Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / Why do I have so many Hashimoto's symptoms at the same time ⎸ Root Cause Series Ep 208
Transcript
- 0:00Once you find out that you have
- 0:01Hashimoto's, the very first thing that you get to do is figure out why.
- 0:05Figure out what is behind this diagnosis. What's behind my body attacking my
- 0:10thyroid, my immune system going haywire?
- 0:12What's behind my symptoms? Is it my immune system? Is it my thyroid? What is going on?
- 0:17And then after you figure out what some of those root causes are,
- 0:21then of course you get to tackle them.
- 0:23That is your privilege. It's also your responsibility. Sometimes it can be really
- 0:27heavy. And then here's a little wrinkle.
- 0:30You know the logo of Health with Hashimoto's?
- 0:33It looks like a flower, right? With a butterfly in the middle.
- 0:36The butterfly represents your thyroid because your thyroid is shaped kind of like a butterfly.
- 0:40The five petals are, they were drafted by a Venn diagram, meaning the whole
- 0:46person, each part of that whole person, the whole you, body,
- 0:50mind, spirit, diet, environment.
- 0:52Each one of your root causes interacts with each of those five parts,
- 0:58and it also interacts with other root causes.
- 1:01Root causes end up stacking.
- 1:04And that is what this week's episode is all about. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune
- 1:08condition. That means your immune system is attacking your thyroid.
- 1:11But knowing that is only the beginning.
- 1:14This summer series is built in three phases. Phase one was understanding what's
- 1:18happening in your body. Phase two is learning how to think about what you're learning.
- 1:23And phase three is building your own personal discernment framework with support.
- 1:28So most women with Hashimoto's have a lot of information. But what they're missing
- 1:32is a filter, a way to evaluate what applies to them specifically.
- 1:37That is what this series is now designed to give you.
- 1:40If you want to start with a foundation, check with the show notes for Hashimoto's
- 1:44Decoded, new name, Hashimoto's Decoded, Thyroid or Immune.
- 1:48In less than one hour, I will walk you through the most common root causes and
- 1:52help you identify where to focus.
- 1:54My name is Esther Yunkin. I'm a registered nurse, holistic health educator,
- 1:57and the host of this podcast, Health with Hashimoto's.
- 2:00I believe your health is a blend of five interconnected areas,
- 2:04body, mind, spirit, diet, and environment. Let's work through this together.
- 2:09So yes, I did say root causes stack. They impact each other,
- 2:14they impact every part of the whole you.
- 2:17You are not a simple, like, bone. You're not a simple skeleton.
- 2:22As much as the orthopedic doctors of the world seem to want to think that you
- 2:27are just bones, you cannot isolate just one part of you.
- 2:31The orthopedic surgeons are just as wrong as the endocrinologists.
- 2:36You cannot be separated into one solo body part.
- 2:41Not only are you a symphony of different body parts and tissues and organs and,
- 2:46all of these things working together, but you are also more than a body.
- 2:52Your body, mind, spirit, diet, environment, it all goes together.
- 2:57It all impacts all the other parts.
- 2:59And that includes root causes. So what does this look like in practicality?
- 3:05Well, here's a very simple example.
- 3:09Let's say that you are low on sleep.
- 3:12Of course, if you have Hashimoto's, you might be familiar with like bone weary fatigue.
- 3:17But I'm talking about like you got a night of really poor sleep.
- 3:21This is different than your day to day.
- 3:24You got a really poor night of sleep. Well, what happens as a result of that poor night of sleep?
- 3:29Your blood sugar is not as well regulated the next day.
- 3:33Even if you're not diabetic, you do not have to be diabetic for having weird,
- 3:38wacky blood sugar in a day.
- 3:39Now, Are you going to have as weird blood sugar as somebody who is diabetic,
- 3:43who doesn't have all of the regulations in place in their body to control blood sugar?
- 3:49No, you're still going to have more control, but it is going to be more dysregulated
- 3:54than normal after a poor night's sleep.
- 3:57Also, when you have a poor night's sleep, the next day, your diet is different.
- 4:03Part of this is because of the blood sugar.
- 4:05You're getting hangry. You need some food. You need some food right now,
- 4:09your brain is looking for quick sugar.
- 4:12Part of it is also willpower. When you are low on sleep, you have less willpower.
- 4:18So if you have all of these ideals for how you want your diet to be,
- 4:22especially after figuring out your root causes and figuring out,
- 4:26oh, you know, gluten is one of my root causes and I am going to go gluten-free.
- 4:32If you are tired, your willpower to stay committed to that decision is less.
- 4:39And then your blood sugar is going a little wild, and you put those two things
- 4:42together, and you might reach for something that you wouldn't normally eat.
- 4:47So that is the impact, just some of the impacts, that a poor night's sleep can have.
- 4:52Here's another example, and this one is more in-depth. Let's say that you have
- 4:57some stressors in your life. I know, hard to imagine, right?
- 5:00So you have increased stress. What does that do? we're going to go through body,
- 5:04mind, spirit, diet, environment. We're going to go through three of those four, the three of those five.
