THYROID DYSFUNCTION

You know your thyroid is not functioning properly. You've had the tests, you've taken the medication. You feel good for a few weeks - maybe a month - then you're right back to where you began. You've been told there's nothing else that can be done.

You're tired of being tired.

WE CAN HELP

HOW WE CARE FOR YOU

Tackling the thyroid is no easy task but can be done through working with you neurologically and metabolically.

There are 22 types of hypo-thyroid manifestations. Understanding how to care for yourself requires more than running a limited number of tests or taking some iodine. (In fact, if someone offers you iodine as a remedy, run the other way*).

Here's how we care for you:

Metabolical: Anyone with thyroid symptoms or thyroid conditions must realize that they might have an autoimmune disease.  Yes, that’s right, statistically speaking thyroid conditions are autoimmune which to properly treat requires an entire thyroid panel for a clear understanding of how to bring about change, as follows:

• Blood Panel Analysis: Based on each individual patient, we run six to nine individual thyroid makers including TSH, Total Thyroxine, Free Thyroine Index, Free Thyroxine, Resin T3 Uptake, Free Triiodothyroixine, Reverse T3, Thyroid Binding Globulin, and Thyroid antibodies.
• Adrenal Analysis: Comprehensive blood panels and analyzing the results rule out anemias, blood sugar dysregulation, digestive issues, inflammation, and immune imbalances to give the overall picture as to what is causing your thyroid dysfunction.

Neurological: The brain is the relay station from the body to the thyroid for the thyroid’s proper function. To operate properly, the brain needs both fuel (glucose and oxygen) and activation (frequency of firing). We discover any imbalance or malfunction by performing the following:

• Tissue Perfusion Testing: Tissue Perfusion Testing monitors oxygen levels and how well the brain delivers that oxygen to the body.  
• Exercise With Oxygen Therapy (EWOT): Once we have an understanding of how well the brain is functioning based on the results of the Tissue Perfusion Testing, we restore and rebalance the brain’s oxygen levels with Exercise With Oxygen Therapy.
• Brain Based Therapies (BBT):  Specific activities to up-regulate the function of your brain.
• Brain Activation:

GOING DEEPER

HOW THE THYROID WORKS

The thyroid gland is a tricky organ to work with due to its high sensitivity reactions to the other systems of the body.  As usual, your brain is constantly monitoring every function of your body.  Thyroid metabolism occurs when your brain recognizes there’s either too much or too little thyroid hormone.  The hypothalamus then sends thyroid releasing hormone to the pituitary gland.  The pituitary gland then releases the infamous TSH, know as thyroid stimulating hormone, to the thyroid gland.  At this point, TSH causes thyroid peroxidase activity to cleave iodine in order to create T4 and T3 hormones.  During this stage the thyroid produces 7% T3 and 93% T4.  The T3 hormone is active and ready to be used but T4 is inactive at this point and needs to be converted to T3.  T4 becomes T3 by conversions in the liver, the gastrointestinal tract, and a small amount of T4 is converted to T3 in the peripheral tissues.

HYPOTHYROIDISM

Now let’s look at hypothyroidism.  If you are suffering with hypothyroidism your TSH will be high. Why? Because when the brain recognizes not enough thyroid hormones in your blood stream, it intelligently thinks the thyroid is not making enough hormone. Therefore it tells the thyroid to produce more hormones by releasing more TSH.  Conversely, if you are producing too much thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism) you will have a low TSH. Think of it this way, if you want to encourage an otherwise lazy person to do something, you may try stimulating them by being more encouraging. Hence, the “lazy” thyroid has increased TSH (the encourager) and vice versa.

Knowing the cascade of thyroid metabolism has hopefully stimulated many questions.  You can now see that you can’t look at the TSH to diagnose what is transpiring with a thyroid patient.  Hopefully, you see that, more often than not, you don’t have a thyroid condition but a host of sluggish or improperly functioning systems in the body causing the thyroid to react.  Listen, if your liver isn’t functioning optimally then how is it supposed to convert T4 to T3 like it’s supposed too?  Exactly, it doesn’t. 

Most people don’t just have a thyroid problem, they have a breakdown in communication with many of the organs in the body.  Due to the thyroid’s sensitive nature in relation to the functions of the entire body, one of the first things we see is a change in the blood chemistry with all the thyroid hormones, not just the TSH.  In just going through the basics, you see that if your gut and liver are not functioning well then it’s impossible for your body to properly convert your thyroid hormones into the active forms for use. Other big factors are your adrenal health, blood sugar regulation, immune health, and more.  As mentioned above, a thyroid problem is usually secondary to something else going on in your body. For instance, chronic blood chemistry issues affect how the brain communicates with the thyroid; it can decrease the firing of signals bilaterally, but usually one side of the brain will suffer more than the other.  Chronic stress releases cortisol into the blood stream.  Cortisol is extremely toxic to the gut and the brain.  Stress weakens the communication with the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and the thyroid, inhibiting the conversion from T4 to T3, and creating sluggish detoxification pathways causing hormone resistance, break down in the gut barrier, the immune system, and the brain.  Furthermore, poor adrenal health disrupts a person’s appropriate level of hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. If you don’t have your blood sugar regulated it will throw your adrenals, immune system, and thyroid for a wild ride.  I hope you see this is more than a thyroid issue.  Most people have a web that has to be untangled since the thyroid is so sensitive to many other systems of the body.    If you have gotten to this point, you’re seriously in the game and need to know about gluten and antibodies for thyroid peroxidase (TPO). If you have antibodies for TPO you have an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  You MUST stop eating gluten immediately.  The gluten molecule looks exactly like TPO, therefore every time you eat gluten you are creating an immune response in which your body attacks itself in addition to the gluten compounding your health issue significantly.  The other absolute must at this point is stop taking iodine.  If you haven’t tested your antibodies you could be making things worse.  Iodine stimulates TPO production which increases the immune response and the body will increase its attack on itself.  To the person trying to get to the bottom of someone suffering with a thyroid condition where the labs appear normal or the person that has been on a roller coaster ride trying to get their thyroid problem under control and is about to give up, please listen.  We have answers.  We look at the entire person, leaving no stone unturned.  Due to the fact that that, most of the time, the thyroid is a secondary reaction to something else transpiring in the body we must look at everything from food sensitivities, gut health, immune panels, adrenals, blood sugar, anemia, hormones, full thyroid panel, thyroid antibodies, and the brain.