Why thyroid variations are important to pay attention to…

Every cell in the body has a thyroid receptor site.

Only thyroid hormones have these receptor sites.

Thyroid hormones are like the traffic directors.

When women, specifically, have hormonal changes, like…

• having a baby,
• being pregnant,
• peri-menopause,
• menopause,

and experience metabolic changes in energy, appetite, hair, nails, skin, and weight, we start to look deeper into what’s happening in the body.

It’s also why we often look for major adrenal activation events. Events such as…

• emotional upheaval
• big job changes
• divorce
• death(s) in the family
• moving house

Because if the adrenal system is activated, it can affect thyroid hormones via the
HPA Axis – which effects metabolic function.

The HPA Axis plays a big role in the thyroid communicating what is going on in the rest of the body.

H stands for hypothalamus.
P stands for pituitary gland.
A stands for adrenal system.

Both the hypothalamus and pituitary gland operate closely with the thyroid.

The adrenal system regulates our nervous system.

So just in a nut shell, looking at this, you can start asking yourself about symptoms, right?

• brain fog
• feeling jumpy and over reacting
• poor concentration
• feeling out of control of your mood
• increased anxiety
• poor sleep
• moodiness
• anxiety

All of these symptoms tell us if something is out of balance, not only with the HPA Axis, but it could potentially be the start of an under-active thyroid or metabolic dysfunction

I’m going to come back to reproductive changes and the HPA Axis in just a moment, but first, you must understand why stable thyroid function is so important in treatment.

A key function of thyroid hormones is to regulate metabolism.

This includes body temperature, hair growth, nail growth, skin elasticity, metabolising food and energy metabolism.

So, when women start to come to us experiencing…

• weight gain that won’t shift,
• fatigue,
• mood changes,
• poor concentration or brain fog, or
• constipation,

we need to make sure the metabolic function in the body is working properly.

The thyroid hormones affect every cells in the body.

This is a big reason why more than 80% of Australian women are suffering from some kind of subtle decline or incline in thyroid hormones.

But doctors commonly only test TSH, the key detector in standard blood work – the “thyroid stimulating hormone.”

That’s only one of the seven thyroid markers…

The reason, more than likely, that you are reading this email today, is because you are going out of your way to learn and get answers for what is happening in your body.

More than likely, you are not getting answers to questions.

One of the most common reasons women get “normal” blood work, but don’t feel normal and don’t feel right is because the reference ranges are only looking for dangerously high TSH or dangerously low TSH.

Now I encourage you to shift your questions from the what to the who.
Do you have the right people on your team to help you address relieving your symptoms?
Are you using the most effective approach with the least amount of side effects?

Now, let’s go deeper on Reproductive changes and Metabolic Dysfunction.

The Second Puberty, aka Peri-Menopause, affects the HPA Axis. (see top left brain part of image below)

This destabilisation can be a first time event for so many women who start to struggle with metabolic changes like weight gain, anxiety, moodiness, constipation, forgetfulness, brain fog…

This brings me to discuss the three typical patients that we see coming through in peri-menopause or post menopause.

Patient 1: Thin & Fit all your life, now overweight with a sensitive gut.

This is often a combination of bacterial inflammation and metabolic changes.

This particular type of patient often enters into this stage of her life with oestrogen dominance, as progesterone is starting to decrease, which then causes stress on the adrenal system.

Which activates the HPA Axis, and stimulates the thyroid hormones via the pituitary and hypothalamus.

Oestradoil also gets quite inflammatory at this time.

This causes a problem in the digestive microbiome because it often activates inflammatory bacteria in our body that creates inflammation, which is where we start seeing unusual challenges like…

• joint pain
• muscle aches
• UTIs
• thrush
• bloating
• IBS symptoms
• headaches
• migraines
• constipation
• diarrhoea

The excess oestrogen struggles to clear through the bile, so then it can become a vicious cycle, creating further stress on the adrenal system, then effecting metabolic function – especially through the thyroid.

