Hypothyroid After Birth of Second Child?
Hi Ted,
Earthclinic.com has been one of my favorite web sites for years now. But I have a question. I believe my thyroid had trouble right after the birth of my second (and last) baby, 15 years ago. My whole life, I had been super thin, but after he was born, I ballooned up and looked like a pig. I tried so many diets, including the Atkins diet, but have not been able to lose the weight. Finally, I began fasting on the Master Cleanse routine, which is basically lemonade with cayenne pepper and maple syrup for sweetener. I started out with 10-day fasts, and they were for spiritual reasons. Then one year, I did a 30-day fast, and God answered my prayers and opened my eyes to why I felt so bad: Mercury poisoning. I had eight metal fillings in my mouth. So, over the course of a few years, I got them all replaced with white fillings. At that time, even though I fought hard, I became borderline overweight. I am 5'5" and my weight reached 160 pounds. I went on a 21 day fast, and as I came out of the fast, I bought some scales, and started keeping a food journal. The journal revealed to me that I am hypothyroid, even though the doctor tells me my thyroid is fine. Here is what makes me lose weight: beef, chocolate, orange juice, popcorn, cayenne pepper, chlorella, and magnesium citrate tablets (200-400 mgs daily). Here is what will make me gain 2.5 pounds overnight: soy, broccoli (even cooked!), cabbage, and any kind of vinegar (I guess it removes iodine). And there is a list of 48 things which I have found I need to avoid, in order to avoid weight gain. Some of these things, I don't understand, and am hoping you can tell me why. Why do mushrooms (regular, American, button mushrooms) and coconut oil make me gain weight?
I have given up wheat for nearly 2 years now.
Sometimes my thyroid hurts--especially when I get really stressed or worried. Then the herb, licorice makes it feel better, so I am thinking that part of the thyroid problem is adrenal exhaustion, which is from mercury poisoning.
I googled "thyroid detox" and found some concentrated seaweed called Modifilan. I bought a month's supply, and am currently experimenting to see if it helps. I feel that it is removing a great deal of mercury, in addition to detoxing my thyroid.
Other factors I am wondering about:
1. My mother gave me a fluoride tablet from the dentist, every day, as I was growing up. I wonder why I was so thin? And is that fluoride still in me? I am 43 years old. I've been taking a boron capsule daily for the last 3 years.
2. I cooked in a nonstick pan every day for 7 years, because my husband at that time wouldn't get me another one. That pan was peeling. I know the chemicals in nonstick pans cause thyroid trouble. How do I detox from that?
3. My blood type is O- and both my children are O+, so the doctors gave me a shot both pregnancies, so that my immune system would not attack future babies. I am wondering if those shots made my immune system attack my own thyroid.
In case it helps you to figure out the cause, here are the symptoms which accompany my thyroid problem: I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, my hair was falling out by the roots after my last 2 fasts, until I started taking iron every night. I am losing my eyebrows (they started coming back--and I think it was when I started taking boron again!) I've had some kind of infection since my last child was born, that I haven't been able to get rid of. My temperature, when I used to check, was generally around 97.3, and I have to take a sweater everywhere I go, because I am always cold.
I am sorry this is so long, but maybe you can answer a few of my questions. Especially, how does having a baby cause hypothyroidism?
Your diets reveal the same thing: thyroid problems. Broccoli, soy, and cabbage blocks thyroid hormones, with different reasons for each. Thiocyanates are contained in broccoli but so do cabbages and all the cruciferous family. Soy also does that but for different reasons, but in all cases they don't reduce thyroid functions, they just block them, but so do all legumes and beans. You could have an overactive thyroid and still feel great.
The worst offender is cassava as it has the highest thiocyanates. For normal thyroid with low mercury, it won't affect the thyroid with that diet. As far as coconut oil is concerned while it is okay for most people, coconut oil has to be metabolized to make use of it but under the condition that you have, it can't make use of it.
Vinegar is great for weight loss provided that your body has plenty of sulfur (methylation). But with thyroid function low caused by a mercury, the body needs plenty of methylated sulfur (TMG - trimethylglycine) to remove sulfur. This is why it causes weight gain with vinegar for people with mercury in their system! But remember, acetylation is also important since nearly all enzymes in the liver are all acetylated, just that they are well known to chelate out mercury and excess acetylation (vinegar) combined with deficiency in TMG and sulfur product, MSM - methylsulfonylmethane, cysteine, methionine, and especially N Acetyl Cystiene is required.
