Hashimoto's Disease....does anyone treat it naturally?

This reply is for @SarahBeth17

Before I start, I want to make it clear that while I don't agree with your methods of "treating" Hashimoto's, I recognise your beliefs and respect that we are all entitled to make whatever choices we want for ourselves. My purpose for this reply is to add another perspective about Hashi's as it sounds to me like you are well-read and are open to information from different sources.

The thyroid is part of a broader endocrine system that must all be in balance for a person to feel well. In a "normal" person, there are normal levels of T4 in the blood, therefore, the pituitary doesn't need to release thyroid stimulating hormone and all is well. In Hashimoto's sufferers, something (I believe mine was a particularly bad case of tonsillitis when I was younger combined with puberty) causes the cells in the thyroid to alter in some way that the body believes they are antigens. The immune system starts releasing antibodies to attack the thyroid "antigens" which causes a decrease in the amount of T4 being produced which causes the pituitary to register low levels of T4 which causes it to release TSH which causes the thyroid to try to compensate which increases the inflammatory response and release of antibodies thus damaging the thyroid further which causes a decrease in the levels of T4 produced which causes the pituitary gland to release more TSH....... Yeah, you get my point. Telling someone they can "cure" their hashimoto's through diet is like telling someone they can cure their hayfever, allergic hives, anaphylaxis through diet. Taking synthetic T4 merely suppresses the amount of TSH the pituitary is releasing which helps suppress the immune/inflammatory response thus minimising the damage being done to the thyroid. I had a partial thyroidectomy 6 weeks ago to remove a suspicious lump. My thyroid was so damaged by the Hashimoto's that a 2 hour op took the surgeon 3 hours!!! I have since started taking thyroxine and my skin, hair and nails feel amazing!!! Synthetic T4 doesn't damage your thyroid, Hashimoto's damages your thyroid....

I am trying to treat it naturally. The root cause of Hashimoto's is different for everyone, though it is undeniably linked to gluten intolerance, and being a auto-immune disorder it effects/ or is cause by the gut: digestion so you have to eat foods that are easy to digest. I cook almost all of my meals. I see a Chinese medicine doctor and he recommends the paleo diet: limit grains to almost nil. It was really hard at first but I have gotten used to it and don't miss the grains too much (I do still want to stuff my face with croissants though!)

Quinoa: always rinse before cooking, then add zucchinni or parsley or pine nuts
Beef stew: you can make a veggie stock with the parts of veggies you can't eat, strain, and add beef and every vegetable you like. Add tomatoes to make it more savory
Eggplant parmesian with no pasta just mushrooms and veggies (or you can cheat a little and make rice pasta but its not very good for you)
Chicken soup, chicken stock, chicken enchiladas or fajitas with corn tortillas (even though corn is considered a grain I still eat a little)
potatoes, leeks, cooked squash is especially good for Hashimoto's.
Beans and rice
Salads with hard boiled eggs and sunflower seeds. You can make an awesome dressing with VEGENAISE as a base and it tastes better than mayonnaise anyway.
steamed greens with ume plum vinegar or ....
I also make miso soup with mushrooms and seaweed- it was recommended that I eat seaweed- not sure about the iodine controversy.

Try to live somewhere that you can find an affordable health food store so you can find all of these things. Otherwise it is terribly hard and also hard to go out to eat.

I am taking Thyroxal k-12 has bovine thyroid in it and a bunch of awesome supplements designed specifically for Ha****moto's. I am also taking chinese herbs and getting acupuncture for the root of the problem.

I think there is a lot of vague information about this subject right now so it is important to share what we learn.

The best way is to cure, heal, or live with the problem naturally because I have noticed that people who take pharmaceutical medications for this actually see their symptoms worsening over time because their body continues to attack their thyroid while they simply supplement hormones. Perhaps if you can both replace hormones and treat the root problem this would be best?
I was told that replacing the hormones might make it harder for the thyroid to learn to work again by itself. Kind of vague info though...any thoughts?

Wow--u would've thought the endo Dr would've help out...so what kind of stuffs do u take naturally?

