Why do I Have Hypothyroidism?

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the gutsy gynecologist. I'm a triple board certified, OB, GYN and Functional Medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health. And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more band aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome. Hi ladies. So good to see you again. Okay, so we need to talk about the thyroid because I keep getting asked this question, why do I have hypothyroidism? Why is my thyroid sluggish? My doctor says it's a little sluggish, but he doesn't want to give me medicine. Or they just gave me medicine and sent me on my way. Okay, this is a really important topic. The thyroid is the master gland of your body, and it is controlling what your body is doing at all times. And the thyroid receives input from all of your systems throughout your body to make that decision. It's deciding where to allocate resources, where to send energy. It's deciding if it should increase your bowel function or slow it down. It's deciding to increase your metabolism or slow it down. Increase your thermostat and your temperature or turn it down. Increasing your brain function ability or turn it down. So it's deciding where to send resources and what to stimulate and what to suppress. And this piece is missing. In conventional medicine, conventional doctors are not taught about reverse reverse T3. So reverse T3 is like putting your foot on the brake. It slows everything down. It causes constipation. It causes dry skin because your skin cells are not turning over. It slows your hair growth. It slows your brain function and can cause difficulty thinking and comprehending and brain fog. So many things. It slows your HPO access, which is your hypothalamic pituitary ovarian access, and so it can affect your fertility. And the list goes on and on. So what makes a thyroid decide to put the foot on the brakes or to put the foot on the gas with T3, active T3 hormone. So these decisions are very multifactorial and they're very dynamic. So they're changing all of the time. Okay, so here's some basics I want you to understand. Tsh, called thyroid stimulating hormone, is not a thyroid hormone at all. It's a brain hormone. It's made in your brain, and it's talking to the thyroid. It goes to the thyroid and tells the thyroid to make more or less thyroid hormone. So if it's telling it to make more thyroid hormone, then your thyroid will make T4 and T4. The 4 stands for Iodines. There are four Iodines in this thyroid molecule. And you actually need certain nutrients to make thyroid hormone. You need iron, iodine, tyrosine, zinc, selenium, vitamin E, B2, B3, B6, C and D. So you need all these Nutrients to make T4. And then your body decides, I'm either going to make active T3, which is like putting your foot on the gas, or I'm going to make reverse T3, which is putting your foot on the brake. And both of those hormones can bind to all the billions of receptors that are throughout the cells of your body to send the signal faster, slower. Okay, so then we have to decide, am I going to convert from T4 to active T3? And you need adequate amounts of selenium and zinc to make that conversion. The other caveat is the majority of that conversion happens in your liver. So if your liver is stressed out because you have fatty liver or because you drink alcohol every day, or you take Tylenol PM or Benadryl on a regular basis or any of the other medications that cause the liver to not do its natural processes that can affect your conversion. And sometimes I see women whose T4 levels look okay, but their T3 levels are decreased. And it's because we need liver support. You always need liver support, ladies. Like, the liver is where it's at. Okay? So there are things that inhibit the production of T4 hormone, meaning you're not making enough of T4 because of adrenal dysfunction, either external stressors in your life or internal stressors like infections in your gut, Too much heavy metal exposure in your. Too much lead in your water, too many mercury fillings, vaporizing, things like that, Those are more uncommon, but those can be reasons. Too many halogens, like fluoride in your water. Okay, if you remember high school chemistry class, the periodic table of elements, there is a column called halogens. Iodine is in that category. In that column, fluoride chlorine, bromine, they're all in the same halogen family because they have properties that are very similar. And so if you get too much fluoride in your body, it can interfere with those iodine spots and prevent you from making thyroid hormone. So we tried to, you know, put fluoride and everything back in the 80s. I remember having to do fluoride swishes at school every week. And oh, my gosh, those were terrible. But excess fluoride, excess bromine, excess chloride, those all can affect your thyroid's ability to make thyroid hormone. So for me, I had all this excess fluoride exposure as a child. Then I swam in swimming pools constantly that were very chlorinated, and I ate a ton of processed food that is full of bromine. So bromine is in all of your boxed and bagged pastas and breads and baked goods, even in pop and things like that. It's a stabilizing preservative agent. But if you get too many of these halogens in your body, your thyroid can't make its thyroid hormone. So that's a big one. Another one is autoimmune conditions like I have Hashimoto's, which means my thigh, my immune system attacks my own thyroid tissue. And when it does that, it prevents my thyroid from being able to make enough T4 hormone. So what happens is then you start to look like a hypothyroid patient because you're not making enough T4 hormone. And initially, if your T4 is low, then your TSH level will increase, it will go up because your brain is sensing that the thyroid is not doing its job, and so it starts yelling at the thyroid with more and more hormone. This is is the same concept that happens with our brain and our ovaries when our ovaries are starting to transition into menopause and they're no longer making enough progesterone and estrogen. Our FSH levels, follicle stimulating hormone from our brain gets higher and higher because our brain is yelling at the ovary, make hormones. Make hormones. It does the same thing to the thyroid. The TSH level gets higher and higher. And so in conventional medicine, a TSH level above a 5 or a 6 is determined to be hypothyroidism. That is the level that they've determined. You are probably going to be hospitalized because you have myxedema and major brain fog and all the other symptoms of hypothyroidism and physically cannot function. You have to go into the hospital and get medication that is A very extreme level, and I don't want anyone to get to that level. A functional TSH level is 2 or less. Most women function best at a TSH less than 2. And the ovaries definitely respond to a TSH less than 2. So much so that conventional medicine has admitted that when it comes to reproductive issues and fertility issues, they do try to get that TSH level at least 2 or below to help the ovaries function properly. That's a whole nother discussion. But what