How to deal with Hashimotos?

[Scholar]

5 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Sorry to hear this has been going on for you. I'm sure you've probably tried tons of things but maybe this could help a bit. This is an anonymous case study of someone I worked with. 

This lady was diagnosed with acute thyroiditis, probably of infectious origin. Not autoimmune, so slightly different to Hashimoto's. She had to go on a 2 months cycle of prenisone which wasn't great but it helped quench the inflammation although there were side effects. 

I recommended some blood tests to her doctor and after some examination, we found that her iron was critically low. Her vitamin D wasn't great either, and on top of that, she was recently made redundant and went through a lot of stress.

Even after that prednisone, she would often feel tingling in her thyroid as if the inflammation was trying to come back. Some things we did was@: replenish her iron with 200mg of iron bisglycinate per day for 3 months, got her vitamin D in the upper 80s (ng/mL),

Secondly, we made lots of adjustments to her diet. She increased her antioxidant intake from pomegranates, broccoli, purple cabbage etc. She's been regularly making lentil vegetable soups in an Instapot. She also introduced more fibre and probiotic foods in the diet.  She also reduced her consumption of sodium-rich processed food, sugar, saturated fat (especially from high fat dairy) and sweetened drinks. 

Thirdly,  we severely restricted her sodium (temporarily) intake because she lived in a country where salt might have been iodised and sodium in general can be inflammatory in excess. I encouraged her to seek out iodine free salt. In some countries this is not an issue but maybe worth checking. 

I think her Zinc was also low but we never measured it. She took a 30-day course of Zinc Citrate

And finally, she also started to exercise more, especially cardio and aquatic exercise. She found a gym that has a sauna and says it has been helping her. 

Retrospectively I think her issue was significantly weakened immune system that has trouble mounting up a proper  response. She was also quite sedentary so her lympatic system which houses tons of her B-Cells and T-Cells wasn't being moved. Her low iron was probably a major contributor and so was her stress. The antioxidant intake was to help mop up free radical storm around her body caused by the inflammation and help support cellular defences.  - as of now, the last I checked with her, her thyroid results were almost normal, with TSH being slightly above 2 but no antibodies detected. Her CRP has calmed down too. She says she hasn't felt that thyroid tingling since August which correlates to the time she started exercising more so maybe that was the last piece of a puzzle. - not sure if its gone or if it'll come back, it might. But those things seemed to have helped. 

Also, one more thing we added that I think helped was this. It is quite expensive and not sure if you can get it in your country but my client swore this made a difference. https://www.designsforhealth.uk/shop/inf120-pl-inflammatone-120-capsule-554#attr=1740,1011,1267,1332,1704,1918,61

I think we went up to 8 capsules a day in the beginning and than downwards from there. Thats significantly over the recommended intake so I'm not making any recommendation, just saying what we did. We obtained her doctor's approval first. 

One thing she herself added was drinking 1 litre of tea with ground ginger (about half the size of a thumb), 1 tablespoon of raw honey she bought from a countryside beekeeper in her country and 1/2 lemon.  Sometimes she added Cayenne pepper to it, it must have tested gross, but all those things have anti-inflammatory properties, so I was happy to encourage it. 

So I'd say on the top of everything you're already doing, you could investigate your blood work, ask for a full iron panel test , maybe add vitamin D into the list and see if anything comes up. Look into that salt iodisation too and ensure you're not using one that contains it. Ramping up your antioxidants is likely to be of benefit. And I'm sure you're already physically active but if not, that's of an importance too. If anything else in that report resonates, give it a shot too. 

With regards to Iodine supplementation, caution is advised as it can exacerbate the inflammation if you supplement during a flareup, but best ask professional guidance on this as it is a very tricky topic. Look up best dietary sources of  it if you're concerned. I believe you are vegan, correct? Still, there are options available such as seaweeds. 

hope that helps. 

 

This is very comprehensive! I basically did/am aware of most of the concepts here, but I might have to up my iron intake because I take 20-40mg bisglycinate at most. Thank you for this I definitely will take some of the things into account and implement them.

[Michael569]

@Scholar one thing I'd say is definitely test it first before supplementing high dose. 

Best do the full panel which includes: total iron, ferritin, transferin, TIBC and UIBC. That way you'll get the most holistic picture of transport, storage and acute need. Done alongside full blood count ideally.