Adapted from Chapter Seventeen of How to Heal Hashimoto’s: An Integrative Road Map to Remission, published by Hay House. 
In this post, I will show you how to use the A.P.A.R.T. System to heal the adrenals.
Not sure what that means? Click here to learn about the A.P.A.R.T. System.
Open your journal (keeping a food/behavior/reaction journal is an absolute necessity, in my opinion, if you are serious about healing your Hashimoto’s) and try to figure out which symptoms of problems with the adrenals you have (see below for a list).
Note what they are, then create a plan for addressing them.
After that take inventory of what you did. Look at what worked and what didn’t. Both will provide valuable information.
Double down on what worked, change what didn’t. Keep at it.
But don’t wait to deal with stress and heal the adrenals. They are just too important to wait.
Symptoms of Low Cortisol (Adrenal Exhaustion Phase)
Cannot stay asleep
Crave salt
Slow starter in the morning
Afternoon fatigue
Dizziness when standing up quickly
Afternoon headaches
Headaches with exertion or stress
Weak nails
Symptoms of High Cortisol (Adrenal Resistance /Alarm Stages)
Cannot fall asleep
Perspire easily
Under high amount of stress
Weight gain when under stress
Wake up tired even after 6 or more hours of sleep
Excessive perspiration or perspiration with little or no activity
In this section let’s take a look at some testing we can do for the adrenals and also to talk about the 3 stages of adrenal burnout.
Ok, so like virtually everything in our body, things don’t usually happen overnight. They develop over time and progress from ok, to sort of bad to really bad if you do’t do anything to stop that progression.
We saw this with the progression to type 2 diabetes. It goes from dysglycemia to insulin resistance to metabolic syndrome to full blown diabetes.
The same is true with autoimmune disease. It goes from silent autoimmunity to reactive autoimmunity to full blown autoimmune disease.
The adrenals are no exception. Adrenal problems also go through a progression as well.
It looks like this:
1. Alarm reaction: This happens in normal life. The adrenal glands become hyperactive to increase cortisol levels to adapt to the demands of stress.
2. The second stage is the Resistance stage: This occurs in response to prolonged stress as the body steals pregnenolone from cholesterol to make cortisol- also known as the pregnenolone steal.
When this happens, hormonal imbalances arise because there isn’t enough cholesterol to make them. It can cause PMS, infertility, male menopause, and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
3. The third stage is the Exhaustion stage: At the point the adrenals are saying “Uncle” and they can no longer adapt to stress.
The cofactors needed to make cortisol become depleted and cortisol levels drop too low. Because the adrenals no longer produce sufficient cortisol, the pregnenolone steal cycle also stops.
Basically, let me give you a quick run down of what they are.
The first is to test your blood pressure in 2 different positions: sitting or lying down and standing.
Firstly, Take and compare two blood pressure readings—one while lying down or sitting and one while standing. Rest for five minutes in a relaxed position before taking the reading.
Stand up and immediately check your blood pressure again. If the blood pressure is lower after standing, then you may have reduced adrenal gland function, and more specifically, an aldosterone issue–(Aldosterone is an adrenal hormone and hypothyroidism can lead to low levels of aldosterone in the blood.)
(Normal adrenal function will elevate your BP on the standing reading in order to push blood to the brain.)
It’s also a good idea to do this test both in the morning and in the evening, because you can appear normal one time, and not another.
The second test you can do is to check your pupils. This is called the Pupil Test and it also tests levels of aldosterone.
You need to be in a dark room with a mirror. From the side (not the front), shine a bright light like a flashlight or penlight towards your pupils and hold it for about a minute. Carefully observe what happens to your pupil.
With healthy adrenals (and specifically, healthy levels of aldosterone),your pupils will constrict, and will stay small the entire time you shine the light from the side.
The light causes them to constrict, it’s a natural response to having light shone in your eye.
In adrenal fatigue, the pupil will get small, but within 30 seconds, it will soon get larger again again or obviously start to flutter as it tries to stay small.
Why does this happen?
Because when you have adrenal insufficiency you can also have low aldosterone, which can cause an imbalance in sodium and potassium (too little sodium and too much potassium).
