Dr. David Clark, DC -Center for Low Thyroid Solutions in Durham, NC-helps women suffering with low thyroid symptoms avoid the huge mistake of taking tyrosine supplements.
Low thyroid mistake number three is–taking broad spectrum immune system support.
Now you need to pay close attention. Here’s what you have to understand about this risky and potentially catastrophic mistake….
Botanicals, herbs, plants—they all effect your immune system. Some plants make your immune system go one way, some things will stimulate your immune system to go another.
So I’ll explain it like this. There are two sides to your immune system—TH1 (that stands for T Helper 1) and TH2 (T Helper 2.)
Well each of these is stimulated by different plants. Some things stimulate T Helper 1; some things stimulate T Helper 2.
Here’s why this matters and why we’re talking about low thyroid. The reason it matters in low thyroid is the number one cause of low thyroid in America is an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s. In this condition called Hashimoto’s, there’s an imbalance between T Helper 1 and T Helper 2– it’s skewed one way or the other (TH1 is dominant, or TH2 is dominant).
If you take an herb or supplement that makes your immune system more unbalanced, you’ll feel worse. You’ll make your autoimmune attack worse.
How could you avoid this problem?
Don’t take herbs or supplements that are supposed to boost your immune system.There’s plenty of things out there. You can look on the Internet, or go to a health food store (where the employee simply looks in a nutritional “cookbook”) and you’ll find a ton of herbs and supplements that claim to “be for low thyroid.”
Or they are supposed to “balance the immune system.” That’s bogus.
Don’t take these herbs and supplements if you have not had the proper testing to find out if you’re TH-1 is high or TH-2 is high.
When you take these supplements without the proper testing you are playing Russian roulette with a bullet in all six barrels.
Those aren’t good odds.
You may know someone or see someone in a forum or a message board someplace that says hey, I took this thing, it was an immune system product and I felt so much better. Well all that means is she got lucky. She took something that maybe, temporarily shifted her back towards a balance.
But if you take it….or another Hashimoto’s sufferer takes it….or another low thyroid patient takes it…
The results could be disastrous and I mean dis-astrous. You could trigger an attack on a NEW tissue, like cartilage, or myelin in the brain, or the cerebellum.
So instead of just having low thyroid symptoms, you could take one of these immune system products and now you end up with a condition that looks like Multiple Sclerosis. Or worse, you would never even know this was happening until the damage was severe and advanced. You could take one of these immune system support formulas that skews your immune system and it could actually cause an attack on a heart valve, it could cause an attack on the lining of your stomach and you wouldn’t even know it but it would be happening beneath the surface. ( I hope I’m driving this home to you.)
Taking broad spectrum immune support without the proper evaluation is a massive mistake.
I see this mistake in 9 out of 10 women that come into my office with low thyroid symptoms.Many of them have Hashimoto’s and they’re taking (or have taken) some of these immune system products…. or they’re taking some botanicals and the story is always the same.
These formulas never helped at all….or, the supplements “helped” for a day or two and then stopped…or the supplements made them worse. And without fail, with almost every single one of these women, when you take them off all those things, even if I did nothing else and just took them off those things, they start to stabilize and feel better.
We’ve talked about iodine, we’ve talked about tyrosine and now we’re talking about broad immune system support. You’ve got to get the right testing to find out what the heck you even need.
If you’re taking immune system support herbs or supplements without the proper testing, you are counting the days while you wait for a NEW horrible symptom to show up.
© 2010 Dr. David Clark, DC DACNB DCCN FACFN FABVR
I have had t1-2 and reverse t3 and freet4.
Dr said thyroid is fine, but I feel
I have extremely low immunity, meaning I’m sick with UTI and occassional stomach virus more days than not.
My thyroid is on the very low range of normal.. Skin extremely dry yet diet is very healthy. Hypothyroidism is present in family
Is low range of normal something I should treat??
Thx
Kim