Patient-Centered, Whole-Person, Functional Metabolic Care For Hashimoto's and Low Thyroid

Low Thyroid Symptoms and Vitamin D

Should you be supplementing with vitamin D?

Dr. Chris Heimlich DC, Director of the Arizona Thyroid Institute in Scottsdale, AZ Explains:

More and more people are taking vitamin D.  They have seen on the news or the web that it is good for them.  Taking vitamin D is good for you…IF YOU NEED IT.

Modern diets are lacking in Vitamin D rich foods.  What are Vitamin D rich foods?  Liver, organ meats, lard, many forms of seafood, butter and egg yolks.

The best-known function of active vitamin D is to help regulate blood levels of calcium and phosphorous. Vitamin D increases absorption of minerals from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In combination with parathyroid hormone, it enhances their reabsorption from the kidneys and their mobilization from bones into the blood. Vitamin D helps maintain calcium levels even if dietary intakes are not optimal. Calcitriol affects growth of normal cells and some cancer cells. Adequate vitamin-D status has been linked to a reduced risk of developing breast, colon, and prostrate cancers.

Sunlight is another important factor and source of Vitamin D.  BUT, you should NEVER take vitamin D without having your Vitamin D levels tested, specifically, 25 OHD and 1,25 OHD.  Most doctors only test 25 OHD.  I feel this is a mistake.  It is very important to have both levels tested.  I see at least one patient a week that comes in taking Vit D that have low or normal 25 OHD levels and high 1,25 OHD levels.

Why could it be bad a bad idea to take Vitamin D?  One reason is because it is a fat-soluble vitamin.  That means it is tougher for your body to get excess amounts out of your system.   Vitamin D is most likely to have toxic effects when consumed in excessive amounts through supplementation. Excess vitamin D raises blood calcium levels, resulting in calcium precipitation in soft tissues and stone formation in the kidneys, where calcium becomes concentrated in an effort to excrete it.

Why is Vitamin D so important with patients that have low thyroid symptoms like hair loss, depression, weight gain and fatigue?  Vitamin D deficiency is associated with many, many autoimmune conditions including Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  Autoimmune rates have been skyrocketing in the past 20 years and have been correlated with decreased levels of Vitamin D in the general population.

The number one cause of low thyroid in America is an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s.

Adequate Vitamin D levels help to keep the immune system balance so it doesn’t swing out of control into an autoimmune disease.  When it comes to Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, the problems with Vitamin D deficiency is made worse by genetics.  There are studies that show that more than 90 percent of the people with an autoimmune thyroid or Hashimoto’s have a genetic defect affecting their ability to process Vitamin D.

The take home message here is to NOT just take vitamin D because you think it is good for you.  Find a thyroid doctor that can actually do the detective work and find out if it is something that you need.


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Low Thyroid Symptoms and Vitamin D

Hidden Cause Of Low Thyroid #3 – Iodine | Arizona Thyroid Institute in Scottsdale, AZ

Dr. Chris Heimlich, DC, Scottsdale Phoenix Metro area  Doctor Shares The Third of 7 Low Thyroid Mistakes Patients and Doctors Make….

As I consult with patients that suffer from hypothyroid symptoms on a daily basis at the Arizona Thyroid Institute located here in Scottsdale Arizona, I see 7 common mistakes that keep hypothyroid patients from experiencing relief from their thyroid symptoms. The third reason is this series is: Iodine Supplementation

 

Your Iodine Supplements May Be Making You Worse

When a patient has been diagnosed with low thyroid production, medically referred to as hypothyroidism, one of the first things commonly prescribed is iodine supplementation.  You’ve probably been told that iodine is necessary for thyroid hormones synthesis.  And it is, but here is the problem…taking supplemental iodine can be dangerous, and here’s why.

Worldwide iodine deficiency is a widespread problem. In areas of the world where iodine is deficient, iodine is the cause of many if not most cases of hypothyroidism. In areas where iodine is not deficient in the food supply, including the United States, iodine is not usually the cause of low thyroid.

In areas of the world with adequate iodine in food, or where salt is iodized, the most common cause of low thyroid is Hashimoto’s Autoimmune Thyroid. It is estimated that up to 90 percent of cases of hypothyroidism in the United States is from this autoimmune mechanism. Autoimmune thyroid is not primary hypothyroidism; instead it is a form of hypothyroidism that is caused by immune destruction. The amount of iodine that is contained is iodine supplements and thyroid natural support products act like gas on a burning fire.

