Naturopathic Treatments
Are you having difficulty sleeping?
Gaining or losing weight, with no good explanation?
Are you waking up exhausted even after a long night’s sleep?
If so, you may have a thyroid condition.
There are a number of different conditions that can affect your thyroid. However, Dr. Maria offers naturopathic solutions for thyroid conditions which may help.
What Is Your Thyroid?
Your thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland that lives in the front of your throat. It’s an essential part of your body’s endocrine system, a system of glands and organs that secrete hormones into your bloodstream.
Thyroid hormones are responsible for, among other things, your metabolism. It’s a delicate organ, and if it falls out of balance it can lead to a number of different health conditions.
Below you’ll find some of the more common thyroid disorders.
Naturopathic Treatments For Hyperthyroidism
When your thyroid works harder than it ought to, this creates a condition known as hyperthyroidism. In hyperthyroidism, your thyroid produces more thyroid hormones than is necessary, which can lead to a faster metabolism.
If you’re hoping to lose weight, that may sound like a good thing. However, there are a number of other symptoms associated with hyperthyroidism, including:
- Weight loss
- Increased appetite
- Weakened muscles
- Insomnia
- Sweating, especially in the palms
- More frequent bowel movements
- Increased or irregular heart rate
- Thinning hair or skin
- Menstrual changes
- Nervousness or anxiety
- Irritability
- Increased sensitivity to heat
- Goiter (an enlarged thyroid gland)
If left long enough, hyperthyroidism can be fatal. However, there are naturopathic solutions which may help.
If you have any of the above symptoms, Contact the Mindful Healing Clinic to book an appointment today.
Naturopathic Treatments For Hypothyroidism
Unlike hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism is an underactive thyroid.
And because it’s the opposite condition to hyperthyroidism, the symptoms are generally the opposite as well. If you have hypothyroidism, you may experience the following symptoms:
- Weight gain
- Chronic fatigue
- Constipation
- Dry, thinning skin or hair
- Decreased heart rate
- Hoarse throat
- Increased sensitivity to cold
- Aches, tenderness, and stiffness in the muscles or joints
- Heavier menstruation
- Depression
- Brain fog
- Difficulty remembering
- Goiter
- Higher cholesterol levels
Hypothyroidism is often associated with autoimmune disorders as well. In particular, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which we’ll get to next.
Your thyroid might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of important organs in your body, but an underactive thyroid can significantly impact your quality of life. Left untreated, it can be fatal.
Fortunately, there are naturopathic treatments available designed to bring your thyroid back into balance and alleviate your hypothyroidism symptoms.
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is one of the most common causes of hypothyroidism.
It’s an autoimmune disorder, where your immune system sees your thyroid gland itself as a pathogen and attacks it. This leads to chronic inflammation, as well as chronic under-performance of the thyroid gland.
Hashimoto’s generally progresses very slowly, taking many years to take full effect. As a result, you likely won’t have any symptoms at all at first. Because of this, the best way to diagnose Hashimoto’s disease is by looking at the levels of TPO antibodies in your blood. TPO is an enzyme that plays a role in your thyroid’s production of thyroid hormones.
Otherwise, if you have the symptoms of hypothyroidism listed above, there’s a good chance the root cause of it is Hashimoto’s disease.
Conventional medicine often focuses on supplementing with synthetic thyroid hormones to bring themback to normal levels. This may address your hypothyroidism symptoms, but it does nothing to get to the root cause of the problem.
Naturopathic treatments for Hashimoto’s disease focus on removing the elements that caused your immune system to attack your thyroid, as well as repairing the damage done to it. Contact the Mindful Healing Clinic to find out more.
Graves’ Disease
Graves’ disease is a common underlying cause of hyperthyroidism.
Like Hashimoto’s, it’s an autoimmune condition. Unlike Hashimoto’s, though, it stimulates the thyroid to work harder than normal through increased production of TSIs. TSIs are thyroid stimulating immunoglobins.
Symptoms of Graves’ disease are similar to hyperthyroidism, but there are additional complications.
One is Graves’ ophthalmopathy, where inflammation affects the tissue around the eyes. This happens in about 30% of cases. As a result, you may have:
- Double vision
- Sensitivity to light
- Vision loss
- Bulging eyes
- Puffy eyelids
- Pressure or painful, reddened eyes
Another, less common manifestation is Graves’ dermopathy, where your skin becomes reddened and thicker, especially on your shins or feet.
Naturopathic treatments for Graves’ disease focus on helping reduce your symptoms, while at the same time addressing their root cause. The goal is to help you get back to a normal level of thyroid function without any invasive treatments.
Contact The Mindful Healing Clinic
If you have a thyroid disorder, it can have a disturbing impact on nearly every facet of your life.
Conventional medicine often relies on either supplementing your thyroid hormones, or reducing your thyroid’s ability to produce hormones, sometimes removing it altogether. But the former doesn’t address the underlying cause, while the latter can lead to other issues, and can leave you dependent on thyroid supplements for the rest of your life.
Either way, this isn’t always necessary. Contact the Mindful Healing Clinic today to speak with Dr. Maria about your thyroid concerns. You’ll work together to uncover the root cause of your thyroid condition and build a treatment plan designed to address the root cause.
