Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 157 // Castor Oil Packs for Hashimoto’s [Hashimoto's Health Lab]

Transcript

157 // Castor Oil Packs for Hashimoto’s [Hashimoto's Health Lab] · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. Our summer series is the Hashimoto's Health Lab.
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  This series is going to be 10-minute episodes.
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  Every week, we'll talk about a specific tool or practice. We're going to cover
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  everything from environmental detox to stress reduction, energy boosters,
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  biohacks, and all of it is going to be designed to give you tools for better
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  health with Hashimoto's.
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  I'm your host, Esther Yunkin. I'm a registered nurse helping women uncover their
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  root causes and regain energy.
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  So these episodes are going to be short. If you are ready for a deeper transformation,
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  check out the Holistic Hashimoto's course. It will help you identify your unique
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  triggers and root causes so that you can focus your own energy on what really
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  matters for your health.
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  Are you ready to explore a new strategy for thriving with Hashimoto's?
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  Let's dive in. This is the Hashimoto's Health Lab.
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  So the tools that I have looked at and chosen for the Hashimoto's Health Lab
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  help you with either your root cause of Hashimoto's, root causes,
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  or your symptoms of Hashimoto's that are caused by hypothyroid primarily.
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  Today's tool helps with both. It helps with one of your root causes,
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  and it helps you with a symptom.
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  Now, you might not have both of this root cause and the symptom,
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  but both are very, very common for people with Hashimoto's.
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  And that is castor oil packs.
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  Now, what is a castor oil pack? It is super simple.
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  It is a clean, preferably organic cotton cloth soaked in castor oil,
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  and then you place it on the skin.
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  Now, when I first heard about castor oil packs, especially that they would help
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  with liver health, I was like, that's...
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  The skin is not like directly touching the liver.
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  I'm not quite sure about this. And then I was reading in one of my holistic
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  nursing journals that somebody did a poster project.
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  So a poster project is a research project that they do. And instead of typing
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  up a huge paper, they do a smaller presentation.
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  And these nurses used castor oil packs in a hospital, and they were using them
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  for pain and different complaints of their patients.
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  And they found that castor oil packs definitely worked for inflammation and for pain.
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  It was a very interesting paper to read or report to read for me as somebody
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  who had only heard about castor oil packs from the like holistic Facebook communities.
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  Like not credible. I hadn't read any research yet at the time.
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  I hadn't heard anything like real.
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  I had just heard, oh, do this because they help.
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  I love research. I love facts. And that's why I want to bring you things that are rooted in truth.
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  So castor oil packs, my introduction was skeptical.
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  And then I read research done by nurses in a hospital saying that it works.
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  So now let's switch over to your health with Hashimoto's. Let's talk about the symptom first.
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  A lot of people have constipation when they have hypothyroid because your thyroid
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  is not producing the key to turn on the cells and or enough of it or your body
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  is not, specifically your liver, is not converting that key into the active key.
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  So T4 is produced by the thyroid. It has to convert to T3, which is the little
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  key that turns on your cells and helps them to work.
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  If your cells are not working right, then things are slowing down.
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  If your gut is slowing down, then you get constipated.
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  Constipation is a huge symptom of Hashimoto's and of hypothyroid.
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  So castor oil packs used over the low abdomen, or you can use them over the
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  lower left side of the abdomen, it can help with constipation.
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  Now, personal anecdote, it was a month or two ago, and one of my sons,
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  he is a teenager, he woke me up like four o'clock in the morning.
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  He's like, mom, my stomach really hurts. So I listened to his complaints.
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  It was left lower quadrant. So if you divide your abdomen into four,
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  it was the left lower part. And he didn't have a fever.
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  He didn't have any other symptoms that told me that there was something serious going on.
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  What I was getting from his description was that it was bloating.
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  Probably like a big gas bubble or constipation. He had already tried to go to the bathroom.
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  He'd already tried to have a bowel movement because as the son of two nurses,
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  he knows that that's what he has to do.
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  If he's going to complain to us about abdominal pain, you have to go and try
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  to poop because that's what we're going to tell you to do. That's what we're going to tell you.
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  Okay, if you have left lower quadrant abdominal pain, you need to go to the
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  bathroom. So he already tried that before he woke me up at four o'clock in the morning.
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  And my initial thought was, oh my goodness, I can't even think.
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  And then I was like, okay, this is probably constipation, probably a gas bubble.
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  And I said, I don't have anything I can give you knowing that I can't give him
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  Tylenol or ibuprofen or something like that because it's not going to impact the gas bubble.
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  So it's not going to help with the cause of the pain. It's not really going to help.
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  And then he went back to bed, kind of dejected. And then as I was laying there
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  trying to go back to sleep, oh my goodness, it's a castor oil pack.
