Thyroid Disorders

Hypothyroidism, one of several thyroid disorders in which the thyroid function is low, is known to exist in more than 40 million women. Is it the scourge of your life?

The American Endocrine Society has acknowledged that over half of American women (>170 million total) may develop hypothyroidism at some point in their life and experience symptoms from anxiety, depression, brain-fog, inability to lose weight and poor digestion despite taking replacement thyroid hormones.

But what most people don’t know, including your medical doctor, is that your thyroid is not the problem in the majority of cases!

The #1 cause of hypothyroidism according to the American Endocrine Society is an autoimmune disorder called “Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism”. That’s right – your thyroid condition is really an immune system condition! This means that hypothyroidism care may have to switch focus from your thyroid to your immune system.

So what are the individual problems with Hashimoto’s/Hypothyroidism that are addressed by Dr. Autoimmune through functional medicine?

• Nutritional Status: What are the vitamins/minerals your body needs and are you absorbing them optimally? Which ones do you specifically need and could taking certain supplements actually hurt your thyroid and immune system?
• Hormonal Status: How can one hormone, for example, insulin, impact other hormones including the thyroid? How do your female and male hormones impact the immune system?
• Central Nervous System: How do various areas in your brain contribute to health? How does thyroid impact the brain and vice versa?
• Intestinal Permeability: What is “leaky gut” and is this impacting how you express autoimmune disease?
• Dysbiosis: How do the 3 pounds of microbes that all humans have in their gut influence our immune system and the rest of the body? What happens when bad bacteria become the dominant player in your gut?
• Detoxification Ability: How do the environment and your genetics interact to sequester and eliminate toxins that are known to create thyroid disease?
• Inflammation: How does your body process inflammatory chemicals and how do they create a vicious circle with hypothyroidism?
• Food Sensitivities: Which foods are beneficial and which are not? How do I determine what food sensitivities I have?
• Antioxidant status: What is glutathione and how can it help my thyroid? How do I get my body to make this naturally and should I supplement with it?
• Immunomodulation: This is a fancy term for “what can we do to calm your immune system down and activate the symphony conductors, T-regulatory cells?” This is critical because T-reg cells are the generals of the immune system and dictate whether we develop an autoimmune disease in the first place! Even with dietary changes, detoxification, and the removal of the above factors, patients still need stimulation to the immune system in order to rehabilitate it and optimize results.

So if I currently identify 10 separate and distinct interfering factors for this condition (and any other autoimmune diseases), how can we address them systematically? 

This is where functional medicine for hypothyroidism shines!

Functional medicine is all about “thinking & linking” your systems together instead of “blaming & taming”. Whether it’s diet, lifestyle modifications, supplements or specific neurological therapies, you need a plan that is designed for your specific needs, not a one-size-fits-all drug, supplement or dietary plan. We use this effective customized approach for thyroid disorders and autoimmune conditions to achieve significant results.

If you are truly committed to empowering yourself towards health then this is where we step in and develop a comprehensive plan to support each of the above areas.

We know it takes a commitment to reach your goals and we are here to guide you to reach beyond your goals. Let’s stop accepting “average” and putting up with “good enough”. It’s time to regain our health and our families’ health!