SEARCH
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis: Your Body Is Not Supposed to Destroy Itself Right?
Related: auto-immune disease, Expose Somewhat To Right, Expose To The Right, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, health, The Epoch Times
Pay attention to this one of you have any symptoms. And particularly after COVID or a COVID jab, because insults to the immune system can reactivate viruses and/or directly provoke auto-immune.
See also: What Does Elevated Anti-TPO Mean if Other Thyroid Markers are Normal?
The Epoch Times: Hashimoto’s Disease: Your Body Is Not Supposed to Destroy Itself Right?
2022-07-14, by Dana Trentini
Hashimoto’s disease is an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks and destroys its own thyroid gland. Piece by piece your body chews up and destroys your own thyroid gland as if it is the enemy.
In a healthy immune system, antibodies act as the body’s army to detect and destroy invaders not normally present in the body, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. In the case of Hashimoto’s disease, a defective immune system wreaks havoc on the body by directing antibodies against its own thyroid gland as if it is a foreign invader. Although Hashimoto’s disease is considered a leading cause of hypothyroidism around the world, it is a tragically overlooked disease in mainstream medicine.
You might be thinking, “My doctor has never diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s disease. This post is not about me.” Are you sure?
You May Have Hashimoto’s Disease and Not Even Know It
Have you gone to your doctor complaining of common hypothyroidism symptoms, such as fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, muscle weakness, constipation, irregular menstrual cycles, frequent infections, dry skin, and hair loss? Has your thyroid lab test come back “normal” and your doctor tells you your thyroid is perfectly fine, yet you walk out of the office without relief from these common symptoms? Have you had your thyroid antibodies tested? Are you sure? ...Despite the prevalence of Hashimoto’s, thyroid antibodies are often NOT tested. You may have Hashimoto’s and not know it.
With Hashimoto’s, your body attacks and destroys the thyroid gland piece by piece eventually rendering your thyroid gland incapable of producing the hormones your body needs eventually leaving you with full-blown hypothyroidism. This process of destruction can take years even decades, all the while you begin developing more and more hypothyroid symptoms yet your doctor’s thyroid lab tests come back “normal”. Traditional mainstream doctors rely on a thyroid blood test called TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, to diagnose and treat hypothyroidism. The problem with Hashimoto’s is that your TSH can turn up ‘”normal” while your body is quietly destroying your thyroid gland and your doctor has no clue because the level of destruction hasn’t YET triggered an abnormal TSH reading.
The number one issue is that many traditional doctors do NOT test for thyroid antibodies. In mainstream medicine TSH rules, leaving millions of Hashimoto’s patients around the world undiagnosed and untreated. You must be an advocate for yourself and insist on the following two thyroid antibody tests:
- Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies (TPOAb)
- Thyroglobulin Antibodies (TgAb)
Doctors Refuse to Treat Hashimoto’s When TSH is Normal
Another major problem is that many traditional doctors refuse to treat patients who test positive for thyroid antibodies, even when they suffer debilitating symptoms, all because their TSH level is “normal.” Unfortunately, TSH rules above all else in mainstream medicine when it comes to hypothyroidism. You may have Hashimoto’s disease with elevated thyroid antibodies, yet all because the destruction of your thyroid gland has not YET destroyed enough of your gland yet to trigger an abnormal TSH reading, you are refused treatment and forced to cope with your symptoms.
...Doctors trained in the mainstream protocol that “only patients with TSH higher than X should be treated” leave their patients with thyroid antibodies but normal TSH level untreated. They use this medical protocol to justify why their hands are tied. There are countless Hashimoto’s sufferers around the world feeling helpless right now because their doctors refuse to help them.
...
“LT4 treatment at doses keeping TSH at low-normal levels appears to be effective not only in decreasing the auto-antibody levels but also in the goiter size…there appears to be an inhibitory effect of LT4 treatment on the ongoing disease process in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients. Early treatment of euthyroid Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients with L-thyroxine may slow down not only the disease process itself but through its immune modulating effects, it may also affect the course of other auto-immune disease which accompany.”