In a 2004 article in the journal Thyroid, the author stated “…the explosive mix of iodine, TPO Ab, and H202 necessary for thyroid hormone synthesis, inadvertently provide the trigger for the autoimmune thyroid response.” It is this misguided inclination to give every hypothyroidism patient high doses of supplemental iodine that leads to increased thyroid gland destruction, and more suffering on the patient’s part. Most natural healthcare practitioners possess a very limited understanding of autoimmune physiology and continue giving iodine supplements for all cases of hypothyroidism, in the same way as the medical community uses thyroid replacement hormones as a “blanket” management for all low thyroid conditions.

What that means is iodine is a trigger. It’s a trigger for Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroid.

Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroid is the number one cause of low thyroid in America–not iodine deficiency.

This whole issue of iodine exposes a nasty similarity between traditional medicine and “alternative” medicine.

Traditional medicine is looking at TSH and T4 and T3 and they didn’t really care about iodine.  They’re not even going to give you iodine because whatever the real cause of your low thyroid symptoms might be.  The only thing you’re going to get from them is replacement thyroid hormones. No matter what. It’s pretty much the only tool they have to offer. (And you know the old saying…”If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails.”)

They don’t care if  the cause of your symptoms is

  • Hashimoto’s…
  • T4 to T3 overconversion problem…
  • Under conversion problem…
  • Thyroid binding globulin problem

—doesn’t matter.  You’re getting thyroid hormones from the traditional medical doctor. This is why so many women STILL feel terrible.

So traditional medicine has nice little box. You’ve heard of thinking “outside the box?” Well Traditional medicine has their nice little dusty box, been sitting here for 30, 40 years and that’s how they do it.

Over here we have the not so alternative-alternative medicine approach.  And what they do is they also have their sad, outdated box way of thinking. Inside their box is the idea that everyone with low thyroid needs iodine supplementation, or tyrosine, or broad immune system support ,or they need to take thyroid glandulars.

Here’s what the not-so-alternative medicine doesn’t know…conventional medicine, they do some testing. Not-so-alternative medicine does almost no testing at all.  They’re still doing things like the Barnes underarm thyroid test and that is an ancient, prehistoric, non-useful way of evaluating the thyroid.

There are also people in this camp that are doing the iodine absorption test as if that had any real relationship to your need for iodine (it doesn’t).

The craziest thing is that these not-so-alternative practitioners ignore the fact that iodine is a trigger for Hashimoto’s.  If you wanna give yourself Hashimoto’s, keep taking the iodine that one of the not-so-alternative medicine doctors gave you. They mean well,  by the way. I’m not trying to slam them.

But that well meaning “alternative” doctor doesn’t understand the fact that what we’re really dealing with, almost 90 percent of the time, is not low iodine. The problem is an autoimmune problem.

If you have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism but are not sure whether is is autoimmune, then it is in your best interest to have your thyroid doctor check your thyroid antibodies. This will indicate whether your hypothyroidism is from an immune cause and will help guide you in your decision of whether to include iodine supplementation in your diet.  There are natural thyroid treatment options in the Scottsdale and Phoenix Metro area. 

In my next post I am going to discuss Low Thyroid Mistake #4: Hashimotos

Dr Chris Heimlich, Board Certified Chiropractic Physician

Hidden Causes Of Low Thyroid #2 – Cortisol | Arizona Thyroid Institute in Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix

Dr. Chris Heimlich DC, Scottsdale Phoenix Metro Area  Doctor Shares The Second of 7 Low Thyroid Mistakes Patients and Doctors Make….

As I consult with patients that suffer from hypothyroid symptoms on a daily basis at the Arizona Thyroid Institute located here in Scottsdale Arizona, I see 7 common mistakes that keep hypothyroid patients from experiencing relief from their thyroid symptoms. The Second reason in this series is: High Cortisol Levels.

High levels or cortisol is another hidden cause as to why you still have thyroid symptoms even though you’re taking thyroid hormone or even though your lab numbers are normal.

So what is cortisol?  It’s a hormone made in your adrenal gland.  I know you have heard of them.  They are known as the  “stress” glands.  They sit on top of your kidneys.  They make the hormones aldosterone, cortisol, and androgens.  The adrenal glands are crucial for your good health.

So what does cortisol do?

Cortisol is responsible for regulating your blood sugar.   When cortisol is release by your adrenal glands, it is accompanied by cytokines.  Cytokines are messengers used by your immune system.  This creates an inflammatory response.  These cytokines suppress the ability of your pituitary and your hypothalamus to make TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone.