This imbalance is what causes the sphincter muscles of your eye to be weak and to dilate in response to light.
So the fluttering struggle to keep the pupil small may mean you have adrenal challenges.
In terms of laboratory tests, there are a couple ASI or Adrenal Salivary Index and the DUTCH or Dried Urine Test for Comprohensive Hormones. These provide the most accurate, useful and comprehensive test for the adrenals.
One important thing to understand about this test; (and this is true of a number of different tests) The most important test is the second or even third test.
One test is useless, because we are establishing a baseline and then we are going to take action. And we need to know if what we are doing is helping.
The second and third tests give us that information. We must always reassess and readjust.
And the adrenals generally respond to treatment pretty well. If they don’t you need to look for something deeper. A parasite or heavy metal toxicity, a chronic viral infection or some food intolerance.
Some times you have to be a detective and examine, step by step, all of these things.
The ASI tells us how a person’s adrenals are working throughout the day. Its a 24 hour test. Cortisol is secreted in a specific pattern over a 24 hour day and by measuring saliva at different intervals throughout the day, we can chart the cortisol levels.
Being in a chronic state of alarm or prolonged stress will mess with this rhythm. One example of this is people who are night owls, or have trouble falling, staying asleep or they wake up really tired after getting enough sleep.
Their rhythm has been disrupted.
The ASI shows abnormalities in this circadian rhythm, charts key hormone levels and pinpoints where problems arise along the way. It can be a really valuable test.
The DUTCH test, which uses dried urine, is innovative in a number of respects, and offers several benefits over older hormone tests.
For example, a conventional (liquid sample) urine test gives you metabolites you simply can’t get in a blood or saliva test, but the collection method can be quite messy and inconvenient.
One of the biggest problems with hormone testing is that some hormones fluctuate throughout the day. Cortisol, for example, rises as soon as you get out of bed and then declines as the day wears on.
If your diurnal pattern is dysfunctional, meaning you’re low in the morning and high at night, you have a serious problem. But a 24-hour urine test cannot show you this.
That’s really the advantage of a saliva test, which is done several times over the course of a day. By taking multiple samples throughout the day, you can get a more accurate measure of your cortisol pattern. The drawback is the collection method, which can be time consuming and tedious.
The DUTCH test, on the other hand, captures all of that information and more in one simple test. Simply urinate on the filter paper on the collection device and let it dry.
Those test strips are then used to give you a complete hormone panel, including metabolites, (which can’t be measured in blood or saliva), effectively replacing multiple testing methods.
Both of these tests can be useful tools for determining your next steps and identifying the type of adrenal problem that you have.
If we want to heal out Hashimoto’s, we absolutely have to heal our adrenals.
And the reality is that this whole process of healing these multiple systems is, without question going to take longer than it takes you to read this book.
I am teaching you about what is going on. Correcting it takes time, patience, vigilance and devotion.
But it is so worth it, people.
Some of the tests that you can do for the adrenals are:
1. The blood pressure test. Take 2 measurements, one seated or lying downand one standing. Compare them. If there is a big difference, this may point to adrenal problems.
2. The pupil test. Point a light at your pupils. Watch it constrict, then watch it return to normal. If it gets small and quickly goes back to normal or flutters, then, “Houston, we’ve got a problem”.
3. Lastly, the best laboratory test is the ASI or Adrenal Salivary Index. This takes multiple saliva tests throughout the day and tracks your circadian rhythm. It can be very helpful, not only for identifying the problem but also for tracking your progress in fixing it.
Not everything has the same level importance. This is what 80/20 teaches us. Some things are having more of an impact than others. Figure out which they are (the positive feedback loops) and then make a plan to fix them.
What does that mean when it comes to the adrenals? Check kidney and adrenal function. Adrenal health is very important if you are taking? thyroid replacement hormone.
The warning label for Synthroid states:
“Patients with concomitant adrenal insufficiency should be treated with replacement glucocorticoids prior to initiation of treatment with levothyroxine sodium.
Failure to do so may precipitate an acute adrenal crisis when thyroid hormone therapy is initiated, due to increased metabolic clearance of glucocorticoids by thyroid hormone.”
