The Natural Treatment for Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is a condition that occurs when your thyroid gland doesn't produce enough thyroid hormones. The thyroid gland is the small butterfly-shaped organ at the base of your neck that makes hormones that regulate metabolism in the body. The balance in these hormones are responsible for harmonious functions of all the other organs, determines how the body uses energy and contributes to the overall well-being.

While your body goes through hormonal changes every day (mood swings!), big dips like those that occur during hypothyroidism can signal danger, as a lack of thyroid hormone production causes the body’s functions to slow down.

Not to mention, an underactive or overactive thyroid can affect your waistline. People with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) experience a slower metabolic rate, which is generally associated with some amount of weight gain, about 5 to 10 pounds, usually due to accumulation of salt and water in the body

The symptoms of hyo-active thyroid gland often develop slowly over the years and may be mistaken for the natural changes of aging.

Some of the symptoms are:

• fatigue

• weight gain

• muscle weakness

• muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness

• dry skin

• depression

• impaired memory

• puffy face

• hoarseness

• increased sensitivity to cold

• pain, stiffness or swelling in the joints

• hair thinning

• elevated blood cholesterol level

• irregular menstrual periods

• constipation

• decreased heart rate

HYPOTHYROIDISM SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN AND TEENS

Symptoms of hypothyroidism in children and teens are similar to symptoms in adults and include the following:

• Poor growth or short stature

• Delayed puberty

• Slow reaction time

• Weight gain

• Coarse, dry hair or skin

• Muscle cramps

• Delayed mental development

• Increased menstrual flow (in girls)

RISK FACTORS OF HYPOTHYROIDISM

• Having a family history of thyroid disease

• Having other autoimmune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis, DM-type 1 or lupus)

• Taking supplements and medications that affect the thyroid, including iodine or lithium

• Having undergone thyroid surgery

• Having a history of exposure to radiation to your neck or upper chest

• Having been pregnant or delivered a baby within the past six months

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis or auto-immune thyroiditis , is a condition in which your immune system attacks your thyroid gland, often causing hypothyroidism.

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis typically affects middle-aged women, but it can happen in anyone. It affects about 5 in 100 people and is 8 times more common in women than men. About 10 to 12 percent of the population has the antibodies that cause Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, but not all of these individuals will develop thyroid dysfunction.

Currently, the causes of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis are unknown, but experts think they may be due to a combination of genes and an external trigger, like a virus.

How Is Hypothyroidism Diagnosed?

If you have many of the common symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as dry skin, constipation, fatigue, and a hoarse voice, you can make an appointment with your doctor to check for hypothyroidism.

Your doctor can perform various screenings:

• A physical exam

• A blood test

• An imaging scan

If these tests show an elevated TSH and low levels of thyroid hormones — like free T4, total T3, or free T3 — it may be an indication.

Subclinical Hypothyroidism occurs when your TSH levels are elevated but the circulating thyroid hormone levels are normal. It is important for your doctor to determine how your TSH fluctuates before you begin your treatment regimen, as various health conditions can temporarily affect your thyroid levels. In most cases of subclinical hypothyroidism, you should have a discussion regarding the risks and benefits of treatment with levothyroxine with your doctor. That’s particularly true if your TSH is less than 10, which means your doctor should assess carefully whether to treat you for hypothyroidism.

Alternative and Complementary Therapies

Some people with hypothyroidism choose to supplement their treatment with alternative medicines, often to help with symptoms like fatigue, weight gain, stress, and mental fog. Treatments can include yoga, meditation, hypnosis, supplements, or special diets. Research that includes one small study of 20 women with hypothyroidism found that yoga helped patients manage their symptoms.

While people with thyroid disease are often careful to eat a diet low in iodine (which can worsen hypothyroidism once a patient has it) or to take vitamin D or calcium supplements, no diet or nutrient can cure thyroid disease

Hypothyroidism and Homeopathy

Homeopathy offers great scope in the treatment of hypothyroidism for several reasons. Homeopathy treats hypothyroidism with safe, natural medicines without side-effects. The medicine is selected according to the patient’s mental state and other physical characteristics. Homeopathy is a personalized treatment option as it treats each case as unique because the degree of symptoms and disturbance of emotions may vary from case to case. You can review our thyroid treated cases on our page on facebook, HomeopatheCure.

Hypothyroidism Diet

If you're taking thyroid hormone replacement for hypothyroidism, you may want to avoid consuming certain foods within a few hours of taking your thyroid medication. Some foods, like calcium, iron, and multivitamins, may block absorption of the thyroid hormone so should be taken four hours apart from levothyroxine.

