Is Thyroid Medication Making Your Condition Worse? Functional Medicine Expert Discusses The Causes
Are you taking your thyroid medicine but still feel horrible? Have you been taking it for more than 5 years? Did you know that you may have been misdiagnosed and the medication you are taking is really making the problem worse? When looking at a thyroid condition it is really important that you find the CAUSE of the problem and not just throw medication at it.
There are actually 6 different causes of hypothyroid problems.
Of those 6 only 1 MAY need medication, but the majority of thyroid conditions do not.
CAUSES The first cause is called Primary Hypothyroidism.
This is the only one that might need medication but research has shown that 90% of those diagnosed with this condition actually have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune condition that does not medication at all because it isn't a thyroid condition at all.
The second condition is Secondary Hypothyroidism due to an underactive pituitary gland.
This is where your thyroid gland works fine, but the pituitary, which stimulates the thyroid, gets lazy and doesn't send enough information to the thyroid to tell it to make more thyroid hormones.
With this condition, taking medication is actually the WRONG thing to do.
By taking medication you are actually telling the pituitary everything is fine and doesn't need to work at all.
So the real problem gets worse and worse the longer you take the medication.
The third cause is under conversion of T4 into T3.
When your body makes thyroid hormone it makes 93% T4 and only 7% T3.
The body can only use T3 so T4 needs to be converted in the liver (60%), gut (20%) and peripheral tissues (20%).
With this third cause your pituitary and thyroid work great but the conversion isn't happening.
I hope you can see that medication will not help this condition because it is not a thyroid problem but a problem with your liver, gut or peripheral tissues.
The fourth cause is over conversion and decreased TBG.
TBG is a substance in the blood that transports the thyroid hormone to the various tissues.
So if you don't have enough TBG and too much T3 a problem arises because your body can't get the proper amount of thyroid hormone delivered in a timely manner.
Too much testosterone is the cause of this problem.
If your hormones are imbalanced and your testosterone is too high it will cause a decrease of TBG.
The fifth cause is too much TBG resulting in not enough T3 for all of the transport molecules.
It is like going to New York and finding five million cabs and only 500 people to move.
Well if the driver picks up a fair, he really doesn't want to drop them off because he knows that it will be a long time before gets another rider.
The main causes this problem are birth control pills and estrogen hormone replacement therapy which will raise estrogen levels causing an increase in TBG levels.
The sixth and last cause is thyroid hormone resistance.
With this condition your cells have developed a problem that it won't accept thyroid hormone into the cells themselves.
This is caused by too much stress which causes a release of too much cortisone.
Cortisol will prevent substances like insulin and thyroid hormone from getting into the cells.
I hope this has helped you see that only one of these six causes may need medication.
Then only 10% of those will need medication.
If you have one of the other 5 causes you do not need medication to treat the problem.
If you do take medication it can and will make your condition worse by telling the pituitary gland that everything is OK and it doesn't need to work anymore.
Please find the real cause of your thyroid problem and correct it the right way, and that usually is WITHOUT medication.
There are actually 6 different causes of hypothyroid problems.
Of those 6 only 1 MAY need medication, but the majority of thyroid conditions do not.
CAUSES The first cause is called Primary Hypothyroidism.
This is the only one that might need medication but research has shown that 90% of those diagnosed with this condition actually have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune condition that does not medication at all because it isn't a thyroid condition at all.
The second condition is Secondary Hypothyroidism due to an underactive pituitary gland.
This is where your thyroid gland works fine, but the pituitary, which stimulates the thyroid, gets lazy and doesn't send enough information to the thyroid to tell it to make more thyroid hormones.
With this condition, taking medication is actually the WRONG thing to do.
By taking medication you are actually telling the pituitary everything is fine and doesn't need to work at all.
So the real problem gets worse and worse the longer you take the medication.
The third cause is under conversion of T4 into T3.
When your body makes thyroid hormone it makes 93% T4 and only 7% T3.
The body can only use T3 so T4 needs to be converted in the liver (60%), gut (20%) and peripheral tissues (20%).
With this third cause your pituitary and thyroid work great but the conversion isn't happening.
I hope you can see that medication will not help this condition because it is not a thyroid problem but a problem with your liver, gut or peripheral tissues.
The fourth cause is over conversion and decreased TBG.
TBG is a substance in the blood that transports the thyroid hormone to the various tissues.
So if you don't have enough TBG and too much T3 a problem arises because your body can't get the proper amount of thyroid hormone delivered in a timely manner.
Too much testosterone is the cause of this problem.
If your hormones are imbalanced and your testosterone is too high it will cause a decrease of TBG.
The fifth cause is too much TBG resulting in not enough T3 for all of the transport molecules.
It is like going to New York and finding five million cabs and only 500 people to move.
Well if the driver picks up a fair, he really doesn't want to drop them off because he knows that it will be a long time before gets another rider.
The main causes this problem are birth control pills and estrogen hormone replacement therapy which will raise estrogen levels causing an increase in TBG levels.
The sixth and last cause is thyroid hormone resistance.
With this condition your cells have developed a problem that it won't accept thyroid hormone into the cells themselves.
This is caused by too much stress which causes a release of too much cortisone.
Cortisol will prevent substances like insulin and thyroid hormone from getting into the cells.
I hope this has helped you see that only one of these six causes may need medication.
Then only 10% of those will need medication.
If you have one of the other 5 causes you do not need medication to treat the problem.
If you do take medication it can and will make your condition worse by telling the pituitary gland that everything is OK and it doesn't need to work anymore.
Please find the real cause of your thyroid problem and correct it the right way, and that usually is WITHOUT medication.