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  So I got up and I got some castor oil pack and hot pack. So we have rice bags
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  all throughout the house.
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  I have like three in my bedroom because my feet get so cold in the winter.
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  So I got one of those, warmed it up in the microwave. I did get a plastic baggie
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  to provide a layer of like waterproof, oil proof layer between the heat pack and the castor oil.
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  So I put the castor oil on the fabric.
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  I did put a little bit on his abdomen, and I put the fabric right over his left lower quadrant.
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  I put the little plastic bag on, and then I put the heat pack on.
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  And then he pulled up his blanket, and he went back to sleep.
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  He said in the morning he felt so much better.
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  It absolutely works. It works on constipation. It can help you have a bowel
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  movement, and this is just on the surface of the skin.
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  I'm not saying to take an enema or to drink it. This is just on the surface of the skin.
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  It's topical. So I did mention that we're talking about symptoms,
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  so constipation, and root cause.
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  So how can castor oil packs help with a root cause of Hashimoto's?
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  Well, one of the big things with Hashimoto's is environmental toxins.
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  It's the exposome, but also with a lot of estrogen. We call it estrogen dominance
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  because your liver is so busy doing other things that it doesn't have time and
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  energy to process all of the estrogens.
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  Then it sends it back through the blood system to just recycle and then there
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  more and more is created and so you have an overabundance of estrogen.
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  I do have an episode about that and you can listen to episode 69 is all about
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  estrogen and then episode 80 is about what causes T4 to not convert well to
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  T3 and it's estrogen is a lot of it.
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  So episode 69 and episode 80 are two to listen to.
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  So your liver is really busy and we need to help it. We need to help it out
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  and castor oil packs can help with that.
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  Castor oil packs can impact this specific root cause of Hashimoto's.
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  So as I said, with a constipation, you're going to put the castor oil pack over
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  your left lower quadrant of your abdomen.
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  Again, if you're dividing your abdomen into four quadrants and the line is in
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  your belly button, it crisscrosses in your belly button, the upper right quadrant
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  is where your liver is, right underneath your right ribs.
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  And that's where you want to put it if you are addressing liver health.
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  And so a castor oil pack placed over the liver is going to help your liver process
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  toxins a little better, process hormones, process waste.
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  It's just going to help your liver do its job better and we want our liver to
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  do its job because the liver converts about 80% of your T4 to T3.
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  Now T4 is the inactive form of thyroid hormone that your thyroid produces and
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  T3 is the key like I already said.
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  So that is why you might want to use a castor oil pack.
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  I described how to use it, but let me tell you exactly how.
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  So you're going to get a clean piece of fabric, preferably organic,
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  because you don't want to introduce more toxins into your skin,
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  and you get it saturated with castor oil.
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  You want a organic castor oil, ideally, and then you place that piece of fabric
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  over your specific point, whether that's
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  you know, a joint that's having pain or whether it's over your lower intestines
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  for constipation or over your liver, you're going to place that on your clean skin.
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  And then you're going to put something that is waterproof or oil proof over
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  the fabric that has the castor oil on.
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  And then you might want to apply heat. And so you could do this with a heat pack.
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  If you're going to use this overnight, you don't have to do the heat pack because
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  it's just going to be on for a long time. and then you do want to wear an old
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  t-shirt or have a towel or something because castor oil will stain.
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  Obviously for symptoms you can use a castor oil pack when you're having the symptoms.
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  If you're doing it for a root cause of liver health you might want to aim for
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  three to five times a week between 30 to 50 minutes a time or overnight.
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  I preferably I try to do it overnight because it just works.
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  There is a caution whenever I look this up. It says, do not do this when you are menstruating.
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  Well, I like to do it when I'm having menstrual cramps because I find that it
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  helps me. So let me tell you both of those perspectives.
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  I use castor oil packs for menstrual cramps.
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  However, you are advised to not use castor oil packs during menstruation because
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  it can stimulate circulation and blood flow, which may intensify menstrual bleeding.
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  It may intensify cramping. It can stimulate uterine contractions,
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  which could make your cramps worse.
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  And then also your body is already dealing with stuff when you're having your period.
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  And so adding castor oil packs just might overstimulate your body and your lymphatic
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  system, potentially causing fatigue, nausea, or other symptoms if you are very
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  sensitive. So there's the disclaimer.
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  Always do what is best for your situation. Try things out.
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  And yeah, castor oil packs. It's something that actually works for your health,
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  despite the fact that it sounds a little out there.
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  Next week, we're going to talk about something that's really out there.
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  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
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  Please discuss any changes with your trusted healthcare provider.
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  To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available there.
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  You do not have to figure your health out alone.
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  So that is school, S-K-O-O-L.com. And it is the Health with Hashimoto's community.
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  I'll see you next time on the Health.