The most common thyroid condition in America impacts at least 14 million Americans, Hashimoto’s was originally discovered in 1912. It is named after the Japanese physician Hakaru Hashimoto.
Hashi’s is also the most common cause of hypothyroidism.
Although some people have Hashi’s without hypothyroidism or vice versa, these conditions have so many similarities that we might be able to look at them in the same way for the most part.
Hypothyroidism affects up to 5% of the world population(roughly 400 million), and it’s estimated that another 5% are undiagnosed (so potentially almost a billion people). Iodine deficiency is the most common cause of worldwide thyroid disorders. 1
Hashimoto’s is sometimes called chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis or autoimmune thyroiditis.
Most doctors are not running tests to look for Hashimoto’s or other thyroid issues, whether people request them or not. So it’s possible that a lot of people are experiencing this situation without even realizing.
Even when doctors do test and do find markers that indicate thyroid issues, they rarely have useful solutions. If anything, they give us thyroid hormone supplements to mask some of the symptoms. If antibody markers for Hashimoto’s are found, doctors very rarely have any solutions or even directions to look in.
Symptoms of Hashimoto’s
Some, but not all of the symptoms we may experience with Hashimoto’s
- Fatigue and sleepiness
- Always cold or sensitive to cold
- Constipation
- Weakness
- Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness
- Joint pain
- Irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Problems with memory or concentration
- Goiter (Swelling of the thyroid)
- Puffy face
- Brittle nails
- Dry skin
- Hair loss
- Swollen tongue
Hypothyroid also has connections to heart disease, infertility, and poor brain development in children.
What does mainsteam say Hashimoto’s is?
The general idea is that our immune system is haphazardly attacking our poor thyroid cells and there is nothing we can do but buy more prescriptions.
In an attempt to keep this page a little shorter, I have expanded on Mainstream’s view here whyiodine.com/mainstreams-idea-of-hashimotos/
“Alternative” information about Hashi’s
Covering all of this information quickly turns into a wall of text. Each of the pages I link to has a plethora of information. My goal is to summarize a different view of Hashimoto’s in an attempt to help others see a potential path. I am not attempting to claim this is the answer or solution. I am just sharing information that I found very intriguing.
Wanna know what I think?
I think Hashimoto’s is as simple as immune functions being used to inhibit our thyroid. I think this is happening because we are not able to make the proper substances or communications in order to run our thyroid at proper speed.
I think our metabolism is not capable of running at the overall agreed idea of what speed it should run. I think this is due to mercury impeding the system as well as lack of proper stomach acid causing a lack of available nutrients. This is part of the reason I sound a bit like a broken mercury and stomach acid record.
Histamines and Hashimoto’s
Histamines and hyperthyroid issues tend to go hand and hand. 2 There are several reasons they tend to influence each other, and it likely has to do with us trying to live in a toxic environment for several generations now.
Histamines are worth exploring no matter what our wellness goals are. It’s pretty easy to see if our symptoms match histamines.
Seeking Health has a Histamine Bundle. If the symptoms they list on each page are familiar, add histamines to your list of priorities. Feel free to use my coupon code Micah10.
I made a short video about histamines https://www.facebook.com/micah.john.coffey/videos/325433000248298
Oxalates and Hashimoto’s
A study of thyroid autopsies found that 79 percent of adults had oxalate crystals in their thyroid glands, with prevalence increasing with age. Interestingly, people with Hashimoto’s had a lower incidence of oxalate crystals, especially in the parts of their thyroid gland that were inflamed!
This led the scientists to conclude that oxalates may play a role in contributing to Hashimoto’s, potentially causing inflammation that may trigger the autoimmune response that, in turn, results in the destruction of the oxalate crystals and the surrounding thyroid tissue. In some cases, giant cell reactions were found around the crystals, suggesting an ongoing immune response.
Read more about this and several other connections to oxalates at https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/oxalates-affect-thyroid-health/
We’ve known oxalates were depositing in our thyroid since 1868. 3
Selenium and Hashimoto’s
This page does a great job linking up a lot of information that helps explain this situation. It links to a good bit of info explaining how the lack of selenium likely has a lot to do with Hashimoto’s and other thyroid issues. – http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-i/
Here is a small clinical trial which inadvertently shows how leaving out selenium can cause iodine to make Hashimoto’s worse. – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9703374/
A bunch of info about iodine, selenium and Hashimoto’s https://jeffreydachmd.com/hashimotos-selenium-and-iodine-part-two/
I have written about selenium which may help summarize a lot of this info whyiodine.com/selenium and whyiodine.com/selenium-continued
Mercury and Hashimoto’s
Dr. Wentz at Thyroid Pharmacist also points out various connections between mercury, Hashi’s and other thyroid conditions. https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/mercury-exposure-hashimotos/
Mercury becomes lodged in our thyroid and inhibits thyroid function. It’s possible our immune system is used to mitigate this in some way which ends up harming the thyroid, similar to the situation with oxalates.
We’ve been installing mercury in people’s teeth since the 1830s and knew quickly in the 1840s that it caused people serious health issues. It’s possible that we have several ancestors in our bloodline who have added mercury to our toxic load.
Coal power production in the US emits anywhere from thousands to 100’s of thousands of pounds of mercury into the atmosphere. I’ve seen a wide range of estimates and we’ve worked towards ‘scrubbing’ mercury from emissions. Either way, it’s still a lot of mercury being generated year after year and spread through wind and rain.