Wheat obviously when you bleach it, goes through bromination, which is the same as chlorine, which competes for iodine. So eating wheat also gets rid of the body's iodine.
Beef is especially interesting issue. In an Italian study, zinc is one of the minerals required for adequate normal thyroid, not just the iodine. Those rich sources include poultry, beef, fish, and shellfish.
Your questions as to why american button mushrooms make you gain weight, again is specific for thyroid again. It contains aromatase, which inhibits conversion to estrogen but also inhibits thyroid functions.
As far as magnesium citrate is concerned, it actually help protects the brain and other organs from mercury toxicity. I remember there was a study in Brazil where they find two groups of people both with high metals, but one is not toxic and one is toxic, The difference with the not toxic group was because they had high magnesium in their bloodstream. As far as chlorella, it is excellent in getting rid of mercury.
Mercury affects different organs, not just the thyroid. It affects your adrenal glands - perhaps DHEA, and licorice will help.
The most interesting thing is popcorn, of course if you don't have corn allergies, is the high fiber, but as with all fibers it uptakes mercury and other metals, hence a weak chelator and the high fiber you loose weight.
The baby's nutrition requirement is enormous. They are magnets for minerals but at the same time deplete the mother's nutrition at the same time, so trace minerals will be the first things to go, iodine being a trace will be it, but also are selenium, molybdenum, gallium (necessary for autoimmune disease), tungsten, chromium, cesium, rubidium, lanthanum amongst them. With rubidium, cesium and lanthanum gone, one can get cancer. With tungsten and chromium gone, you can get diabetes. With gallium gone, you can get autoimmune disease, Crohns disease (but measles viruses is present), interstitial colitis, lupus and others. I think that magnet that attracts other minerals is indium.
Fluoride will affect your iodine levels but what is especially worrying is fluorides accumulates in the pineal and pituitary glands, and competes against iodine. So excess fluorides gets out iodine. This may affect your sleeping, weight gain, and hypothyroid. It is the same with cooking pans with Teflon.
The most damaging of all are the vaccinations to suppress your immune systems which means your immune system is knocked out, and with it comes the virus, which also attacks your glandular systems, not just the thyroid. So obviously your immune system is compromised, so you were lucky the baby was born normal because when your immune gets knocked out, the baby can get cerebral palsy. And then we have to restore the baby's immune system to normal to have a normal life and get that cured!
The only thing I can't explain is iron. Usually iron absorption is low and iron is not one of the supplements to stop hair loss, of course unless you also have low red blood cells than that might be a factor. Boron will help hairs from falling off but not every case.
The supplement I will try is lysine, glutamine, and threonine. Lysine to get virus and bacteria out, and glutamine will get the required energy to do that. Threonine is one the supplements to get your immune systems up. Selenium will displace the mercury. But most important is TMG, MSM, and N Acetyl Cystiene to detox mercury out the system using sulfur compounds. Iodine I used is half strength solution about 2% iodine and 2.5% potassium iodide. It is taken one drops nightly orally or if you want more gradual then it's iodine foot painting. I believe the cause is lack of sulfur compounds necessary to rid of the mercury and the lysine and glutamine, at least to restore you immune system.
It may also help if you take natural thyroid extracts.
Mushrooms inhibit aromatase which converts estrogen. It is an aromatase inhibitors to prevent estrogen conversion from other hormones. Estrogen is key hormone that promotes breast cancer while progesterone does the opposite.
Ted
Dallas, Tx
08/25/2011
Dear Ted, Thank you so much for helping me to understand! I am going to take all of these things. Already, I have been taking N-Acetyl-Cysteine in combination with magnesium citrate, and it does help me sleep and feel less depressed the next day. I have been taking SAMe for years, because it has been the only thing that has helped me to get daily things done with normal energy. But lately, it hasn't been as effective--I am feeling bad most of the time. I am very hopeful to find these new things I can try.
Also, because of your advice, I would not get the vaccination if I ever get pregnant again. The midwife for my second child got me to start reading and thinking, and my second child has never had a vaccination. My first son has had his vaccinations up to the age of 18 months, and that last time, he had a high fever and screamed and cried all night. He now has ADD and scoliosis. What's interesting, is that first son got the mumps, even though he was vaccinated against them, and second son did not get the mumps, even though he was exposed, but never vaccinated. This makes me think that vaccinations really don't work!
