Hashimoto's is an autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks your thyroid, causing hypothyroidism. About 90% of hypothyroidism cases stem from Hashimoto's, but most doctors skip antibody testing and jump straight to lifelong hormone replacement without treating the underlying immune problem.
She was talking a lot about the thyroid and T3 and 4 thyroid hormone and lab values and all of that stuff, but we really didn't dive into Hashimoto's. So I would love for you to just explain to the listeners, what is Hashimoto's and how is it different from hypothyroidism? How does it cause hypothyroidism?
Yeah, so Hashimoto's is two things. It's one, it's an autoimmune condition, and that's the primary thing it is. And then every autoimmune condition is named after what it attacks in the body. And so Hashimoto's, your body is attacking your thyroid. So it usually causes hypothyroid, which means your thyroid is not doing enough. Sometimes it can also cause hyperthyroid symptoms because as your body attacks the thyroid, then your thyroid, like, as it's as it's dying, it's releasing a whole bunch of thyroid hormones. So it can be very confusing as you can have hypo symptoms and hyper symptoms. But because of that autoimmune condition part, like we have to address what it is that causes the autoimmune problem. And that is where Western medicine has failed people with any thyroid problems. Dr. Hahnemann probably already talked about the fact that, you know, when you have thyroid thyroid symptoms, you need to be checking your antibody levels because it is estimated that 90% of people with hypothyroidism have Hashimoto's as a cause of the hypothyroid. But the doctors don't check. They just say, here's your medicine. You're gonna be a lifelong pharmaceutical patient and we're gonna have to adjust your medication as your thyroid dies. Then we're gonna have to go up instead of saying, let's address your immune system so that we can prevent some problems and your body can heal.
Yeah, absolutely.