What this means, in plain English, is that in cases of hypothyroidism, the adrenals need to be evaluated before putting patients on thyroid replacement hormone. And if they aren’t and you give them thyroid hormone anyway, this may cause an acute adrenal crisis. Not good.
How many people with Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism do you think have adrenal insufficiency? A lot.
And how many were tested for adrenal insufficiency before they were put on thyroid hormone? Very few.
Clearly, evaluating and treating the adrenals, if necessary, is a major priority.
Once you have evaluated your adrenals, and you’ve established a plan, the you need to act on that plan. Here’s a some of the actions you can take.
Adaptogenic Herbs:
There are quite a few herbs that have adaptogenic properties, meaning that they help your body adapt to stress.
But as with everything, there is a risk/benefit analysis that must be done with them, especially when autoimmunity is involved. You must be cautious about stimulating the immune system when taking adaptogenic herbs.
Here’s a list of herbs that can be helpful, it may be best to introduce them one at a time rather than in a mixed formula. That way, if you have a reaction, you’ll know which herb was responsible:
Acanthopanax
American gensing
Ashwaghanda (this plant is a nightshade and may cause a reaction)
Cordyceps
Codonopsis
Eleuthrococcus
He shou wu (also excellent for helping promote hair growth)
Holy Basil
Jiaogulan (also excellent for reducing cholesterol)
Licorice
Maca
Panax gensing
Rhodiola
Schizandra
ACTH is to the adrenals what TSH is to the thyroid. It regulates cortisol production. High ACTH may mean the adrenals aren’t producing enough cortisol. Low ACTH may mean the pituitary isn’t producing enough adrenal hormones.
ACTH Increasing:
Ginko
Panax ginseng
Tripterygium
ACTH Reducing:
Acanthopanax
Hypercium
Licorice
Earlier, we looked at symptoms for the different stages of adrenal issues. Figure out which stage you are in and try the supplements below.
1. Alarm Stage:
Balance blood sugar and support healthy response to insulin resistance: alpha lipoic acid, biotin, chromium, gynemma sylvestre, inositol, magnesium, zinc
Adaptogens: See above
Essential fatty acids: fish oil, evening primrose oil
2. Resistance Stage:
Balance blood sugar and support healthy response to insulin resistance: alpha lipoic acid, biotin, chromium, gynemma sylvestre, inositol, magnesium, zinc
Adaptogens: See above
Essential fatty acids: fish oil, evening primrose oil
Add licorice, and B vitamins (see food sources below)
3. Adrenal Exhaustion:
1. Chromium, adrenal, pancreas glands, choline bitartrate, co-enzyme Q 10, inositol, rubidium chelate, vanadium.
Adaptogens: See above
Essential fatty acids: fish oil, evening primrose oil
Add licorice, and B vitamins (see food sources below)
In cases of extreme exhaustion, consider consulting a physician or practitioner. You may benefit by adding pregnenolone and/or DHEA.
VITAMIN B1: rice bran, pinto bean, peas, millet, lentils, almonds, turnip greens, collard greens, kale, asparagus
VITAMIN B2: salmon, trout, cod, mackerel, perch, oysters, mushrooms, almonds, hijiki
VITAMIN B3: rice bran, red pepper, wild rice, kelp, sesame seed, peaches, brown rice, mushrooms, barley, almonds, apricot
VITAMIN B5 (PANTOTHENIC ACID): beef, chicken, salmon, mackerel, sardines, barley, rice, avocado, plums, raisins, almonds, dates
VITAMIN B6: banana, barley, brewer’s yeast, molasses, brown rice, liver, beef, cabbage, carrots, potato, yams
VITAMIN B12: beef liver, beef kidney, ham, sole, scallops, eggs, oats, pickles, amasake, algae, spirulina and chlorella, brewer’s yeast
FOLIC ACID: liver, asparagus, lima beans, spinach, swiss chard, kale, cabbage, sweet corn
Retest, Reassess and ask all over again. Figure out what worked and what didn’t. Double down on what worked and either eliminate or recreate a plan for what didn’t.
Try some things and reassess.
Retest your adrenals, Reorder the ASI (Adrenal Salivary Index) and see if what you did helped.
