Your Thyroid Gland Does Not Live Alone in a Bubble!
We live in an age of medical specialization. If you have joint pain, then you go to the rheumatologist. If you have a heart problem, you go to the cardiologist and on and on it goes. The conventional medical paradigm does not promote the concept of the interconnectedness of body systems. In Functional Medicine, we look at the entire body and its web-like interaction to find the root cause or causes of health challenges. What that means for the thyroid gland is that it is not alone, whether it’s working fantastically or creating havoc inside of you. Where there is one problem there are often others if you know where and how to look for them. Everyone is biologically unique therefor the root causes and solutions are different for each person.
Do you or don’t you have a thyroid problem? So many people have thyroid problems and don’t even know it. 27,000 people have some form of thyroid dysfunction and a large percentage of them have been completely missed. They have a thyroid problem or believe they are successfully controlling it with thyroid medication even though they may still be having symptoms that they feel are unrelated to their condition.
If you have these problems:
You are cold, constipated, have constant fatigue, brain fog, weight gain hair loss, mood swings, constipation, brittle nails, low blood pressure ,thinning hair, sensitivity to cold, frequent infections, joint pains, loss of libido, insomnia, elevated cholesterol (and more!)
You may have a hypothyroid problem.
Using laboratory analysis to get the accurate information, get 7 individual lab tests to determine whether thyroid problems exist. These are: TSH, total T3, T 3 free, T 4 free, reverse T3, TPO, TgAb. With this information, let a functional medicine practitioner run a T3 thyroid calculator which will give you even more information about thyroid function. This is a more complete way to see what your thyroid is really doing. It may seem strange but sometimes people show up normal on lab while their thyroid is still problematic. Symptoms prevail. If your doctor does not want to run all of these tests, you can get your own thyroid tests online without needing to get a doctor’s prescription. You can go to www.directlabs.com and run them yourself.
There are many reasons why thyroid function can fail, but one of the most important causes has to do with stress and adrenal function. There are 3 primary types of stress that ultimately cause adrenal fatigue. They are:
Emotional and spiritual stress
Dietary stress in the form of sugar and inflammatory foods
Pain and inflammation caused either by GI or liver internal toxins or infection and/or external toxins.
The adrenals secretes their primary stress hormone cortisol and it will increase but over time. When the adrenals are having more and more difficulty managing these stressors, they will start to secrete less cortisol. Here’s the big take away:
Cortisol directly reduces the thyroid’s ability to convert T 4 into T 3 which is the most active form of thyroid hormone. No matter what you do to help your thyroid, if you don't know that your adrenals are interfering with thyroid function, what you do to help the thyroid will far less effective. It behooves you to find out more about your adrenal glands in order to help your thyroid because no organ lives in a bubble. CHECK YOUR ADRENAL FUNCTION!
Ready to get your Adrenal Function checked?
Getting data on yourself is a very important step to make in the healing of your body by finding the root cause or causes. You can start the process of really understanding your body and coming up with a lifestyle plan to bring your health back, live the life you want, do the things you want, be the person you want without your body interfering with your life and dreams!
Call me at 831-476-6906 to setup your no-obligation Adrenal Consultation. I will order your adrenal stress index test (alternately you can order it yourself at directlabs.com) to find out what your adrenal glands are doing. Once we receive the results, I will help you interpret those results to help you on your path to wellness.
