Priority Number One: Getting Off Of My Thyroid Meds.

Prescription For Modern Medicine: Take this pill, once a day, for the rest of your life.

 

 

 

 

 

At 17 years old my doctor handed me a prescription for synthroid and told me I would need to take one pill a day for the rest of my life. I had Hypo-thyroidism, or more specifically Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, that was the reason for my heart palpitations and for all the lethargy I was experiencing. When I asked why my thyroid was malfunctioning my doctor shrugged and said simply, “It’s genetic.” Then she scrambled out the door for her next five minute $500 consultation.

I never did like that answer, though all the females on each side of my family have it, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t resented that little pill of synthroid, or levoxyl, or levothyroxine every single time I had to take it. The lethargy improved, though I still was sleeping 16 hours a day when given the chance, I could at least move my arms without becoming winded, but the palpitations persisted.

Over the years I did my own research on the thyroid, even going so far as to write a 20 page essay for my environmental nursing class on the subject in 2005. Though I was knee deep in medical journals and textbooks I never did find an answer to my question. Why am I malfunctioning?

Or more specifically why had my body decided that my thyroid was public enemy number one? Had it really been that bad? Did it commit murder? Rob a bank? Jay walk?

No. It simply was a case of mistaken identity.

You see gliadin, the protein found in Wheat, Barley, and Rye, looks an awful lot like our protein structure. Once gliadin enters the blood stream (through a leaky gut) the body, resourceful as it is, makes anti-bodies to attack and take care of the foreign invader. Only this invader speaks our language, dresses just like us, and confuses the anti-bodies until they turn paranoid and begin attacking everything in sight. In this case my thyroid gland.

I went gluten free in June 2010, on the advice of my cousin, to see if that annoying back/chest rash would go away. It did, but what I found was so much more and opened up a whole new life for me. Thank goodness for vanity is all I have to say on that subject. Three weeks into the gluten free diet I accidentally ate something with gluten in it. Not thirty minutes later my thyroid and throat had swollen up by 50%. Both had gone down so gradually over the previous weeks that I hadn’t noticed the change until it came back in force.

That led me to wonder if there was a gluten/thyroid connection and begin many months of arduous research. The conclusion. Yes. The two are very, very closely linked. In this video Dr. Vikki Petersen explains.

Over the next few months I watched as my thyroid meds were lowered from .150 mg to .100 mg and now back up to .125 mg. (I got massively exposed to gluten at one point and had to increase the dose). I had been steadily increasing my meds over the years and so to see them go in the other direction was a real eye opener for me.

The doctor’s at Health Now have had success with getting people off of their thyroid meds and, though I know it isn’t a guarantee because it depends on how bad off my thyroid is, I have hope for the first time since I was 17. And being only 30 my doctors are very optimistic that my body will heal itself given time and the proper support.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress. Please do wish me luck! <3