I want you to understand is that as our thyroid hormone production goes down, our TSH goes up and vice versa. If our thyroid is making too much hormone, too much T4, T3, then our TSH level goes down. Or if we take it as a medication, T4 like synthroid, levothyroxine, or T3, lyothyronine, cytomyl, or the combination of the two, armor and NP, that will lower our TSH level because it's increasing our T4 and T3 levels. So it's this negative feedback loop we call it. So what decides whether your T4 gets turned into T3 or reverse T3? Part of it, like I mentioned, is you having enough minerals to make that conversion with zinc and selenium. The bigger factor is, is there something driving reverse T3 production? And what drives reverse T3 production? Inflammation, chronic stress, gut issues, trauma, physical, mental or emotional. Having surgery, having procedures, getting anesthesia, being cut open, having a wound that has to heal. All of these things tell your thyroid we need to divert resources and go take care of this situation. We need to get heal from something. We need to kill off an infection. We need to handle this process over here. So all of the other day to day processes, growing hair, growing nails, moving the bowels, turning over the skin, bone turnover and resorption. All of these things get put on the back burner so that your body can go take care of those other problems. And it does that by increasing the reverse T3 production. So here's the kicker, ladies. Your thyroid is not just being sluggish and giving up on you. Your thyroid's not misbehaving. Your thyroid hasn't just decided to stop working. That is the biggest lie that we're telling out there in medicine. The thyroid is reacting to your systems. It's taking in the information and, and changing what it's doing based on what's going on in its environment inside the body. So if you have adrenal dysfunction, you're going to make more reverse T3 and that's going to cause you to look like a hypothyroid patient. If you are on a chronic low calorie diet and starving yourself, your thyroid is going to think you're in survival mode and it's going to turn down your T3 production and increase your reverse T3 production. If you have an autoimmune condition, if you are exposed to chronic toxins all of the time, all the plastics in your food and your water, all the fragrances in the candles, in the plugins, in the beauty products, that is going to tell your thyroid, make reverse T3. Okay, so there is so much information going into what your thyroid is doing and we have tried to dumb it down to, to this black and white on off switch that is so straightforward and that we are just blaming the thyroid for not functioning well and not doing its job. And that is actually not what's happening. Okay, if you have Hashimoto's like I do, where my own immune system will attack my thyroid, that attack needs to stop so that your thyroid can do its job of making thyroid hormone. And as long as your tissue is being attacked, it's going to struggle to make your thyroid hormone and you're going to require medication replacement for that situation. Or if you're like me. At 17 years old, I was told that I had a thyroid problem. I was sent to the hospital. I went to the X ray department. All I remember is laying on a table, getting an IV injection and then being given thyroid medication. After that, I had no, no idea that I was getting my thyroid burned out. I was having radioactive iodine treatment to stop an overactive thyroid function and it burnt my thyroid out so much that I then required thyroid medication. So please question before you have things done. I, unfortunately was only 17 years old. I was acting of my own fruition because I was a mother by that point. I had a teen pregnancy and so I was my medical guardian. I made the decisions for myself, but no one actually explained things to me. There were no risks, benefits, and alternative discussions. It was not true. Informed consent, unfortunately. And yes, that might have been 1992, but I promise you, these things are still happening. So it is your job to question, to not assume that the doctor or surgeon that you're seeing knows best and that it's actually the best option for you, because it might not be. Please don't hesitate to get a second opinion on things, to question and ask why. If you ask your doctor why you have hypothyroidism and they say because your thyroid is being sluggish or some other Stupid answer like that, Please find a functional doctor. And if a functional doctor is saying that to you, I am sorry, because that is unacceptable. We need to know the root cause of what's driving this thyroid to not produce enough thyroid hormone or to make too much reverse T3. So I hope that was helpful. We need to keep asking why. We need to dig deeper and get the to the root cause of the issues to actually heal and get healthy. Otherwise, we're just playing and whack a mole medicine. Like, we treat one thing and another thing pops up five minutes later, and I don't want that for you. So I hope you found this episode helpful. If you feel like you want to work with my team, because you need to look at all the root causes, I will tell you. We have reversed so much autoimmune thyroid stuff. It's incredible how once you heal gut issues and you address adrenal issues and get the adrenals functioning again, and you take care of the sex hormones, you uncover, you turn over all the pieces of the puzzle, right? And you uncover all these whys, your thyroid might start functioning again. And then when it misbehaves, so to speak, that's what we call it, then we can actually take a step back and say, why is my thyroid struggling again? And you can look in your. Am I being exposed to halogens? Am I being exposed to environmental toxins? Do I have an autoimmune condition that I don't know about that's being driven by gluten or other dietary issues? Like, always be asking why, okay? So please share this episode with anybody that you think would benefit from it, because this is a sisterhood. We need to lift each other up. We need to help each other out. It might not be how you grew up, or maybe it was, but I don't think as women that we support each other enough. We need to stop comparing and judging and start supporting and lifting each other up and working together as a sisterhood, as a community where we can live our amazing lives as healthy, vibrant women. So if you're with me on that, and you have not joined my Facebook group, please join the Facebook group and share this with everybody you know, because that is the best way for us to all get healthy together. So if you need thyroid support, if you need those basic B vitamins I listed, you need those minerals for that conversion. Energy. Energy Lift is a perfect basic supplement that's going to give you the thyroid support that you need. So I would say that's a minimum. And then if you want to work with us. You can always go to drtabitha.com fill out the form to have a call with my team and see if it's a right fit for us to help you. We are here for you ladies. So let me know what else you want to hear about and go have an amazing kick ass week. Bye ladies.