The human body is the sum of its parts. We cannot separate any organ, gland or system from the whole or each other. They all interact in a complex web of chemical reactions relying on each other to fulfill the requirements for the body to work properly.
I don't understand why most of the modern western medical model clearly separates the body into its parts. If blood work shows elevated or low numbers for a specific organ or gland that is the only part that is focused on in western medicine. Specifically with the thyroid, there seems to be a disconnect between the way the thyroid interacts specifically with the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal glands, kidney, liver, and the gut.
A person will go to their general practitioner and get blood work, and if their thyroid numbers are off, it is common practice to give a drug that's main objective is to normalize the thyroid blood work numbers. You may receive a thyroid diagnosis like Hashimotos, Graves, hypothyroid or hyperthyroid. What is never addressed is why the thyroid is malfunctioning and what may be the underlying cause of the thyroid imbalance? Most medical advice is to take the drug forever, which is a band aid for a problem that is never really solved.
This would be like when I ride my bicycle to work every day. If I kept getting a flat tire going over the same pothole, I could keep band aiding the problem by spending money and fixing the tire, or call 311 so the road crew can fix the cause of my flat tire, which is the pothole. Fix the pothole and my bike's tire is no longer compromised.
Let's take a closer look at the thyroid to gain a better understanding of where thyroid problems can come from. The thyroid is a gland that is located just below the larynx in the neck region. It produces hormones primarily T3, T4, and calcitonin, that are responsible for the metabolic rate and how quickly the cells in your body use energy, regulates body temperature, regulates the use of body fats and glucose stores, controls levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood, influences heart rate, influences neuromuscular function, and controls growth and maturity of many systems of the body.
The hypothalamus produces a hormone called TRH, which tells the pituitary gland to secrete TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). If the hypothalamus or pituitary glands are not functioning properly, then down this chain, the thyroid hormones T4 and T3 may be impaired.
The thyroid gland requires tyrosine (an amino acid), iodine, and vitamins to make T4. If your body is deficient in any of these hormones, it will not be able to make T4 properly. The kidneys and the liver convert T4 to T3.
If you have a sluggish liver or kidneys than this hormone conversion will not be effective. The liver may be backed up with toxins and may have difficulty functioning properly. If the kidneys are not performing the function well of getting rid of excess acid, the body cannot maintain a balanced pH. Balanced pH is necessary for proper enzyme function, and enzymes are necessary to convert T4 to T3. Some thyroid medications are primarily T3, but this still needs to be converted to the active form. Many people still feel "thyroid symptoms" taking traditional medication, because the liver and kidneys are having problems.
The adrenal glands act as the motor to the thyroid gland. If the adrenal glands aren't working properly than the thyroid gland will be impacted. Many hypothyroid cases are actually adrenal gland imbalances. If the adrenal glands are producing too much cortisol, then T4 conversion to T3 will be affected, because cortisol affects this conversion. By helping the adrenal glands to function properly, the thyroid gland functions better.
One of the most overlooked connections to the thyroid is gut health. One of the many roles of the gut bacteria is to help convert inactive T4 into the active form of thyroid hormone, T3. About 20 percent of T4 is converted to T3 in the gastrointestinal tract, in the forms of T3S and T3AC.
The conversion of T3S and T3AC into active T3 requires an enzyme called intestinal sulfatase. Dysbiosis or an imbalance of bad bacteria or microorganisms to good bacteria affects the production of intestinal sulfatase. You need the good bacteria to produce this enzyme. This is compromised when the gut has too many bad guys.
Food sensitivities (especially gluten and solanine), candida, parasites, heavy metals, protozoa, bad bacteria, viruses, chemicals, pesticides, toxins, yeast, mold and mildews all contribute to poor gut health. If the gut is unhealthy, every system in the body is unhealthy, and this includes the thyroid.
If you have been diagnosed with a thyroid imbalance of any kind, it is important to do the following:
Get a shower filter and a drinking water filter that takes out chlorine; chlorine binds to iodine receptors (because they are closely related in chemical structure) producing unstable T4.
- Get rid of toxins in the body
- Balance the gut
- Stay away from food sensitivities you have such as gluten and solanine. Solanine is in foods like tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, paprika, and tobacco.
- Have limited quantities of these uncooked foods: kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, turnips, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and rutabaga.
- Get tested for natural thyroid support that will help with the underlying cause of the thyroid imbalance.
Many
chronic neck pain sufferers actually have a thyroid imbalance. The thyroid will refer pain to the neck. I have balanced patient's thyroids through
nutrition muscle testing, and their chronic neck pain diminishes.
A simple test for detecting thyroid imbalance is the Barnes thyroid test. You can read more about it online, but it involves taking your temperature under your armpit every morning first thing (even before getting out of bed continually for 10 minutes) for a three-day period. Normal temps should be between 97.6 and 98.4 degrees, with the average of all readings. Blood tests can miss a true thyroid imbalance as many practitioners look at
the TSH levels and do not look at the reverse T3 and thyroid antibody numbers, which are just as important.
Many imbalances in the body have an emotional conflict linked to them. For certain patients, the emotional conflict for their thyroid imbalances may be a conflict of time or feeling that they never have enough time. Another conflict may be feeling like a great injustice has been perpetrated against them. Through
neuroemotional technique, I have uncovered this conflict with many patients that suffer from thyroid issues.
We have to start paying more attention to the concept of the body as a whole being. Organs and glands don't just start malfunctioning unless there is a reason. Most people aren't born with a thyroid, liver, kidney or any other body part issue, but this develops over a period of time and a period of imbalance.
In closing, it's never a good idea to treat individual body parts or glands without looking at the whole body as an interrelated system. Treating just one component of the body can lead to other imbalances. Through nutritional muscle and reflex testing, many underlying imbalances can be identified and the proper supportive natural thyroid supplementation can be recommended to achieve not only thyroid health but whole-body health.
