My Healing Journey With Hashimotos

Suffice it to say, this year is looking far different than I thought it would. In my own mind, I imagined I would be pregnant with baby #2 on the way, designing a nursery and planning my home birth. But after months of trying for a baby and dozens of failed pregnancy tests I decided I should go in for a lab workup to check on my hormone levels and make sure everything is functioning properly. After a thorough blood panel, my doctor delivered the news to me that not only do I have Hypothyroidism (an under active thyroid), but I have antibodies that are attacking my thyroid making my condition autoimmune. This news explained our struggle to get pregnant. And beyond that, it was a bit of an identity hit to my psyche- My entire adult life I’ve prided myself on being fit and healthy – I run marathons, and practice yoga, I hike and backpack and paddle board and live a very active life, I keep toxins out of our home and off of my body, cook home-cooked meals, and don’t eat refined sugar or processed foods. I was doing everything that I thought I could do to keep chronic illness at bay. Turns out our bodies are complex and we live in a toxic world.

As Charles Swindoll so famously said, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” My only choice now is to move forward and figure out how to heal my body. As I’ve been researching over the past several months I’ve come to realize just how common Hypothyroidism is. 20 million Americans struggle with some form of a thyroid disorder. 1 in 8 women will develop a thyroid disorder in her lifetime. Women are 5-8x more likely to develop a thyroid condition than men. And up to 60% of people with thyroid disease are unaware of their condition.

When it comes to Thyroid issues, conventional medicine takes the approach of – “just pop a synthetic hormone everyday and you’ll be fine”. If you know me well at all, you know that kind of mindset and approach to health and medicine doesn’t sit well with me. The reality is that there is something that is causing my thyroid to be under attack. And in most cases of Hashimotos thyroiditis, this is the case. If you can get to the root cause, you can heal your thyroid.

There are many things that can be at the root of thyroid conditions whether it be a burdened liver, or toxin accumulation in the body, adrenal fatigue, or a struggling and sluggish metabolism. Oftentimes dietary changes such as a cutting out gluten and/or dairy and supplementing with things like Selenium and Thiamine can get thyroid conditions into remission quickly. In fact this is the case for several personal friends of mine. However, I acknowledge that the root issue goes much deeper than just eliminating food triggers. And healing your body at the cellular level can take time…years in fact. While I am committed to getting to the root and healing my body naturally, I also acknowledge that I am no spring chicken. If I need to go on a bio-identical hormone temporarily in order to get pregnant I am open to that option. But first…

I am embarking on a healing journey, one that is far less concerned with what my body looks like on the outside and far more concerned with healing my hormones and my metabolism from the inside out. I will be sharing more on this approach that I am taking to healing in the coming weeks and months. But what I’m learning is that sometimes as women our bodies need more nourishment than we give them. Being thin and fit isn’t everything and it really means very little when it comes to true health. A broken metabolism can sometimes be at the root of autoimmunity. And yes, you can be thin and have a sluggish metabolism. In fact, it is far more common for thin people to have sluggish metabolisms since our body has to learn how to get really efficient at conserving energy. Our bodies are smart, and they don’t just give up their fat stores willingly. Our metabolism at a cellular level controls every system in our body, including our immune system and our endocrine system (ie our thyroid), etc. It is far more than just how efficiently you burn energy. This approach to healing takes into account the importance of deep nourishment, timing of eating meals, exercise, mineral balance, and toxic load. There are many factors to it. But I am excited and committed to getting to the root of my autoimmune condition. And I have no doubt that through it all, God is going to teach me a new level of reliance on Him. I am so ready to do this thing and heal my body from the inside out. I’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks and months on this page. Or for weekly updates you can follow along on my Instagram account @wholeisticmandy