Better life with hashimoto’s disease

This blog is a non-profit project of the Institute for Modern Psychotherapy in Berlin. It summarizes in the simplest possible terms the latest scientific findings that may be important for people with Hashimoto’s disease. It is not only about purely medical information but also about the psychological aspects of this thyroid disease, since this unfortunately often receives too little attention.

Only someone who suffers from a thyroid disease such as Hashimoto’s knows how much influence the thyroid gland has on mental health. However, anxiety and even depression can often be overcome surprisingly quickly if those affected take a little more personal responsibility with regard to their medication. Sometimes even small changes are enough to regain much more serenity and joy of life. This blog article deals with the small changes that can be made in detail.

At our institute, we mainly treat patients who come to us for panic attacks, anxiety disorders, depression or a burnout syndrome. An above-average number of those affected also suffer from Hashimoto’s disease and therefore have to take synthetic thyroid hormones permanently. Not infrequently, however, these medications turn out to be the trigger of the psychological problems. Either because the wrong dose was taken unknowingly or because certain medications are simply not well tolerated by some patients.

Synthetic thyroid hormones, such as Levoxyl or Synthroid, are among the most prescribed medications worldwide. But unfortunately, not everyone tolerates these drugs equally well. Especially dosage errors lead to suffer from panic attacks, anxiety disorders or depression.

But even with seemingly correct dosage, psychological problems can occur, because in fact the actual thyroxine requirement varies much more than most people realize.

 

“My dose is correct, I have the doctor re-determine it every year.”

Again and again I hear statements like this from patients with Hashimoto’s, but unfortunately I often find that they have never been properly informed about their disease. Because how much thyroid hormone a person ultimately needs or consumes depends, among other things, on how stressful their current life situation is.

You can think of it like the gasoline consumption of a car. If you drive 100 miles at 55 mph, your car might only use 3 gallons of gasoline. But if you were to travel the same distance at 120 mph, your consumption would quickly increase to 5 or 6 gallons.  It is the same with thyroid hormones. If you were under a lot of stress in the days before your visit to the doctor, during which your medication dose was checked and redefined, then you consumed more thyroxine during this time than you took in via the medication.

If your doctor does not explicitly ask if you have had a lot of stress recently, he or she will note an apparent shortage of thyroxine and increase your dose. However, if the stress was short term, you will be taking much more hormone than you actually need until the next checkup. Over time, this leads to symptoms that are also known from hyperthyroidism: restlessness, sudden heart palpitations, hand tremors, sweating, diarrhea and nervousness.

Since all these symptoms are also typical of an anxiety disorder, it is not uncommon for a misdiagnosis to occur, since the thyroid hormones are supposedly optimally adjusted. If antidepressants or tranquilizers are now prescribed because of a supposed anxiety disorder, those affected get caught in a dangerous vicious circle that can have serious physical and psychological consequences. Because now on the one hand medicines are taken, which are completely unnecessary (antidepressants and tranquilizer), while on the other hand thyroid medicines are taken completely overdosed. But the other extreme is also frequently observed.

If, on the other hand, you were on vacation immediately before your hormone levels were determined and you were recovering well, then you consumed considerably less hormones during this time than you ingested. If your doctor does not ask about this, he will diagnose an apparent oversupply and reduce your medication dose. However, your next vacation may be a long way off and therefore you need significantly more thyroid hormones in your daily stress than you are now taking. Once again, it is only a matter of time before the first symptoms of illness appear, but this time they are similar to those of hypothyroidism: listlessness, fatigue, depressive moods and weight gain. And again there is the danger of a misdiagnosis, such as depression or burnout syndrome, because the hormone level has just been checked and the medication seems to be correctly adjusted. If antidepressants are now also administered completely unnecessarily, those affected are also caught up in a vicious circle that can turn psychologically healthy people into mental wrecks within a very short time.

Therefore our tip:

Have the dosage of your thyroid medication checked more often than just once a year, especially if you suffer from burnout, depression, anxiety or even panic attacks. It is not uncommon for these mental problems to literally disappear into thin air when it turns out that you have simply been taking the wrong dose of medication. And when you go for a blood test, make sure that at least 15 hours have passed between the last time you took your thyroid medication and the time of the blood test. If you normally take your tablets in the morning and go for a blood test immediately afterwards, you run the risk of getting wrong results. Especially after taking natural porcine hormone, the T4 level is elevated for some time. This can give the false impression that the dose needs to be lowered.

I am writing this article not only as a therapist who deals a lot with Hashimoto’s patients. I too have been living with a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease for many years and have gone through some ups and downs until I found the right medication for me. While many people tolerate the synthetically produced thyroid hormones that are used in medications such as Levoxyl or Synthroid I do better with natural thyroid hormones, which are derived from the thyroid gland of pigs and are found, for example, in the medication Armour Thyroid.

Strong mood swings, which I used to struggle with from time to time, are now a thing of the past. Whether this is because the natural hormone preparations have a much broader spectrum of active ingredients, I cannot say. What is certain, however, is that synthetic thyroid hormones only supply the body with T4. Your body must then produce the also extremely important T3 itself from the T4. Natural thyroid hormones from pigs supply T3 at the same time and thus relieve the already ailing body.

If you also have to live with the diagnosis of Hashimoto’s and have the feeling that you don’t really get along with the synthetically produced thyroid hormones, it may be worth considering a change in medication. However, it is not so easy to find a suitable doctor who can accompany you during such a change.

Therefore our big request:

If you know of doctors in the English-speaking world who have successfully assisted patients in switching their medication to natural thyroid hormones, please send us their contact details and, if possible, their website by e-mail. We will then shortly start to publish an address list of these doctors here, so that you can also fall back on these experts if necessary. Please use the following mail for this purpose: mail@better-life-with-hashimotos-disease.com

No organ works on its own. Hypothyroidism affects many other organs, which can cause a number of other complaints: Fatigue, freezing, nausea, hair loss, constipation, obesity, headaches and joint pain are just a few examples here.

Like soccer players on the field, organs work as a team. Only if all of them do their job properly, the game can be successful, i.e. one can lead an easy and largely symptom-free life even with Hashimoto. Therefore it is very important to keep an eye on the adrenal cortex and the liver. The latter, for example, converts a large part of the hormone T4 into the required T3. Anyone who has been prescribed Levoxyl or Synthroid takes only the active ingredient T4. If the liver is too weak to convert sufficient T4 into T3, the medication will only partially have the desired effect.

But not only our organs interact with each other. The psyche also has a significant influence on our body and our well-being.

Just as the wrong dose of medication can lead to anxiety and depression, constant brooding can also take on a life of its own and increase your stress level to the point where you need significantly more thyroxine than is actually necessary. Therefore, it makes sense to not only provide the right amount of thyroxine, but also to do something about your automated thoughts, which may have been circling around the topics of anxiety and depression for far too long.

Even if you can hardly imagine it, there is a whole series of tips and tricks with which not only Hashimoto patients have managed to overcome anxiety, depressive moods and burnout by their own efforts. If you would like to learn more about this, please visit our website: www.the-anxiety-cure.com

I hope that this article was helpful for you and I would be happy if you visit this page again sometime. From now on we will regularly compile new blog articles about hashimoto’s hypothyroidism for you.

Best regards

Daniela Bernhardt