If only mainstream doctors would treat a person who is positive for thyroid antibodies as soon as possible, even if their TSH level is normal, they may prevent full-blown hypothyroidism from occurring to that person. If only mainstream doctors would do this, imagine how much suffering they would prevent for their Hashimoto’s patients.
... If nothing is done to slow down the attack on your thyroid, you become vulnerable to developing other potentially life-threatening autoimmune diseases. Your whole body becomes fair game for attack, all while your doctor insists you are fine.
WIND: spot-on. The whole thing ought to make you vomit.
For myself and my daughter, I say that the description above is exactly right. The malpractice+incompetence+dogma factor in mainstream medicine is appalling. Actually, it goes beyond incompetence to malpractice and callousness, where a doctor being “right” or checkboxing “standard of care” while letting someone suffer is the standard of abuse (which is what the standard of care too often is these days). Intellectual con artists gaslighting patients.
I am one of those “euthyroid” people (hormones as yet within range). By definition in standard medicine, there is nothing wrong with me. It’s only now in this article that I learn that hormones could slow the progression. No doctor ever has ever so much as mentioned that idea. That makes me furious. You’re risking your life with these these crackpots.
Personal notes
Auto-antibodies to my thyroid had plummeted back in April/May, and I started feeling great again. Like I had a life and a future again. What a great feeling!
Auto-antibodies are antibodies the body makes to attack itself. The key test for thyroid antibodies is TPO (thyroid peroxidase).
But by mid June it was obvious that things were going downhill again. Subtle flags at first, then increasing fatigue, low-grade but constant pain, large increases in sleep needs, concentration and motivation issues, appetite disturbances, etc.
Here now in mid-July, I just had a blood draw today to retest, because the past several weeks things got a lot worse, although the past 2 days things have upticked slightly to allow some work/functionality. Fake-out or an upcycle? Time will tell.
The various thyroid tests are not likely to yield anything actionable any more than before, but I want to know if there is a correlation between TPO and how I’m feeling. It would at least strongly suggest that the cycle indeed is a fluctuation in immune function attacking my thyroid. Fighting an unknown challenge you cannot control or predict is far worse than having a working hypothesis as a basis for investigation.
My family medicine doctor tells me there is no clinical value in retesting—quoting some standard of non-care dogma apparently. As if charting the course of a disease is irrelevant. If only on a psychological level, knowing what might be causal is incredibly important. Versus this doctor shrugging “dunno” to every question I posed and then sending me a $500 invoice. Too many doctors are a scam and sham these days: enormous costs and in exchange you get no value, nothing that can help you. If not omissions or outright lies. My feeling now, based on too many bad experiences, is that many doctors are now inferior to Dr Google, with “talk to your doctor” surely intended as a bad joke. I cannot think of any other profession so at odds with the pay-for-value proposition.
Why not see an endocrinologist? To what end. A decade of observing endocrinologists charge my daughter thousands for service no better than Dr Google, all while telling her she is just fine because her numbers are OK—while she felt horrible. Along with insisting that “equivalent” meds that act very differently—medical malpractice and fraud. Paint-by-numbers medicine does not inspire confidence, and when I’ve been foolish enough to see a doctor (eg recently), I get a massive bill and no actionable value. It’s an exploitative profession at this point.
Bill K writes:
Thanks for your ongoing commentary on various health related issues, we live in very strange times. My own curiosity with health related matters leads to various ‘alternative’ therapeutic approaches.
Recently I listened to a podcast with Regan Archibald, who runs EastWest Health in Salt Lake City. Like you, Regan has Hashimoto’s, which got him started on his quest for effective therapeutic treatments. EastWest specializes in regenerative medicine, including peptide therapies, which was the topic of the podcast. Specifically, there is strong evidence that peptide therapies are an effective treatment for Hashimoto’s.
I have no affiliation with EastWest, I’m just intrigued with regenerative medicine. Also enjoy the content on your website (including photography stuff). Who knows, maybe you’re already familiar with this clinic or perhaps it’s new information.
If you’re interested, their website is https://acueastwest.com/
WIND: maybe this will help someone. Like so many solutions out there, the time and energy and money required are always a big friction factor for me, and I’m sure for others too. I might or might not look into.
