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Category: foods

How foods you eat, or don’t eat, can make or break your health!

Headshot StandingWhen you think of doing things that will make you healthy, what do you think of?

But there’s one more way to achieve health: what we eat or don’t eat! The right food is bigger than we ever imagined for our health and well-being as thyroid patients, especially if you have autoimmune issues. And that is an especially important when the shelves of our grocery stores are filled with rows and rows of over-processed junk!!

The following STTM Guest Blog Post…about FOOD…was written by Jennifer Robins. She was diagnosed with several autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s disease, had chronic infections, plus Lyme disease. Jennifer became gravely ill and mostly housebound. When traditional medical treatments failed to help, Jennifer turned to food for healing! Yes, food. She removed grain, dairy and refined sugars and began eating “predominantly Paleo”. And because of that radical change in the way she ate, she started reclaiming her life, one whole food at a time. Read about her interesting story!

I remember growing up eating a standard American diet, missing little to no school, and having more energy than any one person ever could use. While my family did not eat out or frequent drive-through windows routinely, our home had it’s share of boxed “food”. As a family, we were “healthy.” We felt good and rarely visited the doctor.

It’s funny looking back, how people defined “healthy”. Rarely did we think about what goes into our bodies as defining health. Instead, we tended to gauge our health by how we think we feel, how many prescription drugs we are taking, and whether or not we have made any trips to the emergency room.

However, with autoimmune disease and other chronic ailments growing exponentially every year, diet and food sourcing is becoming increasingly more important.

Eight years ago after giving birth to two babies less than a year apart, I felt miserable.

I chalked it up to the obvious lack of sleep, the stress of having two babies so close together, and to the fact that my husband was preparing to deploy, leaving me behind with our infant and toddler.

Exhausted, frazzled, irritable, lightheaded, and overheated, I finally headed to my general practitioner to seek advice. She ran thyroid labs and they were “normal”, except for my TSH which read 0. Yes, 0. We agreed to follow up several weeks later and when I did, my labs were all in range, including TSH, FT4, FT3, and reverse T3. My low TSH had resolved yet I felt just as horrible if not worse than the month prior.

Eventually I sought out the help of an endocrinologist who discovered my thyroid antibodies.

My Anti-Thyroglobulin levels were more than double the upper limit. All other thyroid labs were in range, as they fluctuated between hyper and hypothyroid. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and sent on my way. I tossed my prescription for synthetic thyroid replacement, as I just wasn’t ready for that step, whatever that meant.

I ended up reading about the connection between gluten and autoimmune disease as I scoured the internet looking for answers to my affliction. I was desperate to avoid taking thyroid replacement for the rest of my life. I ran the stool test looking for antibodies produced against gluten and came back positive. So I gave up gluten and was very compliant; but within the year resolved to start thyroid medication.

I researched natural desiccated thyroid and knew it was the best fit for me, so I found a doctor willing to prescribe it. Over the next year or so things leveled out, symptoms improved, and I felt like I could at least participate in my life. We moved to another military assignment, I began working out more regularly, started routine acupuncture, and realized I wanted another baby.

After a few months of trying, I got pregnant.

I was elated and I was feeling better than I had in a long time. My pregnancy was fairly uneventful other than managing my thyroid dosage, and my delivery was unmedicated–a goal I had had for awhile. I had 3 healthy children and life was good.

But around 5 months postpartum, I began feeling terrible.

It was even more terrible than I felt after the first two babies were born. I chalked it up to juggling 3 babies and the hormone shift as well as the need to recalculate my thyroid dosage. I had let my strict gluten free lifestyle go as well and it was time to refocus. So I lowered my meds, cleaned up my diet, and tried to ride it out.

And I got worse. Much worse.

I became so sick in fact that I was housebound 90% of the time and often bedbound. Now I was stricken with neurological symptoms including brain swelling, vertigo, migraines, severe emotional lability (especially when my brain was inflamed), heart palpitations, disorientation, word searching, and more. It was a living nightmare.

I visited a new integrative doctor, in yet another new city and sought help.