Not only causing cyclical mood changes, but unshift-able weight gain.

Not only are metabolic hormones effected, but the gut microbiome has 15 microbes in particular that are used to regulate metabolic function.

So if the body is unable to clear hormones through the bile and bowel, it’s quite common for these women to express concerns with chronic weight gain that doesn’t shift.

This is often largely driven by the inflammation in the undesirable metabolic bacteria in our gut causing fat storage.

This is why we look not only at thyroid function, but also at our gut’s microbiome function and insulin resistance.

Patient 2: Thyropause has activated. Presenting with Heavy bleeding. Irregular Cycles. Mood changes in a big way and Weight Gain.

This period can be quite confusing for women.

Some women are told that they are not peri-menopausal. Some women are told that they are menopausal.

Some young women, in their late 30s, early 40s, are told they are approaching menopause.

And others are just told to go on birth control or birth control types of medication to relieve the heavy bleeding or symptoms that are coming with Thyropause.

Rolling oestrogen has a lot to answer for when it comes to Thyropause. But the key things we find in our patients like this is the struggle with gaining weight, and cyclical problems – especially the heavy bleeding.

Believe it or not, insulin resistance has a lot to answer for during Thyropause. It creates an increase in androgenic hormones which can increase the bleeding, and, weight gain.

When it comes to thyropause, we’re often looking deeper at the cyclical nature of the oestrogen to see if it’s too high, the levels of insulin, and thyroid hormones to see what’s happening.

Thyroid conditions commonly are diagnosed during thyropause.

But often there’s challenges in blood work beyond the standard markers that many patients can’t see or that doctors aren’t testing for.

Unfortunately, during thyropause, so many patients fall within normal TSH, ACI, and blood sugar markers, yet have persistent metabolic change creating symptoms.

More often than not, it’s simply low iron and the concern of heavy bleeding that prompts urgent action.

Patient 3: Aches, Pains, Migraines, Headaches, Brain Fog, Skin Issues and Weight Gain.

We created a whole email just on the histamine intolerance that pops up during the peri/post menopause season.

I won’t go too deep today, but when this unsuitable gut bacteria inflames, it causes a degree of stress on the immune system and can activate the adrenal system, in effect creating an impact on the thyroid hormones.

It can also activate the 15 metabolic microbes that we see in a gut microbiome that is out of balance, that dysregulates healthy metabolic function and shift the body into metabolic dysfunction.

Things like rashes, rosacea, body stiffness and muscle aches, cramping, headaches, bloating, joint pain, and sensitivity and also hay-fever, colds, flus or nausea.

These often combine with fat storage from metabolic resistance and in some cases thyroid hormones are effected too..

So to wrap things up to hopefully bring it together for you.

Whilst reproductive hormones have a lot to answer for, it’s really important to be mindful of symptoms like…

• hair loss
• low energy
• brittle nails
• fatigue
• poor circulation
• dry skin
• weight gain

as these things can point to subtle changes in thyroid function – which impacts every cell in the body.

When there is weight gain, especially when you are eating right and exercising, it tells us a lot more about what’s going on in the body and we need to dig deeper into the metabolism.

Thyroid hormones are our clues that something isn’t right metabolically – they are often a good place to start.

And hopefully you can see why and when things are activating a bit clearer now :).

According to the Institute of Natural Medicine, 90% of diagnosed Hypothyroid patients actually have Hashimoto’s.

Diagnosing Hashimoto’s required additional testing that is often not done.

And 80% of women experience subtle changes in thyroid hormones that go amiss because of the reliance on only the TSH for diagnosis.

I hope this has been insightful and helpful and connects the dots for you!

If you are looking for a team that will partner with you to get awesome results, we’d love to connect with you on an introductory consultation. You can organise that here:

Look forward to connecting again soon.

Warmly,
Tiaan