Natural Treatments For Thyroid Disorders In Addition To Hormone Therapy

I am a firm believer in natural treatments and always will be.

I wish more types of Doctors believed in natural, along with other treatments because sometimes these combined are amazing. Mostly Osteopaths and Naturopaths practice holistic/natural but there are MDs of other types that incorporate it into their practice as well.

God the Creator, placed these natural things here for us, to heal us and keep us well but strangely, many Doctors have a lot more faith in manmade treatments, which of course can also be greatly beneficial and essential. I feel they should always be open to natural supplements because when you look at the whole picture, we can't survive without the natural, we benefit from every day of our lives.

Hormone replacement for thyroid and other endocrine disease, has no alternative substitute for it and is also an important point that needs to be made from time to time, when discussing natural and alternative treatments.

While natural/alternative treatments are beneficial in some cases, there are other cases in which prescribed medications are an absolute necessity. Another example of this, would be Addison's Disease, where steroid treatment for the diseased, hypofunctioning adrenals is needed or death will likely occur.

Certainly though, nutrient and vitamin deficiencies do occur and can cause serious health problems as well, such as pernicious anemia, where the B-12 vitamin actually becomes deficient.

My wife had severe recurring yeast infections, that were unrelieved by prescription anti-fungals etc... and upon taking the natural supplement "pro-biotics", she had an amazing healing from this treatment, after 15 years of suffering the infections and not finding a pharmaceutical drug that would resolve the problem.

Thyroid patients for another example, may retain some symptoms even while on adequate hormone replacement and can be due to elevated auto-antibody levels, in which some natural supplements can help greatly.

It is very common for patients to have symptom flare-ups, despite being on hormone replacement. and of course there can be other things that cause flare-ups, such as extra stress or an attack of thyroiditis, just meaning a spike upward in the antibodies levels and the resulting inflammation.

I have to be honest and say this is an area I get frustrated with some in the medical community about because I get e-mails a lot from people on thyroid meds, with their levels in very good range and yet they have symptom struggles. Their Doctors will almost invariably tell them "it is not their thyroid causing the symptoms" but also will not mention to them any supplements that might help control these flare-ups. I'm being a little blunt here but this is ludicrous because it can most certainly still be thyroid-related!

Thyroid disease (the majority is autoimmune), is not just resulting hypothyroidism but a disease process going on in the body. It puts more stress on the body and also causes ongoing inflammation that affects the body as a whole because all systems in the body that help fight and resist disease, are activated more frequently than in people without autoimmune disease.

Since we take replacement hormone, it is not our own thyroid regulating and fluctuating our hormone levels and because of this, things that happen, requiring more hormone will not result in getting it because we are on a set amount. This is why I believe in optimizing hormone med levels the best possible because patients who are just barely in good range, are more apt to have symptom flare-ups when needs arise for more hormone, like those mentioned above (extra stress/extra physical activity). Once you are optimized however, if problems with antibodies continue, there are studies, including U.S. Gov ones, that state that supplementing with "selenium", can reduce the effects of antibody flare-ups in autoimmune thyroid disease patients. Doctors do however have to be willing to accept the fact that hormone replacement, as essential and important as it is, does not completely relieve symptoms due to thyroid autoimmunity, in all patients and they may need this extra help!

How in the world can some in the medical community, be so tunnel-visioned as to actually believe patients on hormone replacement cannot experience symptoms? I suppose they believe the literally thousands of patients on the web, that attest to having symptom problems (symptom polls, forums, etc...), despite treatment, are every one experiencing psycho-somatic symptoms? Again I say this view is ludicrous and may prevent patients from getting the extra benefit of adding natural supplements that can sometimes help greatly!

Doctors treating patients who retain unresolved symptoms, despite adequate treatment on hormones or other pharmaceutical drugs, should be educated in natural supplements that can also help, so that these also can be suggested to patients in need of them.