When that happens you start to get some or all of the low thyroid symptoms below:

Fatigue

Weight Gain

Depression

Constipation

Hair falls out easily

Dry skin

Poor circulation and numbness in hand and feet

Morning headaches that wear off as day progresses

So follow me as I explain cortisol and low thyroid symtpoms….

Your adrenal glands make cortisol in response to stress.  There are different kinds of stress.  Anything that promotes inflammation or that causes inflammation, will make your adrenal glands pump out more cortisol.

As that cortisol is released, those cytokines are going to come out as well—that is what’s going to suppress your pituitary and give you low thyroid symptoms.

The most common causes of elevated cortisol are:

  • Blood sugar regulation problems (high or low blood sugar, insulin spikes and valleys)
  • Hidden gut infections or infections you haven’t been able to eliminate
  • Chronic stress.

Well, let me say a couple words about each one of those.

When you have a “blood sugar problem”, it means that your blood sugar is not regular.

Your blood sugar is going up and down….

When your blood sugar goes up and down, your cortisol levels are going to go up and down…

…and the cytokines are going to go up and down….

…and then we have this whole pituitary getting squashed…

…and you not making enough thyroid hormones and you’re starting to have symptoms.

The key point to remember here is:  You do NOT have to be diagnosed as a diabetic to have blood sugar problems.

There are  two varieties of that blood sugar problem.  You don’t have to be diabetic to have this.  You can have hypoglycemia (reactive hypoglycemia), which means your sugar drops between meals…or you don’t eat when you need to and…when you do eat the next time, you get these big surges of insulin, big surges of cortisol.

It doesn’t matter to your body whether you have low blood sugar or high blood sugar; in both cases the blood sugar is not regular.

So, for example, if you get shaky, light headed or irritable in between meals and you have a thyroid problem…this could be one of the reasons why because that blood sugar going up and down, that fluctuation causes this fluctuation in cytokines and inflammation.

The second thing that can cause excessive cortisol is infection.  It’s not necessarily like getting strep throat.  We’re talking about, many times, hidden G.I. infections that you have no idea you have because you may not have any G.I. symptoms that cause high cortisol…and then low thyroid symptoms.

There’s a test that you can do that is a DNA PCR test of stool.This test is definitive as to whether you’ve got a parasite, a fungus or a yeast or some sort of pathogen living in your gut that’s driving – and that’s the word I use – driving your adrenal glands to keep pumping up cortisol—which makes increased levels of cytokines, which suppresses your pituitary.

Mental  stress is the third thing that can cause these adrenal glands to keep pumping out cortisol.  Many low thyroid sufferers are stressed by many different parts of their life. They feel bad.  It’s the classic stress response.  So, for those people – and this is part of what we do for my management program – we have to teach them how to deal with their stress.

I’m not talking necessarily about being a therapist.  I’m talking about teaching you a very powerful but simple way of helping your body not have a stress response but have a relaxing response.  If whoever’s taking care of you right now, if you’re under care, if they’re not addressing this stress component, you’re being underserved.  I believe you’re being underserved.  There are natural thyroid treatment options in the Phoenix Metro area. 

If your stress levels are still high, your adrenal glands are still going to pump hard.  Cortisol levels are going to increase to excess.  Cytokine levels are going to increase, and it’s going to squash your pituitary.   Remember, your pituitary is a key component if thyroid health.

In my next post I am going to discuss Low Thyroid Mistake #3: The Dangers Of Iodine

Dr Chris Heimlich, Board Certified Chiropractic Physician

Low Thyroid Symptoms, Hashimoto Thyroiditis, Brain, and Gastrointestinal Connection

What’s the connection between your stomach problems, brain fog, and hashimoto’s? How are they related?

–>Click Here To Schedule A Consultation At The Arizona Thyroid Institute<–

One of the most frequent questions I get asked by new patients suffering from low thyroid symptoms is why we do a functional neurological exam on them.  There are several reasons why we do this.  First, the brain directly communicates with the thyroid.  The brain tells the pituitary to talk to the hypothalamus to tell the thyroid to release hormones.  Kind of like a domino effect.

The brain also directly communicates with the stomach and intestines (which is what we call the gastrointestinal system) through the vagal nerve.  In previous posts I have talked about how important the gastrointestinal system is in patients with low thyroid symptoms.  If you have been reading or watching then you know the number one cause of low thyroid symptoms in the United States is an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  85 to 95% of all low thyroid conditions in the United States as an autoimmune condition of the thyroid.