Asheville, Nc
09/28/2011
Dr. Ted, I have been researching thyroiditis for a couple of years and you are my favorite doctor thus far. I have a question: I have antibodies concluding Hashimoto's and TSH and T3/T4 levels concluding Hypothyroidism. However, for the last three years I have been extremely Hyperthyroid, unable to gain weight, my heart racing in the middle of the night etc. So, I am afriad to follow protocols for thyroid stimulation as they seem to make me worse. I am a B blood type, a healthy organic alkaline diet, and would love to sleep for a solid 8 hours.
Any help here would be great. Also, I am documenting stories of people who have recovered from Hypo/hyperthyroidism. I am documenting those who have tested negative for antibodies for at least two years. These stories are being written for publication. Do you have any patients who might be willing to interview? If so, please have them contact me, or you can contact me, via my personal email: mizmiriam(at)gmail.com Thank you so much for your persistent research and for sharing the wealth. Cheers - Miriam
Bozeman, Mt, Us
10/04/2011
I know this question is meant for Ted but I thought I might chime in with some helpful info I have researched and used for myself. I was diagnosed with Graves Disease a few years ago but all of my life I know I have gone up and down, back and forth between Hypo and hyper. When I was actually diagnosed with Graves I was convinced that I was Hypo. I had very few Hyper symptoms and lots of Hypo. Yet my test results (mostly useless tests but... )total T3, total T4 and TSH were all pointing to Hyper. I still was not completely convinced. I had been gaining weight at a steady rate for about 1. 5 years no matter how hard I exercised. Logically this made no sense. If my metabolism is going so fast then how on earth am I not loosing weight instead of gaining. I had put on about 45 pounds for no reason. I had brittle hair and nails, moodiness, no rapid heart but heart palps, headache's, shaky hands, exhaustion. And on and on. I would swing back and forth between constipation and loose bm's. About 6 to 9 months before the weight gain I had lost weight very rapidly for no apparent reason. I lost about 25 pounds in 2 months and could not stop it from happening no matter how much I ate. At that point I wish I had been tested to see what my results were then but I just thought it was stress since it was Christmas time.
Anyhow, when I was diagnosed with graves I was put on methimazole 10 mg. I immediately did not like the rx but kept up for about 6 months in the hopes that I would feel better soon. I quite because I was tired of seeing no results labs wise or health wise and my hair was falling out in clumps. I was way moodier and generally just felt worse. I went to 2 different Naturopaths and found some relief when I started getting treated for adrenal problems and immune system problems instead of thyroid problems. I started actually seeing some of the weight I had gained come off. I stopped getting headaches, no more shaky hands, constipation or diarea, my moodiness was very minimal. I got retested and my labs were perfect. I was exstatic. All of my labs since have been pretty close to perfect give or take a few here and there. If one lab says that my TSH is a little high I know what to do now. I don't have to be put on synthetic hormones. And when I feel myself getting anxious and find it hard to sleep again etc.... I know what helps there too.
For the hypo stages I take: zinc 100 mg, selenium 400 to 600 mg, iodine 12. 5 mg, manganese 5 mg (3 x week), D3 2000 iu, Vit C 1000 to 2000 mg, magnesium 300 mg, tyrosine x 3, chromium 400 mg, Iron 36 mg, desicated thyroid.
For the hyper stages I take: selenium 400 mg, magnesium 1000 mg, copper 3 mg, iodine 6 to 12. 5 mg, lithium oratate 60 mg, manganese 5 mg (every other day), iron 18 mg, desicated thymus gland (to help immune system), vit C 1000 mg, DHEA 10 to 25 mg, melatonin 3 to 6 mg.
For my adrenals I take Relora, milk thistle, theanine, siberian ginsing, valarian, licorice root.
Others that I regularly take are calcium, ACV, VCO, H2O2, probiotics, B-complex.
I am currently coming from a hypo stage (TSH 5.0/ T3 and T4 low normal) but can feel my energy coming back up. I haven't fallen asleep sitting at my desk for a while now:) I hope someday I won't have to take so many different things just to feel normal but I will take this any day over the way I was feeling. I feel I have better control over my health now. I am still struggling to loose the weight I gained but I know with the way I eat and exercise I am healthy I just don't show it yet.
