For those people that have Graves’ Disease or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, many endocrinologists focus their efforts on treating the thyroid gland. For Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, which involves an underproduction of thyroid hormone, they will typically recommend synthetic thyroid hormone. With Graves’ Disease, which involves an overproduction of thyroid hormone, most medical doctors will prescribe a medication such as Methimazole, or sometimes use more extreme treatment measures such as radioactive iodine to slow down or completely stop the thyrodi gland from producing thyroid hormone.
While you don’t want to neglect the thyroid gland, at the same time you don’t want to ignore other areas of the body that might be causing the thyroid gland to malfunction in the first place. After all, just because the thyroid gland is affected doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the root cause of the problem.
This is why when choosing a natural treatment protocol for your autoimmune thyroid disorder, the following three bodily components will almost always be addressed by a competent natural doctor:
1. The Immune System. I discussed this in detail in a couple of previous posts, as addressing the immune system often times should be the first line of action when treating an autoimmune thyroid disorder. The reason for this is because often times the weakened immune system is what actually caused the condition to develop in the first place. Plus, people with Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis are more likely to develop other autoimmune disorders in the future, and a big reason for this is because most medical doctors don’t do much to help strengthen the patient’s immune system.
2. The Adrenal Glands. The adrenals are yet another area that are neglected when diagnosing and treating both Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Many times the adrenal glands should be addressed before the immune system or the thyroid gland. Just like most endocrinologists won’t do much to help strengthen the patient’s immune system, they usually won’t pay any attention to the adrenal glands either. Doing so is easy and relatively inexpensive, and can provide a lot of valuable information that can do wonders for the patient’s recovery.
3. The Thyroid Gland. Of course we can’t forget about treating the thyroid gland itself, can we? The funny thing is that often times strengthening the immune system and addressing the adrenals will help restore the function of the thyroid gland, without directly addressing the thyroid gland itself. However, this isn’t always the case, and in many cases nutritional support will need to be aimed directly at the thyroid gland in order to restore health. Once again, everyone is different, and therefore will need to be on different natural treatment protocols.
Although these are the primary bodily components that will usually be looked at, this doesn’t mean that other areas can’t be contributing to your condition, or even directly causing it. For example, in some people with Graves’ Disease or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, the gastrointestinal system can be the root cause of the problem. So if these three primary areas I mentioned above are addressed and there isn’t much improvement in the patient, then a competent natural doctor will begin to look at other areas in the body. In some cases the GI tract will need to be addressed before these three bodily components.
Fortunately, with most people that have an autoimmune thyroid disorder, addressing these three bodily components is usually enough to help restore the patient’s health to normal, assuming this is possible of course. In some patients complete recovery just isn’t possible, although many who can’t completely recover will still benefit greatly from receiving natural treatment methods.
So if you decide to consult with a natural endocrine doctor in the future, you’ll want to make sure they evaluate all three of these bodily components. If all they do is address the thyroid gland itself, which is what most endocrine doctors do (even many of the holistic doctors), you might want to consider switching doctors, or at least get a second opinion before you begin treatment.