The liver and spleen have a huge effect on the immune system, and are also directly connected to the brain through the autonomic nervous system.   Researchers have known for years that if you damage the vagus nerve, you will have dysfunction of the organs that we talked about.  When those organs don’t function correctly, the thyroid health is directly and negatively impacted.

The gastrointestinal tract and liver also convert inactive thyroid hormones into active ones.  So if they are not functioning correctly, you will not have enough active thyroid hormone to bind to the receptor sites.  That will translate into low thyroid symptoms like brain fog, constipation, hair loss, weight gain, fatigue, insomnia, and all the other low thyroid symptoms.

Another important reason why we do function neurological exam on all patients complaining of low thyroid symptoms is because we want to check and see how the brain is functioning, particularly the cerebellum and the basal ganglia.  Research has shown that these two areas in the brain can also be attacked just like the thyroid is attacked in people with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

If you are still suffering with low thyroid symptoms, make sure you find a doctor that knows we’ve just talked about.  You want to make sure that you get more than just your TSH and free T3 and free T4 checked when you are trying to find the cause of why you are still suffering with symptoms of hypothyroidism.

–>Click Here To Schedule A Consultation At The Arizona Thyroid Institute<–

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Is No Big Deal – All Low Thyroid Patients Have It

Dr. Chris Heimlich, DC, DACNB Comments:

Now before I start getting the hate mail, hear me out.  I just had another patient come in and tell me that her doctor had said that to her. 

If you are suffering with any of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s, you know that it is a BIG DEAL.

Some of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s include:

  • hair loss
  • hair thinning
  • constipation
  • fatigue
  • cold hands and feet
  • sleep excessively to function
  • brain fog, slow thinking
  • dry skin, flaky skin
  • occasional HYPERthyroid symptoms

In America the number one cause for low thyroid is an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

This means that the number one cause for low thyroid n America is an autoimmune attack.  Here are some examples of other autoimmune conditions:  MS, rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus.

Meaning—your immune system has turned on you and is targeting your thyroid…and is killing it…. and that’s what’s causing you to be low thyroid.

And taking thyroid hormones will NOT do anything for this attack. You will continue to lose more and more of your thyroid.

But the standard of care for that is giving you thyroid hormones.  I think you probably understand now that this not a thyroid hormone problem.  That’s not the battle.  The battle is an immune system battle; an autoimmune battle.

Here is a good way to think about the autoimmune attack on the body.  It would be like coming into my office in shorts.  You bring along your dog or cat.  And it is just starts biting and scratching your legs, just really attacking you.  I look at you and say “Gee, you have a leg problem.  Here are some band-aids.  Take these and put them on your legs.  Here is a script of band-aids for the rest of your life for that leg problem.  You may need more or less of them as you go through life.  We will check on them every 3 to 6 months.

If I told you this, you would probably look at me like I had two heads.  It wouldn’t make any sense.  The animal attacking your legs is the problem, not the legs.  It is the same thing with Hashimoto’s.  The immune system attacking the thyroid is the problem, not the thyroid.

What most doctors are going to do for Hashimoto’s is monitor your TSH–thyroid stimulating hormone –level.  They’re going to try to make it stay within a certain numerical range,—but that’s going to fluctuate all over the place and it’s not really getting to the problem.

The immune system will NOT only attack the thyroid, but it will start attacking the cells in the lining of your stomach that help you to be able to absorb B-12.  When this happens you’ll end up getting pernicious anemia.  Since 80% of neurotransmitters are created in the stomach, you can also get brain fog, memory loss, and other neurological symptoms.

The brain is also targeted by the immune system.  It likes to attack the cerebellum.  You can end up having vertigo, dizziness, and balance problems.

The immune system also attacks your pancreas and can make you start having diabetic symptoms, insulin problems, and adrenal issues.

Since every cell in the body has a thyroid receptor site, any part of your body can be attacked when the immune system no longer can tell what is friend and what it foe.

When most patients suffering from low thyroid symptoms learn about the autoimmune attack on the body, it makes perfect sense to them.  It makes sense because that is how they feel.  Like their body is being attacked.

Focusing the clinical management on slowing and modulating the autoimmune attack is crucial in Hashimoto’s Disease. How can you have a properly functioning thyroid if the body is continually attacking and killing it?

