Hello everyone! So after knowing all about Hashimoto disease, the immune system and autoimmune diseases, today I will try to sum up ways to reboot your body, give your immune system the boost it needs to be able to do its job properly, and hopefully ways of getting your thyroid back to functioning properly and for your body to finally stop attacking your cells.

So let’s start from the liver, as we saw here, liver is what converts your T4 into T3, and so if your liver isn’t working properly, this won’t be done and therefore, you will have a malfunctioning thyroid gland. So let’s look deeper into ways of supporting your liver. The liver’s main job is to detoxify your blood before passing it to the rest of the body. It is constantly dealing with chemicals and harmful substances, to make sure your body is pure and toxin free. In order to support your liver, giving it some kind of break from time to time is a great idea. How to do that? Here are few tips:

 

• Avoid alcohol and caffeine
• Try to have a healthy diet as much as you can
• Make sure you minimize the use of medication, because your liver is responsible of analyzing synthetics and passing them to the blood.
• Exercise regularly.
• From time to time stop eating the following items, not because they are all harmful, some are very good for you indeed, but because it is your liver that is responsible of their digestion, so in order to lightens the liver’s workload it is a good idea to stop eating the following foods for a week or 10 days each season: Eggs, tomatoes, grapefruits, gluten-containing products, soy and soy products, peanut and peanut butter, Tuna, shellfish, milk, cheese, cooking cream, margarine, butter, soda and soft drinks, white or brown sugar, chocolate, ketchup, and corn.
• On the other hand you might want to increase your intake of the following foods: Avocadoes, apples, bananas, apples, berries, grapes, kiwis, nectarines, papaya, peaches, plums, strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, arugula, bell pepper, cucumber, eggplants, squash, peas, radishes, yams, mushrooms, lettuce, okra, zucchinis, spinach, legumes including lentils and peas, almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts, cashews, milk substitutes such as rice and almond milk, olive and coconut oils, all fresh and frozen fish (except shellfish and Tuna) wild is better than farmed of course.
• Reduce stress!!!!! I can not stress enough on that (how ironic is this sentence lol). Indulge in sports that focus on breathing such as Yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong. Try to get enough sleep (8 to 10 hours if you can, or just as close to that as you can). Try to listen to calm, and meditative music in the car, make sure you spread meals throughout your day not to put the body under unnecessary stress and just avoid stressful situations.
• Start your day with some warm water and lemon juice (Juice half a lemon, add half cup of warm water and drink it first thing in the morning). Lemon is truly magical, it acts like a natural cleanser and helps the liver gets rid of the toxins.

 

Now that we made sure the liver is well supported let’s move to your gut’s health. As explained here, your immune system is strongly linked to your guts, so keeping healthy guts is essential in having a healthy immune system. How do you do that? Follow these steps:

 

• Increase your intake of fiber and fermented food like yogurt, kim chi, sauerkraut…etc.
• Consider probiotic supplements
• Avoid using antibiotics as they kill all kind of good bacteria in your guts
• Stock up on anti-inflammatory foods such us spinach, kale, walnuts, almonds…etc.
• Eat less refined sugar
• and of course lower your stress levels.

 

Now let’s talk specifically on how to improve the health of your thyroid gland.

 

The first thing you should start doing is test your TSH, if it is high, you will need to take your thyroxin medication religiously, to adjust your TSH, as we will need to first stabilize your situation then look into getting better.

 

Then consider getting your Iodine, Magnesium, and Vitamin D levels tested. You would also want to check your liver function too, a very simple blood test can do that, because if you remember, liver is what converts T4 to T3. You might want to also test you RT3 (reverse T3, which is what your liver produce instead of R3 to get rid of unwanted and unneeded T4). Your doctor might not agree to do all these tests, (because again, no doctor in this island wants to spend more than 5 minutes with each patient), but if your insurance will cover the cost then please insist.

 

After getting all the needed tests, now it is time to strengthen the Thyroid gland, and the production of the T4 and T3. Consider adding some supplements into your diet, such as: Selenium. Selenium is a very important ingredient in the conversion of T4 into a T3. However, unfortunately it is not easily found in food, or if found it will be in very little quantities, that will not really help the body. Also some selenium rich foods are also rich in mold, or are not recommended if your thyroid isn’t working well (like Soy products and wheat). So you really have to be careful when it comes to this mineral. To stay in the safe side, take supplements that you can find over the counter. Here are some selenium rich foods however: Eggs, Mushrooms, Oats, Tuna, Sunflower seeds, Salmon, Brown rice …etc.

• Increase your good fats daily intake, as well as zinc, vitamin A, B, and D.
• Consider getting checked for other autoimmune diseases like Celiac.
• Avoid mold in whatever form it is, whether it is in your house or in the coffee you have in your mug.
• Avoid toxins, by being careful in what utensils you use in the kitchen, avoid plastic, stainless-steel. Use cast iron pots, and wooden tools instead. Drink plenty of water. Let your body sweat as much as you can (the best way to get rid of toxins) so don’t hold back in using Saunas, and hot baths.  Try to not use your phone at least at night, in your bedroom, either switch it off, or put in on airplane mode.  Avoid all the wireless devices as much as you can. And of course avoid SUGAR!
• Finally, I can’t stress enough about exercising, getting enough sleep and avoiding stress!

 

 

I personally advice to get your TSH tested after you do all the above changes, every 2, 3 months, just to check if you need medication and if the dosage is right. If you follow all the protocols above, I guarantee you that you will boost your thyroid function, and if you won’t get a 100% results you will at least manage to reduce your medication’s dosage, as well as the inflammation in your body.

 

I really hope these three blog posts (this one you are reading now, this and this) will help you get your life back, and that you manage to finally get your body to function the way it should.

 

Many healthy vibes from me to you.

 

Ouiam