So, I hope from last week’s post Thyroid 101 Part 1 you have had a chance to set up a consult or have an appointment with your doctor.
DO NOT LEAVE THE OFFICE WITHOUT A COPY OF YOUR RESULTS!
Only you can advocate for your health. This pertains to all of your medical visits. To their credit, Doctors are extremely busy and they are working in the confines of a broken system. A general practitioner isn’t able to know your health as intimately as you are, start getting copies so that you can see your own trends and know your numbers. Don’t rely on “everything is normal” and put your head back in the sand. It’s your body; you have to live in it.
The first place to start when it comes to optimizing your thyroid and/or healing it starts with your gut.
Gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunctions are the most overlooked and exceedingly common disorders today. For the most part, we consider mild discomforts such as bloating, gas, acid reflux, constipation normal symptoms that we experience daily or around our periods that we just deal with. “They’re Normal” not really, not until they become so uncomfortable or whatever our version of out of the ordinary is that we start to seek help and learn that these symptoms are far from normal and are actually alarm bells calling for attention to say that our health is being compromised.
This combined by the fact that 70% of your immune system is located in your digestive tract, problems in your gut lead to problems with your immune system. Therefore, bringing awareness and attention to this area is the start to achieving optimal health and your “NEW NORMAL”.
We eat 3-6 times a day, how can food not have an effect on your health, if for a minute you considered food as medicine (which you should anyway) you are dosing yourself 3-6 times a day, 7 days a week sometimes more. This will have a much larger effect on your health than any vitamin, drug, or therapy that you do once daily to once a week or less.
That is why when you look up any treatment protocol for healing autoimmune disease, it involves getting your digestive system functioning and a major diet overhaul.
In case you didn’t know all ready, Hashimoto’s and Grave’s Disease are Autoimmune Diseases, Hashimoto’s is the most common Autoimmune disease in North America and it is usually glossed over as no big deal. IT’S A HUGE DEAL, it’s like any other Autoimmune Disease such as MS and Lupus AND having a thyroid autoimmune disease that is left untreated leaves you at a higher risk for developing other autoimmune diseases.
There are so many books that are full of recommendations for healing the immune system and achieving proper digestion, I can’t possible convey all of the information out there in one post but I will give you my Top 3 Recommendations to get you started.
1. Go Gluten Free, It won’t come as a surprise to you that this is my number one, Gluten has become one of the main food intolerances in our modern world and is responsible for so much of the health ailments that exist. If you have been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s this is a non-negotiable, but I strongly urge anyone that is struggling with fertility to consider making this shift. For anyone that has an intolerance one occurrence with gluten takes six months for the gut to repair itself from that single event, Scary! If you want to read more about this click here to read an earlier post on why cutting out gluten is so important for your fertility.
2. Tame your Sugar Monster, Sugar messes with your adrenals sending them straight into fight-or-flight mode; this literally shuts off your reproductive system. Your body can’t be in a state of survival and growth at the same time, and our body’s hierarchy is designed for survival to override. When the adrenals are haywire, so is the rest of our HPOA (hypothalamic-Pituitary-Ovarian-Axis) affecting the production and utilization of your reproductive and thyroid hormones. Dr. Kharrazian has an entire chapter in his book
3. Proper supplementation, generally speaking, individuals with compromised thyroid health are often deficient is several nutritional minerals and vitamins, most commonly Low Stomach Acid, Selenium, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Iron, B Vitamins (Especially B6 and 12) zinc and iron. I am going to go into this topic in great detail next week because it’s huge, but if you suffer from autoimmune thyroid your prenatal vitamin isn’t enough. When fertility and pregnancy is concerned supplementation gets tricky as you can’t necessarily follow all of the recommendations for optimal thyroid function as there is some contraindication.
I want to hear from you, what did your test show? What changes do you need to make to help you heal? Tell me about it in the comments below.
XO
Ashley
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