Is your Thyroid making you sick?
You feel like you’re going great, you’ve got life by the horns, you’re travelling along just fine… until one day, BAM. It feels like you’ve been hit by a truck. A visit to the doctor reveals you have developed an auto-immune condition.
In hindsight, you might notice that your allergies were getting worse, you were getting sick more often, or maybe you were feeling more tired than usual.
This scenario might be familiar to you – or it might come as a surprise to know autoimmune conditions affect around 1 in 20 people and are one of the most important health issues in Australia.
They run in families and are often brought on by dietary and lifestyle triggers like stress, environmental toxins, food allergies and, in some cases, infections.
There are many different types of autoimmune conditions, but two commonly seen ones – Hashimoto’s Disease and Graves’ Disease – are both related to that little gland in your neck, the Thyroid.
I want to take some time to explain how your Thyroid function is.
What is Graves’ Disease?
Graves’ Disease is in essence your immune system attacking your thyroid, which causes it to produce too much thyroid hormone (Hyperthyroidism). This results in weight loss, anxiety, palpitations, hot flushes, muscle loss and fatigue.This occurs most commonly in women aged 20 to 40 and is the leading cause of over-active thyroid.
The medical approach to treating Graves’ Disease is to use drugs to suppress your thyroid’s production of thyroid hormone for up to 12 months. This treats the symptoms (thyroid hormone production), but doesn’t get to the bottom of why your immune system is attacking your thyroid in the first place.
What is Hashimoto’s Disease?
Hashimoto’s is the opposite to Grave’s Disease – it is your immune system attacking a thyroid protein called Thyroglobulin, which causes the thyroid to produce less thyroid hormone (Hypothyroidism). This leads to weight gain, fatigue, heat and cold intolerance, constipation and depression, as well as menstrual and fertility issues.
Doctors treat Hashimoto’s by prescribing thyroid hormone replacement medication. Again, this is the same issue of treating the symptoms and not the cause.
There are natural remedies to treat Hashimoto’s. You might be familiar with Hashimoto’s thanks to I Quit Sugar’s Sarah Wilson, who has battled this condition and successfully treated it naturally.
What to do if you think you have Graves’ or Hashimoto’s Disease:
The good news is there are natural remedies for both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s Disease. It is a complex process that involves balancing your immune system while supporting healthy thyroid function with natural medicines.
While we can help you through this process, there are a few things you can do for yourself to start to heal. The first is to take a look at your diet. We recommend our modified elimination diet as the first step in reducing foods that may place a strain on your gut and your immune system. It involves ruling out gluten and dairy, processed foods, additives and preservatives, as well as alcohol, caffeine and sugar.
Next, it’s important to balance your immune system with natural medicines such as practitioner-strength Zinc and Vitamin C, while Fish Oil can work to reduce inflammation associated with auto-immune conditions.
If you want to know more about ways to treat these conditions, download the full report about hyperthyroidism here and hypothyroidism here or you can call to book an appointment on (02) 4961 4075.
Yours in health,
Peter
Do you want to find out how natural health can help treat your thyroid condition and discover some of the super foods to eat and diet principles to follow to help balance your immune system?
Click here to access our free guide – Natural Remedies for Thyroid Health.