She ran labs for viruses, candida, thyroid, adrenals, nutritional deficiencies, and infections and included urine, stool, blood, and hair. The results were overwhelming. I had elevated antibodies for so many types of infections I didn’t know where to start. She noticed I had a few antibody bands come back positive on a western blot for Lyme disease and suggested I test further. I fell down a rabbit hole of more testing, more doctors, and lots of medication recommendations.

Ultimately, I chose to treat the Lyme disease as it was insinuated that this could be the root of all my issues. I began multiple high dose antibiotics that I eventually took for over a year. I was back to strict gluten free eating, took over 40 supplements, probiotics, herbs, and anything else that my doctors recommended. I saw 3 different Lyme literate physicians (LLMDs) over this time.

And I got even worse. Ridiculously worse.

I was assured that this was “herxing” or bacterial die off. So I persisted, I stayed on meds, and life just kept getting more horrendous. I so often begged to die that I wondered daily when my last day on earth would be. I knew I was dying, I just didn’t know when or how long it would take.

But during this time I researched. I read and read and dug until there was nothing left to read. I kept seeing things about the paleo lifestyle for any number of ailments. Be it autoimmune or otherwise, it seemed I was being pointed in this direction for a reason.

Ultimately I made the decision to stop taking antibiotics and start focusing on rebuilding my immune system instead of destroying it.

Giving up the remaining grains and dairy was terribly hard, but it was the first time I began seeing ANY progress in this very long journey. Slowly but surely, I began reclaiming bits of my life back. I began chronicling my recipes, keeping a blog in secret, and eventually sharing it with others. I simultaneously took my already-gluten-free children off of dairy as well, so I needed a place to revisit recipes that kept them nourished and happy too. I noticed changes in all of us. My five year old’s sleep apnea and enlarged tonsils all resolved, my two year old’s enlarged glands in both her groin and neck resolved, and my son’s tummy aches disappeared without gluten and dairy.

I see now how life altering food changes can be.

I see that what you put in your body has everything to do with not only how you feel from day to day but also has the capability of healing a leaky gut and truly managing autoimmune conditions. This does not mean that food always takes the place of medication or of medical care. But we cannot overlook nutrition as being instrumental in our healing.

In my own story, my body could not even begin to heal until I removed inflammation-causing foods, despite the multiple medications, supplements, and other lifestyle changes. My healing has been gradual, with those expected setbacks that have made me feel as if I was failing. But over the past 2+ years of eating this way, I have finally seen glimpses of the old me. Before my body began attacking itself, before I became a shell of the person I was, and before my immune system became my own worst enemy.

I consider myself a work in progress as I truly believe that once you have a chronic ailment, you must always take extra care in respecting your body and its limitations. But I am living again. I am an active parent, a contributing citizen and am no longer just a spectator of my own life. And for that my heart will never be able to exScreen Shot 2015-08-16 at 2.56.40 PMpress the joy and gratitude to have been born once again.

ABOUT JENNIFER ROBINS: Jennifer is the voice and whole foodist behind the popular food blog Predominantly Paleo and is best selling author of the fabulous book of recipes and information called Down South Paleo: Delectable Southern Recipes Adapted for Gluten-free, Paleo Eaters
–filled with gorgeous photos of the recipes she includes. You can also visit her Facebook page Predominantly Paleo which has some really delicious recipes on it, too.

P.S. I, Janie, have her book Down South Paleo: Delectable Southern Recipes Adapted for Gluten-free, Paleo Eaters and it is fabulous.

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About Quinoa; Mistakes made on T3-only; Thyroid Patients and West Nile Virus

“WHAT IS THAT??”

As a thyroid patient who went to hell and back thanks to 20 years of a lousy treatment by allopathic medicine, I care about my good health and what I eat. So I attempt to balance my eating sins. And when I was recently at a salad bar, I couldn’t figure out what a particular bowl of food was, sitting next to mixtures of fruit, pastas, etc.

It looked like “frog eye salad”, which is made up of teeny tiny b-b size pasta and sweet fruits. But this had tomatoes in it. And the small round things had a thin white line around them. Were they fish eggs??

