The purpose of this introductory part is to outline the picture about Hashimoto I have in my imagination.
As an assistance to this task I read the excellent resource [1] which I recommend for comprehensive details well presented.
My problem with mainstream Endocrinology (which I find to be marvelous science, by the way) in general and Hashimoto disease in particular is, first, its overwhelming complexity and, second, the feedback loops that create the carpet effect - when you streamline the carpet on the one side, you curve on the other. A graphic example related to Hashimoto is the iodine humdrum: one the one hand iodine (of course better taken in the form of, say, Imbuia) is vital for the thyroid, but on the other hand it may trigger the autoimmune process.
And to add to this, Hashimoto is not really disease of the thyroid, but of the immune system gone astray.
Another problem I've always had is with why at the end study it. Practically, the MDs who have studied it for like 10 years recommend little more than: If TSH is over 5, increase the dose of Eutirox (or whatever hormone replacement), if is way less, decrease it. I think this can be learned in the first half of the first year of the high-school! Of course, Endocrinologists know great many other diseases, but I am interested only in Hasimoto... so far and hopefully in the future!
So, the short of the story is as follows:
- The thyroid gland produces a hormone called T4 (it also produces several others, but apparently nobody knows the full picture),
- this T4 hormone gets converted - mainly by liver - to T3,
- T3 commands the rate of metabolism: more T3, faster the "combustion" of the "engine", less and the engine gets sluggish.
- The speed of production of T4 is commanded by hypothalamus by a hormone called TSH. When the speed of metabolism is deemed to low (By "whom"? You are not supposed to ask this question! lol) the hypothalamus produces more TSH to kick thyroid's ass.
- For some reason or several reasons the immune system develops antibodies that attack the thyroid tissue and destroy it. So, TSH goes up and T4 down. This is Hashimoto in the most simple.
Now, the latter reason is of crucial importance and it is called the "root cause". Unfortunately there seem to be only one established correlation which is very likely to be also casualty and it is common to all autoimmune diseases and it is leaky gut. In short, the guts become compromised and spill the... "beans" where those do not belong. This naturally wrecks havoc to the immune system. How the leaky gut then differentiates to different autoimmune diseases, that is to say: why Hashimoto and not, say, rheumatoid arthritis seems unclear, but - in my opinion - it is not terribly important either, except for the unpleasant perspective of getting one more autoimmune disease.
A more simple picture of the disease is given by the ancient wisdom [2]. There all diseases are rooted to the seven electro-magnetic - or etheric - centers better known as chakras. So, thyroid is the direct physical counterpart/manifestation of the Throat Center, while leaky gut signify disbalance in the Solar Plexus Center. So, the direction then is to calm the Solar Plexus and stimulate Throat Center.
References
- Izabella Wentz, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis: Lifestyle Interventions for Finding and Treating the Root Cause.
- Djwal Khul, Esoteric Healing.
* To the beginning of the series.
* Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay