Hypothyroidism: did I cause this?

I doubt it. It's an immune deficient illness from what I've read

You probably put a mighty huge stress on your body, and likely still are.

Depending on genetics, something was probably going to give.

Like some people have no issues eating a certain food when they don't diet.
Then they take an extreme diet, and now that food causes problems.
Sure, they might have been slightly sensitive to it before, but body wasn't stressed out enough that it mattered.

Depending on where the thyroid is going wrong or which part of the feedback system is messed up - you may be able to improve it.

Much like type2 diabetics can.

And it's not always so much your metabolism, but just what the body does to adapt to eating so low for so long.

But - compared to prior - is your hair thinner, skin drier, nails grow slower, colder easier, ect?
Body may have adapted by slowing down some basic functions to conserve calories for energy.

You "kickstart" your metabolism by giving your body a level of food and energy it really wants and can handle.

If you aren't losing fat weight - then you aren't actually in a deficit diet eating level. You are eating at maintenance for the level of activity you do right now.
So hope you don't get sick or injured - or the level of eating then to maintain could really suck.

Now - with eating so little and body potentially stressed, you could have increased cortisol causing water weight gain to slowly happen - can gain upwards of 20 lbs that way.
That'll likely stress you out too.

You could come up to an eating level your body can potentially do, not where it's suppressed now dealing with it.
Your energy levels likely increase, move more, better workouts, burn more daily, while eating more.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251

Work with your doctor to get it properly medicated. From what I have heard that can take some time to get the dosage correct, but it can make a huge difference once they do. Keep going. you can do this.

Hypothryoidism - basically an underfunctioning thyroid - is quite common and many people have it who have not lost significant amounts of weight.

So extremely unlikely your weight loss had anything to do with it - its is one of those things that just happens sometimes and was , for you, coincidental to losing weight.

Heck, I developed a thyroid tumour after losing weight. (admittedly about 2 years after) and had half my thyroid removed.

No i do not think it was caused by my weight loss.

Don't blame yourself for it as no one will be able to tell you if your weight loss caused it and at the end of the day, there's no way of knowing. What you need to focus on is getting your thyroid levels to a good level by working with your doctor.

Hamsibian wrote: »

I don't know about metabolism, but hypothyroidism is autoimmune. Chances are it was building up inside your body years before you experienced obvious symptoms. Don't ever think that it is your fault.

Not all hypothyroidism is autoimmune.
There are many causes.

...........

I agree that this is not something caused by the OP through diet.

Might want to check for deficiencies - did your doctor run a full blood panel to see if you're low in any particular nutrients? I do worry about that for people who have been in a caloric deficit for a long time. If you're eating less food you're getting less nutrients in general, and if you're avoiding certain foods or food groups that could lead to deficiencies too.

I had a protein deficiency for a long time that caused all sorts of issues but was never diagnosed by doctors and I didn't even realize it until I started tracking all my food for weight loss and saw in my nutrients graph that I was always way under on protein. Once I started eating enough all kinds of things improved after just a couple months.

I've also had a diagnosed vitamin D deficiency and severe anemia from iron deficiency in the past- those had some pretty crazy effects on my health as well that cleared up once the deficiency was resolved.

The side effects from deficiencies can range from minor and hardly noticeable to pretty severe- between all of mine I had symptoms like: low energy, dizziness, dry skin, cracked feet, weakness, shortness of breath, fast heartbeat, anxiety, depression, weak immune system, thin hair, brittle nails, cracks at corners of mouth, slow wound healing, trouble losing weight, persistent infections...

Not that you necessarily have any deficiencies but I always like to suggest testing for them and analyzing your diet just in case because they are easy to miss (but luckily easy to fix), and my doctors didn't catch mine until I brought it to their attention and asked for tests. The protein one I don't even think there is a test for, I only figured that one out after fixing my macronutrient intake.

Things like rapidly declining eyesight or autoimmune disease could be completely unrelated to this, but if there is a cause from diet or nutrient deficiency it would be good to at least check.

Also are you still in a caloric deficit or have you switched to maintenance calories? You might want to try maintenance for a while and see if your issues improve. I do know from what I've been reading & reasearching about weight loss that diet breaks are recommended - about 1 to 3 weeks at maintenance calories for every 10 to 12 weeks in a caloric deficit. This helps the metabolism recover. I'm due for a diet break myself. Again this might not even be related to your issues but you could always try it out and see if it helps.

Get yourself to an endocrinologist and have them check it out and medicate you. There are more than a few causes and the best way to control it is with medication at first and if possible you will be weaned off it at a later date once stabilized.

Unfortunately any advice on the cause or treatment for this is worth nothing. The only person to advise you is a specialist imho

I don't know if this is woo-- so please talk to your doctor and research-- I'm throwing this out there:

I watched a video some time ago where the doctor said that occasionally brominated baked goods can sometimes impact certain individuals' thyroids. He said that bromination speeds up the process of bread rising but that bromides trick the thyroid to uptake it somehow and the body starts attacking the thyroid. Maybe if you switch to slow rising and non brominated wheat that it could help?

Honestly I have no idea about the medical aspects of this, but please research carefully and look at scientific articles as there are a lot of diet myths out there.