Thyroid Anxiety: 15 Warning Signs

Hi darlings. This is Dr. Nicole and I am here for our kava kava tea time. I got a message from a warrior who wanted to talk about the thyroid gland and anxiety. So if you're curious about the thyroid gland and whether to your symptoms, then I'm glad that you're here. And, and we're going to talk about that today. So generally speaking, your thyroid gland can regulate your mood and your well being. It's one of those key organs that has a giant impact on how you feel. Think of your thyroid gland like the USPS postal service hub, where all of this information goes to the post office in the form of letters. The post office arranges it and then it sends those letters out to the appropriate locations. And, and so when it comes to your metabolism, your hormones, your energy, your sleep, all sorts of different things in your body are regulated by your thyroid gland. And so if your thyroid is out of balance, then it can change the way that all of these other organ systems work. And so today we're going to talk specifically about signs of the thyroid being out of balance and how that can impact your mood. And, and so when it comes to thyroid, your thyroid lives here at the base of your neck and it releases thyroid hormone called T3 and T4. The thyroid gland can be normal and healthy and great, or your thyroid gland can be overactive, which we call hyperthyroidism, or it can be underactive, which is called hypothyroidism. So I think of hyperactive, hyperthyroid, hypoactive, less active, that's hypothyroid. And so when we think of the thyroid, there are 15 signs that you might be out of balance and might need your thyroid checked. And so do you have dry skin? Do you have constipation? Do you have diarrhea or greasy skin? Or do you feel like your skin is right in the middle? So with the skin, if you answer yes to dry skin, your thyroid could be overactive. If you have constipation, that could mean your thyroid is underactive. So when we start thinking about these different organ systems, whether it's overactive or underactive, it's good to just get your thyroid checked. So ask yourself, do I have dry skin? Do I have constipation? Do I have heat or cold intolerance? Do you have low energy or is your energy way too high? Do you feel like it's hard to relax and you're restless? Or do you find that your energy fluctuates throughout the day or the seasons or the year? Some People find that they feel much more energized at nighttime and sleepy during the day, whereas some people feel really good throughout the year. But then in the fall, they get sluggish, and in the spring, they become more energized. So start thinking about your energy levels, and if they're inconsistent, you should get your thyroid checked. Do you have heart palpitations where your heart feels like it's fluttering or skipping a beat or beating really hard or beating really fast? Those could be indicators that your thyroid's out of balance. Irritability, anxiety, restlessness, panic attacks, or depression could all be your thyroid being out of balance. Or if you struggle with brain fog, maybe you have a hard time remembering things or concentrating. And if you've ever been told that you have ADD or adhd, it could be derived from your thyroid being out of balance. Joint pain, joint pains, muscle pains, those are affected by thyroid and hair. So if you have hair loss, thinning hair, brittle hair, you need to check your thyroid. Another variables that are involved in thyroid or your menstrual cycle. So if you're a cycling woman and you're finding that your cycles are becoming less red, where maybe they're happening too frequently or they're infrequent, or if you find that you have a bunch of symptoms, whether it's cramps during the period or premenstrual symptoms, all of those could be affected by your thyroid. And then, of course, weight changes. If your thyroid is way too active, people find that it's harder to put on weight. And if your thyroid is under active, people have a hard time losing weight. And then dry mouth could be related to thyroid. So if any of these on the spectrum stuck out for you, then it would be good to get your thyroid checked. And when it comes to getting your thyroid checked, a lot of doctors will do a test called tsh. TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone. Thyroid stimulating hormone does what it sounds like. It stimulates your thyroid to release hormone, right? So TSH comes from the brain, and it tells your thyroid gland it's time to release hormone. So if you just test tsh, all you know is whether or not the brain is telling your thyroid to do its job. But we don't actually know how the thyroid is responding. So you may get a thyroid TSH test done, and it may be normal, but your thyroid could still be out of balance. This is called euthyroid syndrome. And so the next thing that your doctor should do is they should test the actual thyroid hormone itself, the T3 and the T4. This is kind of analogous to if you're a parent and you have kids and you ask them to go clean their room. And then we assume that because you asked them, because the TSH told the thyroid to do it, it's assuming that they actually did that. It's