Last newsletter I touched on thyroid function when talking about the dirty dozen. Today I want to go deeper into the health of our thyroid gland and how to protect and nourish it properly seeing that it’s estimated that as much as 40% of the US deals with a degree of thyroid deficiency.
Thyroid replacement therapy is one of the most common seen of conditions. L-thyroxine tops the list of prescribed drugs in America. Unfortunately the use of isolated Synthroid or T-4 fails to properly treat the condition. To make matters worse, it leads to depletion of potassium resulting in symptoms of heart palpitations. The list of common adverse reactions is quite lengthy.
Testing thyroid by mainstream medicine usually only tests the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), produced by the pituitary informing the thyroid to make hormones. What does the Synthroid or levothyroxine do? Simply shut up the pituitary’s attempt to get the thyroid to work. This is why so many on this medication still have all the symptoms of low thyroid.
Thyroid desiccate on the other hand helps to offset the deficiency of the thyroid, but still doesn’t fully restore function. These desiccates are a natural thyroid extract like Naturethroid or Armour thyroid. The unfortunate thing is what we have to pay for it. Years ago a bottle of Armour thyroid was somewhere around $!0 to $20. Today it’s closer to $100-$200
When testing the thyroid it’s important to look at the TSH, but we need to see the Free and total T-3 and T-4 along with anti-thyroid antibodies and reverse T-3. Without these tests, we’re in the dark about what area is failing to function.
Patients complaining of fatigue make up more than 20% of all patient contacts among primary care visits. Add to that the 75 - 90% of primary care visits being stress related. When we consider the role of the thyroid along with the adrenal glands in dealing with both stress and fatigue, it’s a no brainer that both of these organs require more care and nutrition than anywhere else.
With the top six health concerns being; sleep, weight, fatigue, mood instability, gastrointestinal problems, and hormone imbalances, thyroid support is implicated in every one of them.
I’ve already talked about endocrine disrupters and their role in down regulating thyroid as well as all other hormones and how to clear these through healthy diet, lifestyle, and detoxification. What I want to touch on today is the role of hormones on hormones.
I mentioned the bound and total thyroid hormone. A bound hormone is incapable of doing what it was created to do. Sort of like putting the hormone in jail, and not letting it go to work. When there is an excess of estrogen in the system from an outside source, the body makes more thyroid binding globulin. Bound thyroid levels go up while the free thyroid levels go down. Total levels of hormone goes up, but it can’t do it’s job and symptoms of low thyroid shows up.
If the liver is overloaded and not functioning well (usually due to a toxic overload), the weaker T-4 will go up, but because the liver is responsible for converting this to the active T-3, it goes down and symptoms of low thyroid show up, but because there is T-4 available, the TSH remains normal, looking like no thyroid problem. This is why all the tests need to be done.
In adrenal stress, which I suspect affects all of us to some degree, we will see the body making reverse T-3 which is only a type of place marker without any function, while reducing active T-3. In this case, Just looking at TSH, total T-4 and T-3 it would get missed.
If the liver over produces T-3, look for increased testosterone or progesterone. Use of bio-identical or synthetic hormones can create elevations in these areas. There can be peripheral damage when using any other hormones as there are feedback mechanisms in place. Just letting a man who goes on testosterone know that the negative feedback will shut down his own production and shrink his testicles could cause one to check safer ways to raise one’s own hormone production.
Checking the TPO and TA antibodies is important in the event of autoimmune disease of the thyroid. These tests show higher in patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Again, here we see ovarian hormones outside of healthy normal, resulting in deviation from normal in the thyroid. In these cases, using oral antigen tolerance can down regulate the autoimmune response so the organ may eventually be healed and brought back to normal function.
With the broad spectrum of interaction between the thyroid, adrenals, testicles, ovaries, pituitary, and hypothalamus, simply shutting up the pituitary as it screams at the thyroid to get up and get moving is not fixing the situation. Instead, it allows for other biochemical balances to remain off.
Thyroid replacement therapy is one of the most common seen of conditions. L-thyroxine tops the list of prescribed drugs in America. Unfortunately the use of isolated Synthroid or T-4 fails to properly treat the condition. To make matters worse, it leads to depletion of potassium resulting in symptoms of heart palpitations. The list of common adverse reactions is quite lengthy.
Testing thyroid by mainstream medicine usually only tests the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), produced by the pituitary informing the thyroid to make hormones. What does the Synthroid or levothyroxine do? Simply shut up the pituitary’s attempt to get the thyroid to work. This is why so many on this medication still have all the symptoms of low thyroid.
Thyroid desiccate on the other hand helps to offset the deficiency of the thyroid, but still doesn’t fully restore function. These desiccates are a natural thyroid extract like Naturethroid or Armour thyroid. The unfortunate thing is what we have to pay for it. Years ago a bottle of Armour thyroid was somewhere around $!0 to $20. Today it’s closer to $100-$200
When testing the thyroid it’s important to look at the TSH, but we need to see the Free and total T-3 and T-4 along with anti-thyroid antibodies and reverse T-3. Without these tests, we’re in the dark about what area is failing to function.
Patients complaining of fatigue make up more than 20% of all patient contacts among primary care visits. Add to that the 75 - 90% of primary care visits being stress related. When we consider the role of the thyroid along with the adrenal glands in dealing with both stress and fatigue, it’s a no brainer that both of these organs require more care and nutrition than anywhere else.
With the top six health concerns being; sleep, weight, fatigue, mood instability, gastrointestinal problems, and hormone imbalances, thyroid support is implicated in every one of them.
I’ve already talked about endocrine disrupters and their role in down regulating thyroid as well as all other hormones and how to clear these through healthy diet, lifestyle, and detoxification. What I want to touch on today is the role of hormones on hormones.
I mentioned the bound and total thyroid hormone. A bound hormone is incapable of doing what it was created to do. Sort of like putting the hormone in jail, and not letting it go to work. When there is an excess of estrogen in the system from an outside source, the body makes more thyroid binding globulin. Bound thyroid levels go up while the free thyroid levels go down. Total levels of hormone goes up, but it can’t do it’s job and symptoms of low thyroid shows up.
If the liver is overloaded and not functioning well (usually due to a toxic overload), the weaker T-4 will go up, but because the liver is responsible for converting this to the active T-3, it goes down and symptoms of low thyroid show up, but because there is T-4 available, the TSH remains normal, looking like no thyroid problem. This is why all the tests need to be done.
In adrenal stress, which I suspect affects all of us to some degree, we will see the body making reverse T-3 which is only a type of place marker without any function, while reducing active T-3. In this case, Just looking at TSH, total T-4 and T-3 it would get missed.
If the liver over produces T-3, look for increased testosterone or progesterone. Use of bio-identical or synthetic hormones can create elevations in these areas. There can be peripheral damage when using any other hormones as there are feedback mechanisms in place. Just letting a man who goes on testosterone know that the negative feedback will shut down his own production and shrink his testicles could cause one to check safer ways to raise one’s own hormone production.
Checking the TPO and TA antibodies is important in the event of autoimmune disease of the thyroid. These tests show higher in patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Again, here we see ovarian hormones outside of healthy normal, resulting in deviation from normal in the thyroid. In these cases, using oral antigen tolerance can down regulate the autoimmune response so the organ may eventually be healed and brought back to normal function.
With the broad spectrum of interaction between the thyroid, adrenals, testicles, ovaries, pituitary, and hypothalamus, simply shutting up the pituitary as it screams at the thyroid to get up and get moving is not fixing the situation. Instead, it allows for other biochemical balances to remain off.
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