In Quick Questions, we explore a topic brought to me by someone in my practice. This one is from my patient Jennifer who asks about thyroid function. She feels tired and sluggish, but all of her thyroid labs come back normal, so what’s the story?
We as naturopaths look a little bit below the surface when it comes to thyroid function, and the first thing you want to really pay attention to is getting the right labs measured, in particular something called Free T3. Free T3 is your thyroid hormone that really does govern thyroid function, about 80% of thyroid function, so make sure your doctor is measuring that.
Secondly, you want to make sure you’re getting enough co-factors that really help the thyroid to work. Those are iron, zinc, B12 and selenium. If any of those are low, you’re also going to experience symptoms of low thyroid.
Thirdly, what is your stress level like? If your cortisol level is really high your level of Free T3 is also going to increase, which lowers your active thyroid hormone free T3. So, addressing stress levels is really important. Naturopathic medicine really excels at that. If you know somebody suffering from this issue please share the video. Thanks for reading and thanks for watching.
#LiveWell
Dr. Maura Henninger
