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

What will your health be like 2 months from now?

In just 2 and a half months this patient has:

  1. Lost 16 pounds
  2. Got rid of her fatigue
  3. Dramatically slowed her rate of hair loss
  4. Improved her skin
  5. Her nails are growing normally again
  6. No longer has brain fog!
In her words, “Go see Dr. Heimlich he’s worth it!”

Hi, my name is Kim. I’ve been coming to Dr. Heimlich for about two and a half months now. I first started coming to him because I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, but I had low thyroid symptoms, I had the weight gain, no matter how much exercise I did. I had the dry skin. My hair kept falling out. I was losing a lot of hair. I had brittle nails. Also, one of the symptoms I found that afterwards I didn’t realize was related to the Hashimotos. I had tenderness in my finger joints towards the end of the day and I’ve been with Dr. Heimlich for two and a half months.

I actually love him. He’s done amazing work. I’m very pleased with the results thus far. I’ve managed to lose a lot of weight. I’ve lost about sixteen pounds now. My hair is not falling out as much. He’s still working on that, but it’s a work in progress. My finger joints don’t hurt any more. That’s gone away. My nails are starting to grow so this is all good things. My energy level, that was another problem, I had no energy. I was tired all the time. My energy levels are up. I’m feeling very happy. I’m healthy. Healthier than I was and my brain fog, I used to have brain fog, but that’s going away too. My memory is coming back, so thank you so much Dr. Heimlich and I really recommend that you give him a call because he’s definitely worth it.

GMO – One Thing Every Thyroid Patient Should Avoid

Dr. Chris Heimlich, DC, DACNB, Phoenix Doctor Comments:

If you are suffering with low thyroid symptoms or Hashimoto’s, then you need to avoid Genetically Modified Foods.

In March, Hungary introduced a new regulation that states seeds must be checked for GMO before they are introduced into the market.  As a result, almost 1,000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary.  They ploughed it under and made sure the pollen has not spread from the maize.

The United States, meanwhile, is beginning to see the consequences of widely planted GMOs. In the mid-’90s, Monsanto introduced seeds genetically engineered to withstand its Roundup brand of herbicide. Today, these “Roundup Ready” crops are planted all across the U.S. — 94 percent of soybeans and more than 70 percent of corn and cotton contain the Roundup-resistant gene.

Here is why this should matter to you?

Several U.S. farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cow fed on GM corn varieties.

Investigators in India have documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, and other serious health issues, including deaths, among buffaloes fed GM cottonseed products.

GM peas caused lung damage in mice.

Bacteria in your gut can take up DNA from GM food.

Although it is important for everyone, it is critical for people suffering with Chronic Fatigue, Low Thyroid Symptoms, Hashimoto’s, and Fibromyalgia to only put the best food into their bodies. One good way to eat healthier is to join an organic co-op or shop at your local farmers market.

Should you be taking vitamin D if you have Hashimoto’s?

New patients to our office frequently asked if they should be taking vitamin D for their low thyroid symptoms like fatigue, insomnia, hair loss, weight gain, depression, cold hands and feet, anxiety and all the other symptoms that go along with having low thyroid function.  Here are better question to ask:

How do I determine if I need it?

How much should I take?

How do I monitor the vitamin D I am taking to make sure I get enough, and not too much?

Something you should know is that vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, it acts like a hormone.  That means if you take too much of it, you do not get it out of your system as quickly as you would a water soluble.  Take vitamin C for example, it is water soluble.  If you take too much of it, your body will quickly and efficiently get it out of your system.

We have several patients that come in every week that have had their vitamin D checked in the past by their doctor and were told that there are levels were low and to just start taking some vitamin D.

This is a big mistake.  Vitamin D levels need to be rechecked to make sure that the dosages right.

Here is an all too common scenario.  The patient gets their vitamin D checked by their thyroid doctor.  The test comes back and shows that they have low vitamin D levels.  The patient is then told to take 50,000 units one time per week, usually on a Monday.  I’ve even had patients that were put on dosages as high as hundred and 150,000 units to be taken one time per week.

Does this make any sense to you?  Is taking one large dose of anything one time per week the best way to increase your levels?   Let’s use an analogy.  Let’s say that instead of your doctor checking  you for vitamin D, you were checked to see if you had a deficiency of apples.  The doctor runs the tests and finds that yes you do have a deficiency of apples.  Would it make sense to eat 50 apples at one time every Monday?