Foods to limit with hypothyroidism:

• Soybean flour and cottonseed meal

• Iron and calcium supplements

• Antacids containing aluminium or magnesium

• Some ulcer or cholesterol-lowering drugs

• Walnuts

Overall, it is most important for people with hypothyroidism to eat a well-balanced diet, rather than consuming any food group.

How long does homeopathy take to work?

A common perception that people have about Homeopathy is that it is slow to act. After so many years of my clinical dealings with patients, I have heard these umpteen times from people that they think Homeopathy is slow. At that very instance, I make sure that I enlighten them about the speedy action of Homeopathic medicines, and this helps them correct the notion that they are carrying in their minds. It is therefore necessary to understand some basic things about human body, the body’s immunity or the defense system, the mode of action of homeopathic medicines and the nature of diseases.

The human body has been provided with elaborate innate mechanisms to keep itself healthy. In most of the times, it can retain its health with this innate mechanism known as the immunity. The white blood cells form the basic defense mechanism and can keep most diseases at bay by working silently day in and out. Even when some disease manages to overpower the body’s defense mechanism and enter the system, this mechanism exerts itself and tries to control the issue at hand. Often it can do so but requires help at times. This help comes in the form of medicines, which restore the patient to health. This is where medicine, doctors and medical aid come in.

It is pertinent to understand here what the mode of action of the homeopathic medicines is. The homeopathic medicines act as an aid to the natural immunity of the body. They help in strengthening the innate healing powers of the body and let the body cure itself. If there are some bacteria or viruses in the body, the homeopathic medicines help in activating and strengthening the various immunity mechanisms that in turn contain the infection on their own. The immunity gained from fighting an infection lives in the memory of the white blood cells forever and whenever a similar infection occurs, the available antibodies scramble at a breakneck speed to contain the infection. This prevents further infection from similar bacteria or viruses, even if the second infection occurs years later.

This is in direct contrast to the allopathic system of medicine, which assumes that the natural immunity of the body has failed to do its duty and needs to be replaced with an artificial defense mechanism. Antibiotics are prescribed indiscriminately, which inherently works on the assumption that the immunity of the body has completely failed to contain the bacteria. Hence some medicines need to be supplied that will go and just kill the bacteria or do the duty in place of the natural healing mechanism of the body. As a corollary, a lot of healthy bacteria are also killed which form the natural fauna of the gut. Also, over a period of time and with frequent or rather indiscriminate use of antibiotics, the bacteria become resistant to these antibiotics. It has often been seen that antibiotics are prescribed even when it is clear that the patient is suffering from a viral disease. Such abuse of antibiotics, instead of strengthening the body’s immunity, leaves it weak and helpless.

The disease that attacks a person may be a self-limiting type or a short lived one like a viral fever or a cold or a simple stomach upset. Such diseases are called acute diseases while those that tend to persist for long times or for the whole of the life are called chronic diseases. Eczema, asthma, chronic sinusitis, cervical or lumbar spondylitis, ulcerative colitis, diabetes and cancer are some of the chronic diseases.

Homeopathy acts faster in acute diseases

Yes, the fact is that Homeopathy works faster in acute diseases than the conventional form of treatment. For the purpose of illustration, let us take a commonly seen problem of viral fever. It is a well known adage that Viral is cured in 7 days with medicine and takes a week without any medicine. This is true only of the allopathic medicine as there is hardly any treatment for any viral infection. The common practice is to keep giving Paracetamol or some other medicine to lower the temperature temporarily and allow the body to fight the infection. This usually takes about a week.

Now contrast this with Homeopathy. In my experience, having treated so many cases of viral fevers, I have always found that it does not take more than 2-3 days to cure the viral fever. In fact, in most of the cases, the fever is gone in a day. The only difference is that the Homeopathic medicines do not lower the temperature artificially for a little while, as happens with paracetamol. Once the effect of the medicine wears off, the temperature again rises and you will have to repeat the medicine again. This cycle keeps on continuing for the next week or so. The paracetamol only helps in lowering the body temperature and in no way helps in fighting the infection which is the cause of the fever. Here, one more thing needs to be understood that the fever is a symptom of an underlying viral infection and not a disease in itself. The alternate system tries to fight the viral infection but are just trying to suppress the most visible symptom of the infection. The homeopathic medicines, on the other hand do not lower the temperature artificially and help the body fight the viral infection, which is the root cause of the fever. That is why, once the fever subsides after the body’s immunity has gained enough strength to fight the infection, the fever does not come back. An added advantage is that there is no remnant weakness or any other trouble like loss of appetite or bad taste in mouth which often remain for a while after a viral fever.