Turns out its a high protein, higher fiber whole grain called Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa), and is loaded with nutrients, including the minerals iron, zinc, and selenium, plus vitamin E and lysine, and all essential amino acids. I got a scoop and I was impressed.

And voila….if you need to be gluten-free, this grain gets the mark! I plan on buying some at my local health food store for an occasional hot breakfast cereal (as I suspect my husband would do better avoiding gluten thanks to frequent digestive issues), besides strongly recommend it to my husband’s niece, who badly needs to go gluten-free to lower her high inflammation levels.

Don’t feel the need to avoid gluten?? This still looks like a great grain and food to become familiar with, which I’m going to do! But a word of warning: it’s not low carb. So like any carb you intake, you’ll want to eat it in moderation.

KEY MISTAKES IF YOU ARE ON T3-ONLY, says a lot of patient experience

Though ten years of strong patient experiences show that natural desiccated thyroid gives the best results for thyroid disease, some thyroid patients have to be, or choose to be, on T3-only. It’s definitely a far better treatment than the lousy T4-only treatment with Synthroid and other brands.

And along the way, we’ve figured out some mistakes we may be making when using T3-only:

  1. Dosing rigidly every certain amount of hours When patients were first learning about using T3-only (which requires more multi-dosing at first than does natural desiccated thyroid), we thought it was a good idea to dose rigidly about every 4-5 hours or so, thinking that T3 would peak about 4 hours after taking the first dose, then make a fall, and you’d then need to replenish your levels. We were wrong with that rigidity.It can be very individual when one needs a dose of T3. Some might need another dose of T3 in three hours after taking the first one due to a higher metabolism. So if they go longer, they put themselves in an increasing hypothyroid state. Another person might be a slow metabolizer and only need their next dose in 5 or 6 hours. So if you take it too soon, you put yourself in the direction of a hyper state.Turns out you need to be dosing T3 when your body tells you it’s time you need it! How to know? Your signs and symptoms. Look for clues that you need your next dose, like a rising heartrate or blood pressure, depression, fatigue, or any hypothyroid symptom unique to you. Notate that on paper, then you’ll know to take your T3 right before that time the next day. It might take a few days of experimenting to figure out when your ideal dosing times are.
  2. Multi-dosing T3 too many times during the day As patients, we used to think that we need to dose T3 up to four to fives times a day in smaller doses. But with our new knowledge about T3, several patients have noted noted that moving dosing to 2-3 times a day, and thus in larger amounts each time, has resulted in better treatment of their hypothyroid state, especially with better cortisol levels.
  3. Thinking that different brands of T3 are equal Unfortunately, some brands of T3 are weaker than others. And occasionally, some batches of a better brand may be bad due to heat exposure. Generally, patients have reported Cytomel to be of a quality and consistent strength. Cynomel has been reported as equal in strength, but lately, patients have found some batches to be weak and are reporting this to the company. UK’s Liothyronine by Goldshield has been reported by patients as weaker in strength all the time. All in all, Cytomel has received the most positive scores.

Using T3 all day while doing the T3 Circadian Method (T3CM) for your proven adrenal fatigue?? As your adrenals kick back in, you may notice that you 1) need to space your T3 farther apart, and 2) that you will need less T3.

WEST NILE VIRUS IS BACK LIKE A VENGEANCE: WHAT YOU AS A THYROID PATIENT SHOULD BE DOING!

Found out that a cousin of mine, who’s a father of two young children, found himself with West Nile Virus several days ago. I got West Nile about 5 years ago, as well. For many of us, it’s like the WORST flu you ever had, and you can take a few weeks to get over your post-illness weakness.

And since having a compromised immune system (as struggling hypothyroid/adrenal patients can have) makes one more vulnerable to the virus effects, I can see it being imperative to be on immune-supportive herbs right now, besides putting on some kind of mosquito repellant of your choice. I also read about Lomatium root, which is supposedly very anti-viral. I would talk to your local health food/supplement store for recommendations.

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