Hi, I was originally diagnosed with hypothyroid diseases when I was 17. I was about 112-115 pounds up until my senior year in High School where I slowly started gaining weight. I could not do enough to get this little bit of weight off that I was gaining by my freshmen year of college I was up to a weight that was not normal for someone my size. i felt beyond tired, moody, depressed, not interest in things, fatigue, you name it. By that winter I was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I really had no idea what it was but at the same time kind of relieved that it was something apparently "fixable". Man was I wrong! I was put on synthroid and a couple of months went by. I wasn't losing weight. I worked out twice a week. ( not enough) but I thought this pill was going to do everything my body couldn't...wrong again. I was uneducated on the topic. I was still extremely tired, moody, and not losing weight was making me go into more of a depression. I became more educated on how to eat healthy, worked out as much as I could. I did a complete 180 becoming as healthy as I could stand lol and still NOTHING! I was becoming so frustrated by all theses doctors telling me Its me. I was never me!! "you must not be working out enough" "you must not be eating healthy" " it must be the anti-depression medication you are on" So being that I do suffer from depression I decided to ask my nurse practitioner to give me options. She lowered my Zoloft dosage and added wellburtin which is suppose to be a better one to help with weight management (supposedly) after a couple of months of still feeling the same (maybe even worse at this point) I was drained and felt like my doctors were not listening to me and only going by my charts and blood levels. My doctor did not want to hear that I believed my symptoms were due to my thyroid because why would they, they run their little testes see that I am okay and make me believe that theres something that I am doing wrong. I continued to eat healthy, work out, take my medicine. My mom found a doctor in the city. (THANK GOD FOR THIS DOCTOR) because I was starting to go crazy. He is a hormone replacement doctor. I was skeptical because he helped women who were in their 50's and up. I am only 19 years old. But at this point i figured anything was worth a try. I knew a thyroid makes a hormone so i figured i have nothing to lose by seeing this hormone doctor. He said he did nto think he would be able to find anything but he'll run testes on me anyway. Most Doctors would of blown my mom off and said that they probably wouldnt find anything and dont waste your time. We almost were going to cancel the appointment because we really didn't think I had any hormonal issues. We were wrong. Turned out I had a list of things wrong with me that I should of know about but I didn't because my doctor insisted that It was me and he couldn't do more. Well turns out there was a hell of a lot more he should of been doing. I wasted away in the two or three years that this was going on when my doctor had the testes in front of him to do on me but didn't. Instead me the patient was left to dig and dig until I found some like the doctor in the city. The things that I have wrong with me are confusing and all tied together. Like a domino effect. Its still hard to fully understand because I am not a doctor.What I can tell you is that I was told I have hypothyroid/hashimotos. NEVER did my endocrinologist tell me I had hashimotos. That was a shock because as you know its a auto immune disease. The doctor in the city did tests on my DHEA levels, adrenal levels, cortisol levels, testosterone levels , progesterone levels, etc.... The look on our faces was shock when we saw the results of all theses levels. progesterone level was a 12 when the normal level was 75-270, my estrogen level was a 0.6 when the normal range was 1.3-3.3. Theses are just two explains of how out of whack my levels were. I also had adrenal fatigue, leaky gut syndrome, I had inflammation, high cholesterol, and was at the hormonal level of a post menopausal women!! Now if my endocrinologist would of listened to me and my symptoms he would of took the time out to check off the boxes on the script that said DHEA levels and hormonal levels when I was getting my blood done then I would of never had to go this long with my life withering away. Its hard to tell my story without writing a whole book. But what I can say is I was basically living as a zombie. My moods were up and down I was always exhausted I couldn't keep a job, my mental health was decreasing due to the lack of balanced hormones, I fell behind in school, my friends didn't understand why I was withdrawn and always tired, my social life went down the drain, I could not lose weight. I was just trying to live day to day. After getting over the initial shock of how much was actually wrong with me that I didn't know about I felt ready to really put my heart into doing everything this doctor told me to do. I was given natural supplements, a detox, not synthetic hormones but natural hormones to get my hormones back on track. natural things to help with my thyroid, things to help with my adrenal gland, theres so much more that I take but I am greatful because it is like I am back to being the old me again. I have energy, I do not crash every day in the afternoon. My adrenal gland isn't over working itself to give my body a boost and then crashing. I am happy, losing weight slowly, but I am losing which is better than before where nothing worked. I am bubbly again. I didm't realize how miserable I was until I got the old me back. I am not sitting next to the things I take but if you would like to know more I can write them down, and try and further explain how everything was effecting another thing in my body which effected another thing and so on. The point of my story is to listen to your gut and keep searching for a different solution because TSH and T4 are synthetic and most likely are not making what it should to be transferred into T3. If your doctor doesn't listen to your symptoms then they're not a good doctor. To find out more about hormone replacement you can go on YOUTUBE and subscribe to the bodylogicmd and they can better explain hormone therapy and you never know it might help! There are patients on the youtube account who talk about how their thyroid issues have improved since learning about hormone therapy

It's very scary that people turn to google rather than listening to healthcare professionals. If you don't feel like your doctor is listening to you or providing you adequate answers, then by all means, get a second or third or fourth opinion. Self medicating yourself is not the way to go. Not to mention herbal remedies are a scam and bull.

diet can help, but hashimotos is an immune disease, you can't turn off antibodies with diet, there is more than one way to treat it, but diet is not a cure, there is no cure, anyone who tells you there is is a quack, please see a doctor for alternative types of medication. I have gone thru what you are, even still do at times, and worse, medication adjustment fixes it.... temporarily, this is a lifelong condition, my medication constantly is being adjusted because my immunesystem does more and more damage to my thyroid, but just because there is no easy and permanent fix that is not to say that the medication does not do what it is designed to do. Your hair and energy and pain are caused by lack of thyroid hormones, and if you do not get more hormones it is possible for it to get much worse, you can't eat these hormones, nor is it feasible to starve your immune system, which some of the hashimoto's diets will do. your health is too important to not get help for this.