Keep doing it, keep refining, keep building on the positive results and keep looking for the remaining positive feedback loops that are causing vicious cycles.
The adrenals are a critically important part of the puzzle and given their importance for whether or not you can take thyroid hormone, it makes sense to make healing them your top priority.
Looking for help in assessing your adrenals? Do a consultation with Marc. Click here to learn more.
This post is an excerpt from my book, How to Heal Hashimoto’s: An Integrative Roadmap to Remission.
One of the things I sought to do in writing the book was to teach you how to evaluate and treat yourself so that you can get some successes and then build on them to create positive healing momentum.
That’s what the A.P.A.R.T. System is and I’ve broken it down for your here.
Remission is a journey.
It involves taking responsibility for your life and circumstances and doing whatever is necessary to change that life and those circumstances.
The road to your remission should be ever evolving and growing, and it should be a process that you continue to improve upon and refine.
So it is not a destination. Getting there is just half the battle.
Staying there is the other half. And the only way you can stay there is to be committed for the long haul.
Measurable goals should be:
These goals are just that. They are meant to be targets. You may not reach them 100%.
And that’s ok, not reaching them 100% does not mean you will have failed or that you should give up and quit trying.
These are just numbers and numbers in isolation are never a complete measure of success or failure.
One important thing to remember about laboratory tests is that they are not meaningful outside the context of what you are experiencing in your own body.
So you must always be aware of what is happening in your body, of how you feel and also of what factors led up to that. Try to pay attention to both the good and the bad.
What you feel is clinically relevant and diagnostically important. And, really everything you do and try is just a test. What happens as a result is data that we can use; it provides us with clues and valuable information.
In addition, one should never keep forcing a solution when the evidence before you plainly shows you that it isn’t working.
You must change your plan when that happens.
This can be tricky, but it is possible to do it if you have a system.
Unfortunately, this is usually not part of the mainstream approach. With conventional medicine, medication is often the first treatment option, diet and lifestyle changes are ignored or dismissed and the experiences that you have within your body are not given the importance that they deserve.
To address this problem and offer an alternative way of approaching healing that does take important factors like diet, lifestyle, physical, emotional and spiritual experiences into account, I’ve created a simple system for you to use.
It’s called The A.P.A.R.T. System, because this approach stands apart and so will your results if you use it.
This is a simple, easy-to-remember acronym for getting better results that aren’t based on protocols, dogma, or preconceived ideas.
It goes like this:
Each letter has two ideas that are associated with it.
Data has healing power, if you know what data to collect and analyze and you know what to do with that information. (Both are big “ifs.”)
You need to ask what the symptoms are and assess the different systems of the body to find out where these symptoms are coming from.
And every bodily system and lifestyle practice needs to be a suspect. Don’t exclude something because you’re attached to it, feel like you can’t dowithout it or have decided that it isn’t a problem.
Everything in your life should be evaluated with equal scrutiny and if it isn’t working to make you better, it may have to be eliminated.
This includes people, places, and things like your favorite foods and drinks.
Not everything has the same level of importance. This is what 80/20 teaches us (20 per cent of your issues cause 80 per cent of your symptoms – I’ve described in more detail in the Introduction).
Some things are having more of an impact than others. Figure out which they are (the positive feedback loops – or the things that are repeated and reinforced in your body and mind) and focus on those first, then make a plan to fix them.
I have created a Cheat Sheet in the back of the book that contains what I think are the most common 20 percent issues that cause 80 percent of our problems.
Act and put your plan into motion. Then observe what the results are. Double down on what works and change what doesn’t. And results should be apparent relatively quickly.
If they aren’t, you need to make changes.
The common practice of a doctor or practitioner prescribing something and then telling the patient to come back in three to six months is not the best approach, in my opinion. That’s way too long, especially if it isn’t working.
Retest, reassess and ask all over again. Figure out what worked and what didn’t. Double down on what worked and either eliminate or recreate a plan for what didn’t.
It sounds obvious, but it is often overlooked or forgotten. Testing and reevaluating what you have done to see the result of your treatment is essential for good care.
Quick side note here: In my opinion, what I have learned over many years of practice is that you need to trust what the data is telling you. In most cases, when you make the right choice, you start feeling better.