A functional approach to naturally supporting and modulating the immune system in autoimmune cases is the best way to help the body slow down or stop the attack on itself.  Natural management of autoimmune conditions is complex. Support that is specific to the individual immune system is essential if you truly want to help Hashimoto’s Disease.

You have to find out how their immune system has shifted.  Our immune systems have two parts:  TH-1 and a TH-2.  They are supposed to be balanced.  If they are not, then we have a problem.

You have to find out which one of those has become abnormally dominant and why.

Is it because of an antigen? –something that the immune system has been trying to kill for so long that it’s increased its immune attack on this antigen and then it flipped the scales and now we have an autoimmune condition.

Or has the immune system become imbalanced because of disregulation.  Hormonal surges can do this.  Stress can do this.  Blood sugar problems.  Inflammation can do this.

So if you know someone that’s suffering with Hashimoto’s, or with low thyroid, and they don’t feel any better – even with thyroid medication – it is time to get them some help.

It’s time to find someone who can investigate this further.

There are millions of you out there right now that have this problem and you don’t know it.

It’s why you still have thyroid symptoms even though you’re taking medication–you have an autoimmune condition (whether diagnosed correctly or not).

And yes, it is A VERY BIG DEAL. 

If You Suffer From Low Thyroid Symptoms, Never Do This

Never Order Thyroid Medication On Your Own

Here is how bad it is for some women suffering with low thyroid symptoms.  One of my long time patients brought her daughter in to see me this morning.  Actually, her daughter brought her in.  Betty is 87 years young.  It had been years since I saw her daughter and she just wanted checked out for some musculoskeletal complaints.  As I was doing a consultation and examination with her, I noticed she was presenting with symptoms and neurological signs that were consistent with hypothyroidism.  I was able to uncover complaints of being tired all the time, fatigue, cold all the time, some weight gain, tingling in the hands, and joint pain.  As I dug a little deeper I told her she needed to get her thyroid checked out because it sounded like she had low thyroid or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

She told me she thought she had thyroid problems for years and was checked out for it last summer.  She had asked her doctor for years and he finally did a blood test and told her she was fine.  She was told not to worry about the symptoms she was having and that they were not related to her thyroid and she should just learn to live with them.

She didn’t like his response.  She had done some reading in the net and knew she had almost all the signs of hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  She had also read that your TSH could be in the “normal” limits and you could still feel cruddy.

Unfortunately she had not told me anything that I don’t already hear on a daily basis.  But what she said next nearly floored me.   She said:

“I ordered some thyroid medication from Canada and I am going to try them out to see if I feel better.”

Of course I told her that under no circumstance should she do that.  I don’t make blanket statements often, but I don’t think anyone should order any medication, let alone thyroid medication without a prescription from a doctor.

Now this lady is a smart, educated woman.  I would have never expected her to do such a thing.  It just shows how desperate she is to be able to feel normal again.  How frustrated she is with the type of care that she had received.  She feels jaded and doesn’t know what to do.  The place that she trusts with her health has told her to just live with it.

Her statement made me realize that more women must be out there feeling the same way.  So if this has happened to you, don’t take matters into your own hand and order up thyroid medication off of the net or anywhere else.  This is something that has to be monitored by your physician.

Part of the problem for this woman was that she only had her TSH tested.    I have talked in other posts how important it is to get not only the TSH tested, but also the rest of a thyroid panel.  And you can’t just stop there if you want to find out what is contributing to the thyroid not working properly.  You have to look at what the rest of the non-thyroid blood markers are, like blood sugar, adrenals, liver, etc.   You have to look at the thyroid antibodies.  You also have to look and see what other factors can be contributing to inflammation in your system and how the immune system is working.  So in essence you have to look at the health of the patient, not just their thyroid.

Why?  For starters, every cell in the body has a thyroid receptor site.  That means that you can have all type of symptoms from thyroid dysfunction.  Also, almost every system in the body has a direct or indirect feedback loop with the thyroid.  That means a problem with the adrenals, for example, can cause the thyroid to look bad, even if the thyroid isn’t the problem.  It can get pretty complicated when you look at all the factors that contribute to the thyroid functioning properly.

You should not have to scour the net to try to learn all of this information.  You doctor should know this.   

It boils down to finding a doctor that knows what we just talked about and understands that you can still feel crummy, even though you don’t have a high TSH on your labs.  Find a doctor that knows there are many other factors that play into the health of your thyroid.  One who is willing to examine you, look at all your health factors, and help you get your body to heal itself back up the way it was designed too.