! Controlled breathing is also quite helpful- you can learn from a yoga practice, meditation apps, Wim Hoff method or whatever floats your boat. The relaxation response is very powerful in its ability to regulate gene expression, metabolism, insulin secretion. We all need to work on practicing that more. I definitely do.
What about toxin exposure. We are exposed to chemicals every day and they accumulate in our fat tissue so the older we are the more toxins we have in our fat. There are many negative health consequences to toxins including consequences to our hormones and thyroid. Teaching you how to minimize your exposure to toxins and safely eliminating them as you lose weight is part of working with me. Fasting, juice fasting, water fasting and other ways of fasting may make your toxicity worse rather than better. Ways to know if you are dealing with over exposure to toxins are:
taking a lot of medications
being sensitive to odors
having used or been around toxic chemicals or potentially toxic chemicals over a period of time.
muscle pain
brain fog, poor memory, other cognitive issues
numbness on one side of the body
symptoms of autonomic dysfunction such as dizziness, fainting when standing, problems urinating, loss of bladder control - this sounds like a drug commerical - and I think you would have to be quite toxic to present with this though I could be wrong.
medications, supplements that cause the opposite of intended response or cause a sensitivity
10.Other things to consider
sleep- are you sleeping 7-8 hours per night and is it good quality sleep. Until I started sleeping well- I was a complete disaster. I had to move out of my own bedroom because my husband snores so loud and he sometimes chokes in the night and then punches the bed or wall - not conducive to good sleep. He did a sleep study and they said he might have mild sleep apnea. He tells me I’m a light sleeper and minimizes the punching because it only happens every once in awhile. Imagine being sound asleep and all the sudden, there is a fist near your head or you hear it hit the wall. That will cause a cortisol response and probably keep you from falling asleep for a couple hours. While separate rooms to sleep in has not been good for marriage, it has been great for my health and my happiness. If I don’t get good sleep, I am a disaster. Emotionally and physically. It is like I can’t function. If you do nothing else, make good sleep a priority!
Liver function is another thing to consider but a complete blood count should cover that. Your liver needs to be healthy to convert T4 to T3 so your cells can use T3. You also need it to make healthy bile so you can remove toxins via your bowel movements.
I want to discuss a few other things too.
Understand what health professionals don’t know - any health professional.
Chances are they are not well versed in autoimmune diseases, especially when it comes to how to manage them with diet and lifestyle (and some people will need medications)- in both holistic and conventional practices, diagnosing AID can be challenging taking many years to do. Some will tell you it is hopeless, some will tell you you can just change it with a few supplements and a diet change.
It is complicated and very dependent upon your own body’s biochemistry.
Conventional and holistic medicine provides little Medical Education around autoimmune disease. My own masters program had a class specific to autoimmune disease and it provided me with little direction on how to work with individuals with AID- I already knew most of what was taught.
Many tissues in the body can be affected so it isn’t super easy to understand. Your practitioner should not take on the idea that when they have a hammer everything is a nail. There is no general protocol for your condition. You don’t get better and then you get frustrated- I have been there!
Do you have your own bias? If you feel food might be bad but you don’t want to try a gluten free diet so you find a practitioner who agrees with you- you are letting your bias determine the management of your disease- we all have some bias but don’t let it gauge your direction
Take charge of your own health- you know how this impacts your body and your life- if you are looking for someone to tell you how to live, what to eat, etc then you won’t get better. You have to be the one in control of your health. Only you know how you truly feel, only you know if a supplement is working ( you should feel something when you take most supplements designed to help a condition)
how are you going to monitor your condition?
lab tests
questionnaires
journaling
are you going to be active or passive in your own health care
How are you going to build your healthcare team?
nutritionist
doctor
trainer
build a team of trusted professionals who can help support you - every AID is different and each one has individualized expression of each disease - 10 people with MS or Hashi’s won’t present the same way because each has different triggers and ways the disease expresses itself
This is a lot to think about and probably a little overwhelming. Bottom line is you can fix the reasons why you got Hashimoto’s but you will always have to manage it. Stay off those depressing thyroid facebook groups and start thinking about how you can start feeling better now! You don’t have to feel crappy all the time. You can have more energy, lose weight, and get your life back and I can help you do it.
Thanks for tuning in.
Go to Help for Hashimoto’s dot com to get my guide “5 things your doctor won’t tell you about hypothyroidism” and schedule your Fight Fatigue discovery call so you can start to feel better sooner rather than later.
I appreciate you all!