- 5:09If you have increased stress, your body reacts, your immune system reacts,
- 5:14and your immune function overall goes down.
- 5:17Think of when you were in college.
- 5:20You know, you had a lot of stress going into finals week.
- 5:24You might have stayed up late, so there's also some sleep issues going in.
- 5:28But what happened about five to seven days after finals were done?
- 5:32You're back at home or you're on vacation, and all of a sudden, you get sick.
- 5:38Maybe this didn't happen every time, but it probably happened at least once
- 5:41or twice to you or a friend.
- 5:44Finals happened, you were all fine, you went on vacation or you went back home,
- 5:48you're just chilling and you get sick.
- 5:50Why did you get sick at this time?
- 5:53Part of it is because when you were under the stressors, when your stress was
- 5:59increased, your immune system was prioritizing other things.
- 6:03Your immune system was not functioning at full capacity.
- 6:07Viruses, bacteria hit, and then they grew, they incubated, you know,
- 6:12and then five to seven days later, you're like, oh my goodness,
- 6:14why do I have symptoms? Why am I feeling so crummy?
- 6:18Because of the stress. Also, stress can increase the dysfunction of your immune
- 6:24system. Autoimmunity is your immune system going haywire.
- 6:28Increased stress can increase that immune system going haywire.
- 6:32That's just from stress. That's looking at the body. Just a couple examples
- 6:36in that body petal of the flower.
- 6:39What about diet? So I just talked about low sleep and how that can impact it?
- 6:46Well, when you are under stress, your intestinal permeability,
- 6:51so leaky gut, it increases.
- 6:53There are bigger gaps in between the little junctions of your intestines and
- 6:58more things can get through.
- 7:00When more things get through, like let's go back to gluten.
- 7:04Let's say you eat some gluten. It normally doesn't bother you,
- 7:07but you're under a lot of stress.
- 7:09Your intestines have increased permeability, you eat that gluten, the gluten gets through
- 7:15in a bigger protein chunk than normally it should be able to when your intestines
- 7:20are nice and tight junctioned. I don't know if that sentence made sense.
- 7:25But the gluten gets through. And then your body is like, oh,
- 7:27this protein shouldn't be here.
- 7:29I'm going to attack this protein because I know this protein should not be in the bloodstream.
- 7:34I'm going to treat it just like any other invader. And then your body starts
- 7:38to identify gluten as an invader and you develop allergy symptoms.
- 7:44This is one thing that can happen when you are under stress.
- 7:49So that's the diet petal of the flower, the whole you.
- 7:53Body, mind, spirit diet environment. Every single petal of the flower is impacted by stress.
- 8:00And it shows up in different ways. And then the different petals impact each
- 8:05other. Remember, my first example of this stress was your immune system in the
- 8:09body petal of the flower.
- 8:11And I gave the example of college finals stress getting sick.
- 8:16Well, what I didn't say was that is also the environment petal,
- 8:21because your environment is where you picked up that bacteria or the virus.
- 8:26So you can see super simple how the environment and the body interact,
- 8:31those two petals of the flower interact.
- 8:34All so interrelated. And your root causes, they tend to stack.
- 8:40They tend to impact each other.
- 8:43So what do you do? You're like, Esther, you're just giving me more information.
- 8:47I'm feeling more overwhelmed.
- 8:49What in the world am I supposed to do with this? You're saying that everything
- 8:51is related to everything.
- 8:53And do you want me to tackle every single thing? I don't have the bandwidth
- 8:58for that. I don't have the mental space.
- 9:00I just want to turn off this podcast right now.
- 9:02Okay, don't leave me. Don't turn off the podcast because there is hope.
- 9:05Just as one thing can negatively impact all of the other petals of the flower,
- 9:12the whole you, small changes for good can also impact everything else.
- 9:17Take diaphragmatic breathing, for example. You know, you're lowering your stress.
- 9:22You're telling every single cell in your body to chill out. It's okay. Relax.
- 9:26You've got this, diaphragmatic breathing impacts positively every other cell in your body.
- 9:33It impacts every petal of the whole you of that flower.
- 9:38So there are things that you can do positively, small, simple things.
- 9:43There are ways, even when you are like feeling like your bandwidth is down to
- 9:48just a bare minimum, you don't have time or mental space for anything.
- 9:52There are things that you can still do to influence every single part of the whole you for good.
- 9:59And if you want help building that picture for your own body and learning how
- 10:03to use it going forward, that is what Hashimoto's Discernment Coaching is designed to do.
- 10:09The link is down in the show notes, of course.
- 10:11And if you want to look at the stress, the petals of the whole you related to
- 10:17stress, there is an infographic on the blog post for episode 205.
- 10:22So you can take a look at that.
- 10:24And then yeah, head down to the show notes, sign up for Hashimoto's discernment
- 10:28coaching. I'll see you inside.
- 10:30This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
- 10:34Please discuss any changes with your trusted healthcare provider.
- 10:37To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available
- 10:41there. You do not have to figure your health out alone.
- 10:44So that is school, S-K-O-O-L dot com, and it is the Health with Hashimoto's community.
- 10:50I'll see you next time on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.