Thyroid
Madness
Have
you been amazed at how many women you know who are on thyroid
medications? The number is staggering! And it begins at a younger
and younger age. There are even teenage girls showing up with not
only thyroid medication, but also with surgeries and radiation
therapy. What is going on and how is it that there are so
many women that need help with their thyroid glands?
The
classic story begins like this: First you notice that your energy is
down. You start putting on weight and can't lose it even when
following some diet fad. Your moods are generally depressed. Depending
on the type of doctor you see, it is usually decided that you
need a ‘blood test’. Next the report comes back, revealing
that you have a high TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). To some
practitioners, this means that you have a “hypo-thyroid”
condition. To make that sound even scarier and for the industry to
claim it has a cause, it has been renamed Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
disease and you are told it is an autoimmune issue. The result: you
are scared into medication (that is, if you went to a doctor who
makes a living by prescribing medication), for you are told that is
the only possibility. Then over the years, the Synthroid doses go
up and up and up, and yet the problem is still there.
Whoa!
What just happened? You became one more statistic and
life-long customer in the trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry! And
they now have you hooked.
Let's
take a different look at the causes behind thyroid problems. Many
times we find that a ‘thyroid problem’ has actuality been mis-diagnosed. The
fact is that the blood test used for this is truly only 50% accurate. Moreover,
experience has shown that many times the thyroid isn't
“hypo-active” at all; instead, it is simply exhausted.
What's
the difference? Hypo-active is a way of saying something is
diseased, while exhausted means it needs a rest and that, ultimately,
the cause behind the exhaustion needs to be addressed.
So,
what actually causes this exhaustion of the thyroid? It may be
any one or a combination of the following: food allergies (most
usually to sugar and flour), heavy metal or toxic chemical
poisoning (the culprits here include mercury, aluminum and
household chemicals), sub-clinical and chronic viruses, bacteria, and
even parasites.
Now,
what to do? First, get off the grains and sugars. As a result,
you’ll watch your weight, blood pressure, and even cholesterol, go
down! At the same time, be sure to get checked for toxicities,
viruses, bacteria and parasites (and I suggest that just because your
doctor didn't have the full resources to do that, that they don't
exist). If any are present, they need to be addressed. I
recommend you see a natural practitioner who is willing to help you
identify causes rather than treat symptoms, and who can help get you
on the right path.
What's
in a Name?
"Doc,
I woke up with the pain and burning on the outside of my elbow. If
you push right here it really hurts, and it hurts to twist my forearm. I
can't think of anything that caused it. What's wrong?"
Without hesitation, the usual answer is: Acute Idiopathic Lateral
Epicondylitis. Wow, what a mouthful! It sounds scary. And
expensive, too. But, in reality, what was just said to you is the
medical term pulled from a diagnostic manual to indicate that you have
pain and burning on the outside of your elbow that just started this
morning with no known cause.
“Doc,
I have pain down my leg…” You have peripheral neuropathy.
“Doc, I have a pain in my joint.” You have arthritis. “Doc, I
have this or that symptom…” Indeed, our health
field loves to name (and rename) our symptoms. If you happen to
have multiple symptoms, then your condition gets a special name that
often includes the word ‘syndrome’. Usually once someone has
something named, they tend to feel better about it for they can now
give it a cause. Yet has the problem been handled? Not
really! Even worse, the label of a disease or condition often
puts one in a state of hopelessness. (Just think ‘cancer’ to
see how true this can be!) Once we accept the label of our condition,
we often get trapped.
But
what is arthritis or peripheral neuropathy or even cancer? Maybe
we are asking the wrong questions. What we need to ask (and know) is:
what really is behind the disease, sickness, or condition?
When
looking at a problem with the body, there are some basics that almost
always need to be considered. Diet is number one. If you are
living on processed foods, white flour, sugar, energy drinks and using
a microwave to ‘cook’, then you are starving your body of what it
needs to be healthy and function well. How much water are you
drinking? Is it full of chlorine or is it clean? How about
oxygen? Do you exercise regularly? Are you crazy enough to smoke
and think that's okay?
This
is where we all need to start. We need a healthy diet with clean water
and regular exercise. This is the real getting back to basics. We need
to remember that all medications are drugs that have serious side
effects. We need to treat the causes of problems, not just the
symptoms. Recommendation: Get back to nature and forget about
your names.
Dr.
Greg Sternquist has had 19 years of private practice and is
Alaska's only Advanced Practitioner of Nutrition Response Testing. He
also does public speaking on nutrition. Contact him at 743-3040.
