My journey is a little hard to talk about some days. It started so long ago that I rarely think about it. It’s filled with so much emotion, and I really don’t want anyone going through it. This is why I share some parts of it.
My journey lead to a lot of different parts. And it started from a lot of different elements. Some providers will tell you that it’s because you eat too much, or you did something. But, I’ve found, in my personal journey, that it has been a collection of things. Not everything has applied to me personally.
I was normal, healthy looking to many. Happy, was living my best full life. Then wham, I don’t know what happened, and now I’m here 13 years later living my full life after a thyroidectomy. For years I’ve asked myself, how did I get here? How did I develop hypothyroidism, and it went down SO FAST. In another post, I’ll talk about how quickly that escalated.
There is no clear answer, or even one thing that could have lead to you developing hypothyroidism. But these are five reasons or root causes you developed hypothyroidism, that you can explore and can aid you in your healing process.
1. Family History
I know, so generic. No one likes to hear this one. But funny how only one or two family members will have it and not others. My luck was this. I didn’t even know who had thyroid disease in my family. But I did. From some research and personal journey, I had done a some genetic testing and it was fascinating. With the testing, and muscle testing, we found several nutritional deficiencies. When my doctor pulled out a, you can say a map of my endocrine system, he explained that it was like a switchboard. Some things will trigger the breaker to trip, causing some havoc in the body. Breakers can include things like the MTHFR gene mutation. Which will talk about in a later post. Some of these triggers can be stress, mal nutrition, among other things. So when we say family history, it’s not necessarily just, “hey mom had it too”. It can be as simple but as complex.
2. Stress
Let me tell you, yes, stress is bad thing. And it’s sooo hard in our society to keep stress levels low. There are books dedicated to explaining why stress is the cause of so many if not all diseases. Why stress does this? Well, think about this for a second, what happens in your physical world that when you are stressed? You can’t think straight, hyperventilation, forgetful, can’t eat, can’t drink, heart beating differently, anxiety attacks, among other things. So, when we translate that into what’s going on in the body, we have lots of chemical, hormonal and behavior shifts. Example, you forget to eat, means your body is not getting the energy and nutrients. Now you are more fatigued, tired, moody and hungry. It’s very important to have a plan for when stress attacks.
3. Virus
In my studies, I had read and even asked, if I was sick not long before the diagnosis. I don’t recall ever being sick and seeing the trigger long after. Granted, from what I’ve read, you can get mono virus and show signs and symptoms much later in life when it activates. Kind of like chicken pox. If you had chicken pox as a child, you are more prone to acquiring shingles later in life. So for many people have found that in their body, they had Epstein barr virus activated. So it's an important thing to check to get that under control.
4. Nutritional Deficiencies
For many people, a long nutritional deficiency can lead to more serious issues. Many functional doctors will test you for the basics, which I appreciate since it’s something, and cost effective. Most common deficiencies these days are: Vitamin D, Iodine, Magnesium, Selenium, Iron to start. We will talk about each deficiency seen and how it affects or manifests in the body.
5. Emotional
This one is a biggie. A lot of people don’t like this one. It means opening up old wounds. But it’s important. From what I’ve read, and experienced, emotions get stuck in certain parts of our body. And that can cause even more havoc. This is why forgiveness is so important, because it is for you to heal. Not anyone else. It is to release these negative emotions so that they don’t cause havoc in your body. I’ve seen and heard so many stories. Even part of my own. An example was when reading how your thyroid is affected when you feel you can’t express yourself. Let me tell you, when I was diagnosed, I had spent 2 years battling a situation in my life that I felt like I was not being heard, I could not express myself. And I succumbed. It was very painful memory and even more painful to think had I acted on the problem, maybe things would have been different. But I am grateful to have learned that because now it’s a baseline for me to make sure I don’t keep anything in. Or try. It’s a process for people pleasers lol.
Two books I enjoyed and talk a lot about this are: You can heal your life by Louis Hay and The body keeps the score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD.
The key here is not to freak out. Because you may have seen that you have all these as possible reasons. The key here is to become aware. That way you can start tackling. You have something tangible to work on. A book I always say people should look into is Root Cause by Izabella Wentz, PharmD. For many people it’s a great place to start.
I hope these things can give you a map to start looking into what are your reasons, so you can start your healing journey.
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