Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism & How to Rebalance Your Thyroid
What is Hyperthyroidism?
Hyperthyroidism is an overactive thyroid, where the thyroid gland produces too much of the thyroid hormones. It is characterised by hyper-metabolism and elevated serum levels of free thyroid hormones and 10x more common in women.
An overactive thyroid can have multiple root causes, but 85% of cases are down to Graves’ disease, which is an autoimmune condition. This is where increased IgG antibodies bind to TSH receptors and stimulate production of thyroid hormones. Other causes could be down to excessive iodine supplementation or the presence of tumour(s).
Symptoms
- Nervousness/Anxiety
- Irritability
- Hyperactivity
- Mood swings
- Insomnia
- Fatigue
- Sensitivity to Heat
- Muscle weakness
- Diarrhoea
- Constant need to pee
- Thirst
- Itchiness
Physical Signs:
- Swelling in your neck
- Irregular or fast heart rate
- Trembling
- Warm skin
- Excessive sweating
- Red palms
- Loose nails
- Skin rashes
- Weight loss
- Hair loss or thinning
- Eye problems
Grave’s Disease
In Grave’s disease, the symptoms are the opposite of an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism). Everything goes into overdrive. This still results in the same outcome: everything is weak! The body is running at 100 mph and that is extremely exhausting and not sustainable.
The thyroid becomes overactive because the immune system mistakenly attacks your thyroid, which causes it to become overactive.
Conventional Medicine Approach to Overcoming Hyperthyroidism
Conventional medicine uses an allopathic approach and can include, carbimazole, radioactive iodine, B-blockers or surgery. All of which work at a surface level, treating or just rebalancing the symptom, with no regard for the knock-on effect that this medication or method has on the rest of the body. Radioactive iodine for example is used to destroy part of the thyroid gland but this treatment is not very precise and what normally happens is that the whole thyroid is destroyed. What is the consequence of that? Well, not the person needs to go on thyroxine medication for the rest of their life…
Unless you address the underlying reason why you developed an overactive thyroid in the first place, you will just cause more imbalance by trying to look at the thyroid hormones in isolation, or even just the symptoms in isolation, because the issue is not being eradicated.
Our Approach to Overcoming Hyperthyroidism
We need to address the root cause. We need to balance inflammation as well as trying to protect the cardiovascular system from the huge strange that it’s under. If it’s Grave’s Disease, we need to look at the immune system, through the digestive system. This is because most autoimmune conditions can be linked back to poor gut health, and specifically leaky gut.
Leaky Gut & Autoimmune Disease
Leaky gut is increased intestinal permeability, which allows toxins, bacteria and even small food particles to transfer from your gastrointestinal tract into the rest of your body. If you’re suffering from an autoimmune issue, it means that your immune system is not functioning correctly. How are these linked?
Your immune system became overactive and started to mistakenly attack your own tissue, resulting in Grave’s Disease. 70% – 80% of your immune system is in your gut, so if you don’t fix your gut, you won’t be able to have a healthy immune system.
The substances that are released into the bloodstream through leaky gut are picked up by the immune system as ‘foreign invaders.’ Your immune system then tries to protect your body from these foreign invaders. Eventually, it becomes overstressed and begins to function incorrectly, leading to autoimmune issues.
Every time there is an immune response, there is an inflammatory response. Over time, your body becomes more and more inflamed, and we know how harmful chronic inflammation can be!
Many of the foreign substances leaking into the bloodstream have a very similar chemical structure to your own cells and so your immune system gets confused and starts attacking your own tissue as a result. This is called molecular mimicry and is another cause for autoimmune issues as a result of leaky gut.
How do we overcome this? We need to identify what the cause is first, and this would involve running at-home functional lab testing. In Grave’s, we would work on the toxicities or nutrient deficiencies found while using herbs and nutritional supplements to restore immune system balance.
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