Or do you think it would be easier for your body to absorb the nutritional value of those apples by eating seven apples throughout the day, seven days a week?  Of course the answer is to take smaller dosages more frequently.  The same holds true for vitamin D.

If you have been checked for vitamin D deficiency, you probably only been checked to see what you’re circulating vitamin D levels are and not your stored vitamin D levels.  You want to make sure that you have both the circulating as well as the stored vitamin D levels checked at the same time.  In the past five years, I’ve only had one new patient come in and that has had both her circulating and stored vitamin D levels tested.

I average about one person per week that comes in to our office that will have a low circulating vitamin D level, but there stored levels will be high.  It is common to see this type of pattern in patients that have an autoimmune thyroid condition called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.

If you are thinking about taking vitamin D or you are on vitamin D, make sure you find a doctor that knows what we have just talked about.  Find a doctor that will check your circulating and stored levels before you start taking vitamin D and after you’ve been on it for 2 to 3 months to make sure that the dosage is right for you.

Tired, Sluggish, Brain Fog, Night Sweats … Sound Familiar At All?

Tired, Sluggish, Brain Fog, Night Sweats … does any of those symptoms sound familiar to you? Like most patient’s with Hashimoto’s disease the standard treatment is protocol is simple and flawed. You get Synthroid or some other form of thyroid replacement until your lab values appear normal and ALL other symptoms are ignored or attributed to some sort of psychiatric condition.

It was no different for this patient except she finally became proactive and consulted with the Heimlich Institute. Watch as she explains how her life has changed positively since starting our program.

Fill out the form to the right to request our Thyroid Recovery Report and learn how we are able to help patient’s like this when traditional Endocrinologists and family practitioners had failed.

 

Low Thyroid Symptoms and Antidepressants

Dr. Chris Heimlich DC, DACNB, Scottsdale Thyroid Doctor Comments:
depression It seems like every other new patient that comes in to our clinic asks me why they were prescribed antidepressants by their doctor when they went in for a thyroid problem.   Often the patient will tell me that they are not even depressed, just frustrated and tired of chasing the other symptoms of hypothyroidism.

You know what I am talking about.  Symptoms like being tired, sluggish, needing excessive amounts of sleep, weight gain, difficult bowel movements, hair loss, dry skin and mental sluggishness.

If you have been watching my videos and following the blog then you know the number one reason for low thyroid is an auto immune condition called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  (Check out my other posts if this is new information to you)

Here is an excerpt from a recent study that I found on medscape titled “Antidepressants Given With No Psychiatric Diagnoses”:

August 5, 2011 — Antidepressant prescribing by nonpsychiatrist providers in the United States has increased substantially in recent years, according to a report released today.

What’s particularly “worrisome,” say the report’s authors, is that a “large and growing” proportion of antidepressant prescribing by nonpsychiatrists happens without an accompanying psychiatric diagnosis.

“Many of the patients who are receiving these medications are dealing with the stresses of life or physical illness, and there is no evidence that antidepressants are effective in these groups of patients,” lead author Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, MPH, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, said in a statement.

They went on to say that the percentage of visits at which antidepressants were prescribed but no psychiatric diagnosis was noted rose to 72.7% in 2007.

So to answer the question of why you were prescribed antidepressants if you were not depressed is “I don’t know.”  It appears from the research that it is a growing trend.

What about the patients that are depressed, have low thyroid symptoms, and are already on antidepressants?   Should they be on antidepressants?  If they are on them then they should NOT stop taking them without the guidance of the prescribing physician.

Some of you may be scratching your head wondering why I would recommend to keep taking your meds, especially after watching the testimonials of our patients that no longer have to take them after starting care with us.  Sure many antidepressants have side effects, but coming off of them without supervision from the prescribing physician could be disastrous.

I am not anti-meds.  I am anti-medications if you don’t need them.  Our country is over medicated.  I tell all of our patients that the power that created the body can heal the body.  We just have to find out what is keeping it from doing its job.

That’s why we get the success we do here in the clinic.  We look at the body as a whole and gather all the pieces of the patient’s health puzzle to determine how we can get their body to heal itself through natural methods.

Check back soon because I will be starting a mini-series soon expanding on my previous post concerning the connection between the brain and the thyroid.