OUR 3 FAVORITE TREATMENT APPROACHES FOR HYPERTHYROID

Patients suffering from hyperthyroid symptoms, usually from Grave’s disease, come in to our clinic looking for alternatives or complementary natural treatments. They are usually suffering from some or all of the classic hyperthyroid symptoms including heart palpitations, anxiety, insomnia, weight loss, diarrhea, and difficulty breathing.

Patients are usually surprised and relieved by how helpful some of our natural therapies can be for their disease. I’ve compiled a list of our most researched, and helpful treatments for hyperthyroidism below.

1. Anti-inflammatory diet

Most cases of hyperthyroid are caused by Grave’s disease. It’s an auto-immune disease where your immune system stimulates your thyroid to produce more thyroid hormones. Most people with auto-immune disease have underlying food sensitivities. When your body is sensitive to certain foods, your immune system will attack it. When it attacks, it causes inflammation.

We usually suggest that patients do a food sensitivity test to find out what foods their reactive to, or eliminate the most common inflammatory foods for a few weeks. This helps to reduce inflammation, and it takes away one of the triggers causing immune reactivity. Many patients find this to be incredibly helpful.

2. Adrenal Support

Most patients with high thyroid levels have inappropriate cortisol (stress hormone) secretion. Cortisol is secreted by our adrenal glands, on top of our kidneys. Since these two hormones influence each other, it’s important to get them both working optimally. To help understand how your cortisol levels are acting, and how we should treat it, I like to run a morning and evening cortisol test, which essentially measures your blood or saliva cortisol levels throughout the day.

Some of my favorite products to help normalize cortisol include herbs like Rhodiola, Ashwaganda, Rehmannia, and the Phospholipid phosphotidylserine.

3. Selenium

Selenium is found naturally in Brazil nuts. Clinical research has shown that taking selenium in combination with thyroid medications can help lower thyroid antibodies. It can also help to improve mood, feelings of well-being and quality of life.

4. Anti-thyroid herbs

A few herbs are great at calming down the thyroid, especially for patients that experience their heart beating uncontrollably. These herbs include Melissa officinalis, Lycopus virginicus, and Leonurus cardiaca. We use this combination for patients all the time, and they see such great results.

All of these treatments should be carefully recommended and monitored by your naturopathic doctor. Call us to book your appointment and start healing your thyroid today.

Sincerely,

Dr. Shadi Tabaei, ND