I was looking at my download statistics of my episodes and you know what the most popular episode is so far? The celery juice episode. I think it is titled Will Celery Juice Help My Thyroid. This tells me that you guys are looking for a quick fix. I get it. I would love a magic pill to just not have to take meds for the rest of my life and to not have to worry about overexercising to not put me in a state of fatigue for days. There is nothing magic about fixing this disease because it affects every system in your body. If you want to feel great, and who doesn’t, you will have to constantly be mindful of your diet and lifestyle choices. That part is simple- the mindful part because either you are mindful about what you put in your mouth and what time you go to bed or you are not. Simple. Do or do not, there is no try as Yoda says. It turns out you will always have to be mindful of leaky gut or intestinal permeability among other things.
Hashimoto’s can wreck your gut.
Remember that Hashimoto’s is an immune system problem causing hypothyroidism so your thyroid is NOT the problem. The problem is autoimmune flare ups that need to be managed. The problem is also that this disease can cause inflammation all through the body systems. Your immune system is not being regulated when hashimoto’s is active (you have antibodies) which means you can lose your gut barrier aka have leaky gut. It also affects the make up of your microbiome or the balance between the good and bad bacteria in your gut.
When there is inflammation due to a flare or high antibodies, and by the way, high antibodies can be 50 or 500 or 5000. It’s different for everyone and when there is inflammation, thyroid hormone won’t be converting. T4 won’t be converting to T3 so your cells can use the T3 or your thyroid receptor sites might not be responding well to T3.
I learned about a study from Dr. Kharrazian that showed that your thyroid hormones, T4 and T3, have a role in keeping your immune system working and bringing down inflammation.
Think about what that means for you if your meds are not optimized. Maybe your TSH is sitting at a 4 or 5 and your doctor doesn’t think you need hormone replacement for that or maybe you feel fine at a TSH of 5 and you don’t want to take medication. Well it turns out that this medication, if your body is in need of thyroid hormone (yet you feel fine without it) will help to regulate thyroid gland tissue destruction. All this to say that taking thyroid hormone replacement will calm down inflammation in your body caused by the autoimmunity.
This is why when you first go on meds you feel really good until you don’t! The thyroid hormone replacement you are taking started the process of calming the immune attack and calming the inflammation but when you keep doing what you are doing, it isn’t enough to fix the whole problem.
This attack on your thyroid has created a lot of inflammation all over the body and created tons of free radicals and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress just means that your body’s natural abilities to deal with free radicals is overwhelmed so those free radicals are going around in the body and wreaking havoc. Oxidative stress causes damage in the body at the cellular level and remember that we need healthy cells to make a healthy body.
Thyroid hormone replacement helps to protect against those free radicals and oxidative stress causing damage to your cells. Of course anti-oxidant supplements or foods can help you with this but the best first line of defense in this case is to be sure your body has enough thyroid hormone to start with otherwise the anti-oxidant supplements and foods are a bandaid though eating anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant foods is never a bad idea.
One other thing that gets damaged when you have inflammation from poor thyroid hormone optimization is your gut. The gut lining is targeted by Hashimoto’s flares causing leaky gut and then leading to a host of problems including food sensitivities. So thyroid hormones can help in healing leaky gut. You can work on healing your gut all you want but if you need thyroid hormones and your body isn’t producing them or you are not taking them then it just causes this vicious cycle of damage and inflammation leading you to feel horrible.
Maybe you have been diagnosed and you are on thyroid hormone replacement but you have a doctor that doesn’t see the need to test your thyroid hormone levels yearly and you just keep taking the same dose for 3 or 4 years. It happens. So you might be in this subclinical hypothyroid place. Subclinical meaning your labs now look normal but there is autoimmune destruction happening that eventually causes need for more thyroid hormone.
Deficiency in thyroid hormones promotes more autoimmune destruction which produces less thyroid hormone and creates a terrible cycle of destruction in the body and one of the things destroyed or attacked is your gut lining. So now you have leaky gut which in and of itself can be a trigger for autoimmunity.
Here’s the thing though- we can’t just work on healing the gut. There is a whole host of things that need to be worked on and the gut and thyroid hormone replacement are just two of them. Healing the gut while there is a ton of inflammation happening just isn’t going to solve the problem. We have to work to get your inflammation down first with simple things like exercise, and lots of plant foods. These will increase your antioxidants naturally.
I’ll post a list of antioxidant rich foods from the Institute of Functional Medicine along with the transcript to this episode on my website. As far as exercise goes, just start moving. If you are new to moving at all, check out my friend Andrea’s business called Autoimmune Strong. Her website is getautoimmunestrong.com She starts at a very beginner level so you can get strong from the inside out.
The point is that we have to find your triggers- what is causing your flare ups, what is causing your antibodies to be higher. What is causing your inflammation? What is causing your immune system to be on fire?
The best places to start are diet and lifestyle which is kind of everything actually. We have to ask if there is something you are eating that is causing inflammation. How is your sleep? How are your relationships? How sedentary are you? Do you get outside? Do you have fun? All of these things matter to your health but to anyones health really.
Let’s get this figured out together. I’m taking new clients and can work with anyone from anywhere through my safe and secure health portal. Video chats are a nice time saver- you don’t have to take time from your day to travel to me. I can keep my services affordable because I don’t have an office to pay for.
What if you could stop sitting on the sidelines of your life and live more fully?
What if you could stop fatigue in its tracks and have more energy?
What if you had a plan to fix your Hashimoto’s?
What if you didn’t have to guess (and waste money) which supplements your body needed to help you move towards healing?
What if you had someone to help you who has been there, knows what it feels like and got out of the hole that is mismanaged hypothyroidism?
These are all things my clients get when they work with me.
Hand holding if you need it. An advocate. Someone who truly cares that you get better and knows how to help you.
I can help you feel better. Day by day.
Reach out today- HelpForHashimotos.com
One more thing before I go:
I try to always take a food first approach and I am happy to report that I can now offer you an Anti-inflammatory 3 day food plan to help you maximize your efforts to keep these cell damaging free radicals at bay. This plan is free on my website if you go to helpforhashimotos.com and click on the meal plans tab, then click just about anywhere on that page to be directed to the meal plan. You can sign up for a free trial to get the meal plan. No credit card required to do so. It’s totally free with no strings attached.
As always, thanks for being here. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for sharing this with people you know looking for help with their hypothyroidism or other autoimmune conditions. Please leave me a rating and review on apple podcasts so more people can find the show and get help too. If you have not already, go get my new ebook The Definitive Guide to Hashimoto’s. When you sign up for my newsletter it will be delivered to your inbox.
Until next time! Love to you all.