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When practicing functional medicine, it is important to construct a health timeline with patients. Often I ask “When was the last time you felt well?” Often, my patients with thyroid disorders such as hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis will often say they last felt well when diagnosed with their thyroid condition.
WHY IS THIS? Well, for one, we as health care providers do not balance the thyroid hormones as well as mother nature does. Hormones in our body are engaged in an intricate dance that involves communication between our brain, our thyroid and the rest of our body. We use symptoms as well as biomarkers in blood to figure out dosages but HORMONE LEVELS FLUCTUATE NATURALLY and are not static. This means that some of the time we get it right but often we don’t.
The second reason is that in my conventional training I learned to manage the dosing based on the TSH- the thyroid stimulating hormone and there was no need to check any other numbers. So if my patient had symptoms of thyroid dysfunction, underactive or overactive thyroid, but their numbers were “within range”, I would just leave dosing alone. I understand now through my functional medicine training that there is so much more we need to pay attention to- T3 and T4, plus reverse T3 and potentially minerals such as zinc, selenium and iodine. We may also need to look at other hormones that interact with our thyroid such as stress hormones and our sex hormones. Most importantly, I have learned to pay attention to the SYMPTOMS my patients are reporting.
The third reason my thyroid patients often relate to not feeling well is that their immune system is out of balance. Most often if there is thyroid disease it is usually related to an autoimmune condition. An autoimmune condition is where the immune system has mistaken self for non-self and waged an attack. The immune system does not just wake up one day and do this- there is usually some trigger. Sometimes we can identify the triggers and remove them to calm the immune system down. This is more of a long- term project than some of the hormone balance issues but it is critical. Autoimmune conditions are becoming more common and if you develop one, you are more likely to develop another unless YOU IDENTIFY THE TRIGGER.
At Sparkle Health, we first balance your hormones taking into account thyroid symptoms and ALL of your thyroid lab data. We then look at potential triggers based on your personal history, order testing to dig into the WHY of your condition to help you feel your best.
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