What is Hashimoto’s Disease, and How to Treat It

The thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped gland in your neck and a significant part of your endocrine system that greatly impacts the health of your entire body and moods. It produces the thyroid hormone (TH), which is responsible for keeping your metabolism, heartbeat, temperature, mood, immune system, fertility, and many more functions in check. However, an underactive thyroid does not produce enough TH, leading to many health problems.

 

What is Hashimoto’s Disease?

Hashimoto’s Disease is an autoimmune disorder caused by your immune system attacking healthy tissues. Hashimoto’s is 4 to 10 times more prevalent in women than in men, and the disease develops in women ages 30 to 50, but it may also occur in teens or young women. If you have fatigue, weight gain, trouble tolerating the cold, joint and muscle pain, etc., consider that you might have Hashimoto’s Disease. The disease causes your thyroid to become damaged over time.

Hashimoto’s leads to antibodies and white blood cells attacking healthy tissues, which leads to inflammation. If left untreated, Hashimoto’s will damage your thyroid’s health, and you will develop a permanent form of hypothyroidism. The thyroid will cease producing enough thyroid hormones for your body to function, and you will need medication to make up for that hormone lack.

Here is an example I use to explain Hashimoto’s to my patients. Remember the video game Pac-Man? That big yellow mouth goes around, eating up all the tiny yellow dots. That is what Hashimoto’s Disease does; they use antibodies to attack your thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, and eventually, it attacks the thyroid itself, causing thyroid organ death. In some cases, this leads to thyroid cancer.

Several ways you can develop Hashimoto’s include:

1. If a person has been diagnosed with hypothyroid and is on synthetic inactive (T4) thyroid-only medications for an extended period.
2. If a person has a sub-clinical hypothyroid that goes untreated. This type of low thyroid is not normally treated or recognized by regular physicians.
3. If a person has an under-active thyroid that goes untreated.
4. It is genetic, and family members have Hashimoto’s.
5. Chronic stress (PTSD) and poor eating habits.
6. Other pre-existing autoimmune disorders.
7. Pregnancy
8. Radiation exposure

 

Symptoms of Hashimoto’s Disease

Hashimoto’s can cause many symptoms, and every case is different. These differences make it challenging to diagnose hypothyroidism. Some symptoms found in those who suffer from Hashimoto’s include:

1. Inflammation or Goiter: Goiters include an irregular swelling of your thyroid gland. Swelling is at the front of your throat, just below Adam’s apple.
2. Fatigue: People who suffer from untreated hypothyroidism or thyroid problems are likely to feel fatigued even if they get a healthy amount of sleep. Fatigue can lead to oversleeping and difficulties waking up in the mornings.
3. Brain Fog: Brain fog is a mental fuzziness making it challenging to commit information to memory or difficult to concentrate. Brain fog causes you not to think clearly or make decisions easily.
4. Constipation: Hashimoto’s often causes the slowing down of the digestive system
5. Weight Gain: Metabolism slows down with hypothyroidism resulting in weight.
6. Joint Pain: Joint pain in the wrists and ankles is a common symptom of Hashimoto’s.
7. Sensitivity to Cold: You feel cold all the time, even on warm days Your metabolism is slowing down, and Hashimoto’s causes sensitivity to cold.
8. Thinning Hair and Brittle Nails: Hypothyroidism often causes hair to be thin and your nails to become brittle.
9. Mental Health Problems: Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune thyroid disease that also causes changes in hormone levels. These changes often lead to depression, anxiety, sadness, and mood swings.
10. Bloating: Hashimoto’s causes food to move slowly, which causes discomfort in your stomach.
11. Weakness: Low hormone production leads to muscle weakness and other aches and pains. You may have difficulty completing daily tasks.

 

How to Detect Hashimoto’s Disease

The blood test must examine TPOab or thyroid peroxidase antibodies. As Hashimoto’s progresses, these thyroid peroxidase antibodies are the ones that attack your thyroid gland. If these antibodies are found in your blood, then you have Hashimoto’s. Sometimes the TSH test will show high, but often it shows normal, so this test is irrelevant.

 

Treatment

Most people take medication to treat Hashimoto’s Disease, which is often treated with a synthetic hormone called Levothyroxine. This synthetic hormone works like T-4 hormones naturally produced by the thyroid. However, those already on Levothyroxine know it does not work regardless of what the levels say. Levothyroxine does not work for those who are hypothyroid, period! Either. The symptoms never go away on this medication or medications similar to Levothyroxine. Even good thyroid medications (the kind we use) will not work on Hashimoto’s, no matter how high your thyroid dose is. You will feel like you are taking a sugar pill. Not until Hashimoto’s is shut down will you start to feel better and symptoms resolve.

The only thing that works on Hashimoto’s is LDN, “low dose naltrexone.” Naltrexone is used for opioid addiction and alcoholism at high doses of 50mg up to 200 mg. LDN, when used in extremely low doses, shuts down Hashimoto’s autoimmune antibodies, so they do not continue to cause more damage. It also decreases inflammation in the body and increases endorphins in the brain by 4-fold. It is really an amazing medication.

Expertise in dosing LDN is critical, and if you go too fast or too high in a short period of time, all those horrible symptoms will come flooding back all at once. It takes a skilled and experienced practitioner to prescribe this medication. But when done right, LDN does miracles.

 

Diet – Nutrition

We have had many patients that come into our clinic already diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. They initially come into the clinic to lose weight, not for Hashimoto’s treatment. Before coming in, these people research and learn that gluten makes Hashimoto’s symptoms much worse, as does dairy (for some people, not all) and sugar. But they still have low thyroid symptoms because Hashimoto’s is still present in their bodies. When we take the time to explain how LDN suppresses antibodies, they can’t wait to get started, and they feel better for the first time in years.

LDN is genuinely remarkable and used for over 270 diseases and illnesses.

To get the proper diagnosis of Hashimoto’s and the right treatment, you need to contact Medical Weight Loss & Hormone Clinic. The clinic can help you find a solution that is natural and, best of all, works.

LDN is genuinely remarkable and used for over 270 diseases and illnesses.

To get the proper diagnosis of Hashimoto’s and the right treatment, you need to contact Medical Weight Loss & Hormone Clinic. The clinic can help you find a solution that is natural and, best of all, works.

Contact the clinic at: https://medicalweightlossutah.com or call 801-393-3586 for help with Hashimoto’s Disease.