Some High Fructose Corn Syrup is processed with mercury. The information for this is almost impossible to find anymore which is rather interesting.
The point I’m trying to make is that mercury toxicity is much more common than most people may assume.
Stomach Acid and Oxalates
Above, I showed how thyroid issues likely have a connection to oxalates.
It’s estimated that 20% of our oxalates are from our diet and the rest are produced by our metabolism. If we are not digesting food properly, this 20% can overwhelm our system whether we have oxalate issues in our metabolism or not.
We need to consume calcium in our diet or oxalates may not be digested properly https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/calcium-oxalate-stone
When our stomach acid is incorrect, we cannot release bile properly. Without bile we cannot digest fat properly, and without proper fat digestion, our fat clings to the calcium in our diet which allows the oxalates to remain free where they can enter our bloodstream.
If the symptoms I list on this page are familiar, focusing on stomach acid will likely help our situation. Following a low oxalate diet as we work on stomach acid can be helpful. sickoftired.com/stomach-acid
Other influences
I may expand on this section if people show interest, but admitting we’re contributing to our misery daily is not easy, or common, so I wouldn’t expect it to go much further.
We’re either going to finally see what we’re going for one day, or it will never click, so I doubt trying to drive the point home will be of much use. If we want to heal, we need to avoid just about anything with an ingredient label, so using soda with e. coli poop as a sweetener(aspartame) is, um, kind of obviously an issue.
First, this isn’t even about Hashi’s, its about Grave’s, which is similar but different than Hashi’s. But it’s a serious thyroid issue that may very likely influence us before we might be diagnosed with Grave’s. Our thyroid can swing hypo to hyper and back, so there is a lot of room for issues here.
Second, this is a “letter to the editor” which is not a study or anything formal. But doctors don’t sign their name on stuff like this for fun, there is a lot on the line.
This doctor claims he has a “database which exceeds 1,300 victims of aspartame-related illnesses, with a 3:1 preponderance of women” 4
I think it’s worth a read with an open mind. Just because e. coli poop isn’t connected directly to hashi’s doesn’t mean it’s not causing some type of influence on our thyroid.
To summarize Hashimoto’s
Mainstream wants us to buy their bandaid.
Hashi’s has a good bit of connection to oxalate issues.
Hashi’s has a good bit of connection to selenium issues, which then includes iodine and dozens of other nutrients.
Hashi’s has connections to mercury.
There are likely plenty of other influences.
This could all start with poor digestion and general metabolism.
So how do we fix the situation?
There is not a simple answer to this question. Our daily lifestyle, habits, abilities, resources etc change how this works in a lot of ways.
Some of us are not of the realization that our body is made of and runs on nutrients. This means we may not realize the importance and power of proper nutrition yet.
Some of us apply dozens of toxic products to our body all day long, chew toxic gum, drink various toxic liquids and eat various levels of toxic food. Most of the air on the planet is toxic and our indoor air has various toxins including the co2 we exhale.
Some of us either do not have funds or still prefer to invest them into things other than health.
Although this changes how we handle the situation, we still have to go after this with some sort of plan. But you are the only one that can come up with this plan as you continue to learn.
The homepage of my site sickoftired.com starts to lay out a general starting point which links out to other information. If you enjoy my info, you may have to click around a bit to locate everything since there isn’t exactly a way to organize all this info since we’re all so much different.
More of my personal opinion
I taught myself how to recover from a handful of serious health issues, so I have an interesting view of our abilities.
I think Hashi’s is mainly leaky gut but also situations that can cause similar situations or are closely related to it.
I think the reason some people find relief by eating a full carnivore diet is due mainly to reducing our oxalate intake while also eating food that likely starts stimulating bile flow and release. This may be handy short-term, but I think we need to address nutritional deficiencies asap before the benefits of carnivore potentially wear off within a few months, which is common.
If we have a lot of issues and do not digest food well or cannot handle many foods, it’s wise to figure out what imbalances we may have in our gut. If we have a gut biome working against our metabolism, we have to figure out how to take care of the situation or we’re just fighting ourselves with most meals.
Otherwise we may want to keep in mind that this is not a quick process most of the time. Sometimes I find a nutrient my body was ready to use, and it pretty much instantly helps me feel better, but other times it takes a good bit of time before I notice my cells changing as I slowly provide a lot of nutrition.
I think Hashi’s is a cycle of our body trying to run our metabolism faster than it can currently safely metabolize. Our immune system is being used to inhibit more thyroid function because our system is having trouble communicating and our TSH is incorrectly asking for more hormones ATM. I think as we remove the toxins that inhibit our ability to properly metabolize, we reduce the need to inhibit our thyroid with our immune system.
This is confusing and doesn’t make sense
Which is likely done on purpose.
When we walk into a doctor’s office, we are essentially admitting that we either could not figure out how to fix our body with nutrition or we don’t know it’s possible etc. Doctors tell us about the options they have for sale. If a condition benefits from diet, digestion and nutrition, mainstream isn’t going to have any answers for us, because mainstream ignores this stuff.
The main reason we don’t hear about more people ranting and raving about how diet finally helped them resolve X, is because not many people realize how to properly address this stuff, and the few that do have a slim chance of getting their story out to many people.
- Hypothyroidism in Context: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6822815/
- https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/histamine-and-hashimotos/
- Oxalate in the Human Thyroid Gland – https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/cclm.1993.31.9.559/html
- Aspartame Disease – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387446/