Today’s Hashimoment: Ride at an Amusement Park

Life with Hashimoto’s is a Carnival

A Dark Amusement Park

Sometimes living with Hashimoto’s is like being on a ride at a dark amusement park.

You get better, you get worse, you get flare ups: aches & pains, mood swings, you forget and just want to lay down.

It all seems random.

It’s not.

Try Keeping A Journal

Start keeping a journal and you will start to see the things that take you for a ride.

What should you look for?

One of the most important things for you to learn to identify are your “triggers”. Triggers are the things that cause an immune reaction.

This immune reaction ends up triggering a more aggressive autoimmune response which means inflammation and tissue destruction.

What Causes Flare Ups?

These “triggers” cause “flare ups” or a worsening of your symptoms. One of the best ways to find your triggers is by observation.

Note the foods you eat, note the experiences you have especially those that are very stressful or emotionally draining.

Note what chemical toxins you are exposed to: cleaning products like bleach, cigarette smoke, formaldehyde, exhaust, etc.

Note How You Feel

Another thing that is really important to understand about Hashimoto’s is that how you feel is diagnostically relevant and clinically significant.

Somehow, inexplicably, many doctors have forgotten that one of best tools of diagnosis and treatment is clinical observation.

For some reason with Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism this has been erased from their brains and the only relevant finding has become TSH and, if you’re lucky T4 blood test results.

There are about a dozen reasons why TSH and T4 testing is unreliable at best and clinically useless at worst. Check out this post to learn more about this sorry state of affairs.

Be Your Own Detective

Really, being a good doctor is a lot like being a good detective.

And in today’s conventional medical model you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to figuring out your Hashimoto’s.

So, don’t rely on anyone else.

Keep a journal, be your own detective. Identify your triggers and eliminate them.

Then your life will stop being such a dark amusement park ride.