assuming that the kids cleaned their room, it's assuming that your thyroid responded normally. And if you're a parent, you know that it's probably a 50, 50 chance that the room got cleaned. Right? So it's always good to have your doctor check your TSH, your T3, and your T4. But there is something else that we do need to take a look at, and it's called reverse T3. Reverse T3 is what happens when your T4 needs to get converted into active T3 thyroid, but it doesn't have the ingredients necessary to do that. So what your body does instead is it shunts production away from your actual active T3 that does all the important things in your body, and it sends it into something called reverse T3, which is inactive. And the tricky thing about this is if you just do a T3 blood test and that number is normal, we may think mistakenly that the thyroid is making active hormone and that we're all good. But if a bunch of that T3 is actually the reverse form, it means that your number is normal, but you may still have symptoms of an imbalanced thyroid. So there are four thyroid tests that you should ask your Doctor to do. TSH, T3, T4, and reverse T3. And so the tests that you should have done, we just talked about. And then it's important to understand what the results mean. And so in order to demystify that, we want to think about what can cause the thyroid to go out of balance and what are the most likely symptoms that can happen. And so this is when we get a little bit deeper into hyperthyroid and hypothyroid. So remember, hyperthyroid is when our thyroid is hyperactive. And there are two main things that can cause that. And one is Hashimoto's autoimmune thyroid. And the other is thyroiditis, which you can see in graves, or if there's a viral infection affecting the thyroid gland. And sometimes acute stress can actually do that as well. And so let's start with Hashimoto's. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune thyroid condition that's often associated with celiac disease or a wheat allergy, gluten allergy. Right. And so in Hashimoto's, what we actually end up seeing is that as the autoimmunity spikes and drops, that thyroid production strikes and drops. And so you might find that at times you feel really anxious and at other times you feel really lethargic and really depressed and really low and like you don't have energy. And so a lot of people call me and they're having periodotic or episodic anxiety, but it isn't consistent and they're trying to figure out the rhyme and rhythm. And sometimes what's underneath of that is autoimmune thyroid causing those antibodies to spike, which pushes you into an anxious state. So getting autoimmune testing done, which is typically covered by your insurance, can be really helpful at getting to the bottom of that. Graves disease, on the other hand, or just straight up Hashimoto's on the other end of the spectrum, the graves is where the thyroid is more overactive on a more continuous basis. And so those would be different autoantibody tests. And people often will have racing heart palpitations, heat intolerance, anxiety, panic. There's something called exophthalmus where the eyes are kind of pushing a little bit forward. So if you've ever seen anybody where their eyes are a little bit protruded, that's likely their thyroid gland being overactive. And so we know that when somebody is in this state, that brain bringing their thyroid down can actually help resolve anxiety. So in a glance, thyroid autoimmunity can cause panic attacks alternating with depression. If it's more Hashimoto's or thyroid autoimmunity can cause just straight up sympathetic activation that fight, flight, freeze, anxiety, restless driven response. High TSH means that your brain is trying to tell your thyroid gland to make thyroid hormone. And so when that number goes up and it probably means that your thyroid is underperforming and low TSH is the opposite. So if your brain, your thyroid stimulating hormone isn't having to tell the thyroid because the thyroid's overacting, then that probably means that your TSH is low. So that probably means your thyroid is too high and that could be causing you anxiety. And so tips for success is we want to make sure that we're improving the health of the thyroid gland. And so the first thing you want to do is you want to test it and then you want to test for nutrients to make sure that your thyroid is getting what it needs. So if your reverse T3 is high, then testing for things like red blood cell, selenium, zinc and ashwagandha, different nutrients that you can take can be really helpful for correcting that. So today we've been talking about anxiety and the thyroid, and I have a ton of information on my website about this. You can go to drnicolecane.com and if you click on the button, the search button at the top and just type in thyroid, it will take you to an article where I have all of this written out. So if you want to learn more about other topics, you can just submit me. It's the Q and A Kava kava tea time. I have my tea here and if you have questions, just comment on here or send us a DM and we'll make sure to include it next time. It's been great to see you and I'll talk to you later.