Underactive thyroid: how to understand yours.

Hello gorgeous woman and welcome to my blog where I'm going to share all things related to our female health and wellbeing in midlife.

I want to start this article with a small personal story for you. How one winter years ago I found myself in a place so dark, I had to wonder if good things were still possible for me. Or something was broken beyond the point of return.

I was deeply depressed and anxious, crying became by default mode of operation, my weight kept on going up, fatigue was debilitating (walking downstairs to the kitchen and up to bedroom again felt like the biggest achievement of the day), I felt shivering all the time and my knees, hips and finger joints were achy 24/7.

Of course I went to see my GP. Of course my results returned "normal". 

"You just need to lose some weight", I was told. "Just go to gym and eat less" was a life changing advice I received from my doctor. I am being mildly sarcastic here of course. I'm sure they meant well. 

Underactive thyroid and its many faces are the subject of our chat today. 

So, thyroid health, and why for many of us it might be more relevant than we think. We tend to blame our low energy levels on stress, lack of time, fluctuating hormones, many other things. And it well could be. But it would be a huge mistake to dismiss thyroid in a whole picture of your midlife health. 

Especially in late perimenopause and in menopause, when declining levels of oestrogen can affect even the healthiest of thyroids.

Whenever a new client steps through my practice virtual door, if fatigue is something she is dealing with, thyroid health will be the very first marker I assess.

Permanent fatigue is a hallmark sign of hypothyroidism.

Felling that no matter how much you rest, your battery is never up to 100%, and even that charge that you’ve got –  you run out of it so very fast. 

Fun fact for you right away – hypothyroidism is 8-9 times likely to develop in women than men(I know! 🤷🏻‍♀️). 

Other symptoms you might experience: 

• weakness and aches in joints and muscles
• weight slowly but steadily creeping up 
• hair loss(your nails might suffer too) 
• your skin is itchy and dry
• you often feel down or depressed (the feeling of impending doom in the morning is especially awful)
• regular constipation (moving bowels less frequent than daily or when you really have to strain all the time)
• feeling cold when others around are okay
• your libido is nowhere to be seen 

The list is a long one and will vary from person to person, but these are the kind of universal ones. 

The most unpleasant bit often happens afterwards.

You go to your doctor, they run blood tests on you, and guess what – it returns "normal". And then you are sent home with no action taken or advice given. That’s how it usually goes (exceptions occasionally happen and that’s great). 

Unfortunately, most of the time when testing thyroid, your GP will test you for 2 basic markers: TSH and T4.

And there are 2 problems with it:

• these two markers are nowhere enough to evaluate your real thyroid picture.
• reference ranges for them currently used are very outdated. 

So you end up being sent home on a false reassurance that your thyroid is fine. 

So what do you actually need, to evaluate your thyroid picture? 

I've created a little cheat sheet for you, the normal part are the current NHS ranges, the optimal part are the numbers where you usually want to be to feel good.

And here is a small but VERY important bit: if your thyroid test picks up presence of antibodies TPO and TgAb above 10 - these indicate autoimmune process within the thyroid gland, and should be addressed the earlier the better. It's called Hashimoto's or autoimmune thyroid.

So just bear it in mind. That if you were sent home and told that nothing is wrong with you and you are imagining things – it is not necessarily that. Just test yourself properly and take it from there. 

Where do you test? Some easy options are Advanced Thyroid Function by Medichecks or Thyroid test by Thriva. Both are cheap and cheerful home fingerprick kits. These are a good place to start. 

So, what does actually contribute to your thyroid feeling not amazing? 

It is usually more than one thing. By this time in our life we’ve lived through many experiences, our body took on lots of beating. So it is never just one thing, rather a collection of many.

• levels of stress (constantly living in survival mode suppresses your thyroid function) 
• your body is low on minerals, especially iron, magnesium, selenium and zinc (be careful with iodine, if your thyroid is autoimmune - supplementing iodine can be more damaging than useful)
•       your protein consumption is low (and thyroid hormone is made of protein) 
•       your vitamin D levels (are yours close to 90 mol/L or above?) 
•       your liver health (plays major role in thyroid hormone conversion) 
•       your digestive function and your GUT (this one has an enormous impact) 

And I would like to elaborate on the gut part a bit because people never take it seriously enough and that’s a costly mistake to make with your thyroid health. 

In 90% of cases with underactive thyroid the reason for it will be something called Hashimoto’s (as mentioned above). It’s an autoimmune condition where your immune system is upset and attacks your thyroid gland.

Here comes the important bit for those who have been officially diagnosed with Hashimoto's and are taking thyroxine (or any other thyroid hormone combo) - you still need to address your autoimmunity.

Thyroxine does not address it, it is only your daily dose of thyroid fuel, much needed one. But it doesn't work on the root cause of your immune system being upset. 

So it is very important that you work on calming your immune system down to avoid further destruction of a thyroid gland.

Comes without saying that situation like this is best approached with the help of an experienced practitioner who works with the root cause (functional medicine doctor, nutritionist, naturopath).

As these things, although cannot be reversed, they can be put into remission giving you much better quality of life. 

But going back to our gut: thyroid health (especially the case with Hashimoto’s) is every so often mediated by a poor state of one’s gut. Inflammation, leaky gut, gut infections, bacterial overgrowth, food intolerances, nutrient malabsorption – all these will have major impact on your thyroid.

On the upside, there is LOTS can be done for your thyroid, just through putting some basic fundamentls into place, through food and simple supplements.

So If now, when reading this email, you know that you might be reading about your own symptoms – let me suggest a route for you.

Don’t play a guessing game, it is always a long and expensive way. Have your thyroid tested, compare the outcome with cheat sheet above. Is there room for improvement? Are there any antibodies present (meaning it's Hashimoto's)? Read my advice above, start with the fundamentals.

And if all of that is a bit overwhelming and you could do with more targeted support – feel free to reach out, always.

Book yourself in for a free 30 mins discovery call and we can chat about you, your health goals and how we can get you there.

There are a number of options of how you can work with me, including medium budget friendly ones. 

I wish you every success on your thyroid healing journey.  

In health, 

Olga