Things like a “healing crisis,” a “die off,” or a “detox reaction” sometimes occur, but they can also be a cover for incompetence. The right decision should result in a positive result relatively quickly.
If you are doing something and you aren’t getting better or you continue to feel worse, or it causes more discomfort, pain, and adverse symptoms, then you need to question whether that is the best course of action.
Eliminate it, reduce variables, and find out which part of what you are doing is causing that reaction or set of symptoms.
And all of this should not be done on the basis of lab tests alone. With Hashimoto’s it must include a thorough examination of the signs and symptoms as well.
Remember, what you feel is diagnostically important and clinically relevant.
Keep doing it, keep refining, keep building on the positive results and keep looking for the remaining positive feedback loops that are causing vicious cycles.
People sometimes give up before giving a certain approach a chance. Or they get some good results and then slide back to their old ways of doing things. When you find something that works, keep doing it. Don’t quit and don’t give up.
Lab work and symptoms should all confirm that this has taken place.
Again, lab tests must always be viewed in context to how you feel. It is the combination of these two factors that determine success or failure.
In addition, you must create realistic goals that are small enough to achieve and then build upon them. Acknowledge and celebrate your small victories.
You can’t go from sick to perfect in a couple of weeks.
As I said, remission is a journey. It is measured by how you feel, by your lab tests and by your quality of life.
In other words, this journey is all about creating a lifestyle that will sustain and foster ongoing success.
Would you like to read the whole book? It chock full of great information and is available at all major book retailers.
Slide from presentation by Dr. A. Vojdani on LDN
Hashimoto’s is the most common autoimmune disease of the thyroid and if affects millions of people globally. The most common treatment for this condition is synthetic T4 (usually Synthroid or a generic equivalent).
For many this treatment is ineffective and for some it only makes their symptoms worse. There are many reasons for this, but one of the important ones is that synthetic T4 does not sufficiently address the autoimmunity that is at the root of this disease.
In addition, unfortunately, many doctors ignore autoimmunity and pretend that it isn’t there. This is an abdication of responsibility and it can result in poor outcomes and poor clinical results.
And, unfortunately, it is the patients who suffer most from this approach. In this post, which is part of a new series, we will explore alternatives to just giving synthetic T4. One that shows promise with very few side effects is Low Dose Naltrexone, also known as LDN.
Naltrexone is a drug that was originally approved in the 1980’s as a treatment for opiate and alcohol addiction. The drug is an opiate antagonist and it blocks opiate receptors on cells. So it blocks the effects of legal and illegal opiates like morphine, codeine, oxycontin and heroin and opium.
With alcohol, it acts to block endogenous opiates which are opiates our bodies naturally produce. These include endorphins, enkephalin and other hormones we produce naturally.
When these natural opiates are blocked, there are more of them in the system and it can result in less craving and consumption of alcohol by alcoholics.
It is also this effect of blocking our natural opiates that also may provide benefit by calming and modulating the immune system in autoimmunity.
Naltrexone was approved in 1984 by the FDA in a 50 mg dose as a treatment for heroin addiction. When it was licensed, Dr. Bernard Bihari, then involved in running programs for treating addiction, tried it with more than 50 heroin addicts.
None of the patients stayed on the drug because of side effects experienced at the 50 mg dosage such as insomnia, depression, irritability and loss of feelings of pleasure, (all due to the effect of the drug at this dose in blocking endorphins which are involved in many of these activities and emotions).
Physicians treating heroin addicts with this approach got frustrated and many stopped prescribing naltrexone. Then, in the 1980s, a large number of heroin addicts began to get sick with AIDS (studies from that time have shown that about 50% of heroin addicts were HIV Positive).
Dr. Bihari and his colleagues decided to shift their research focus to AIDS, in particular studying ways of strengthening the immune system. Since endorphins are involved in supporting and regulating the immune system, levels of endorphins were measured in the blood of AIDS patients. They were found to average only 25% of normal.
Naltrexone became the focus of Dr. Bihari’s research group because they observed that when given to mice and people at high doses, the body raises endorphin levels to compensate for the naltrexone blockade.
The group discovered that endorphins are almost all produced in the middle of the night, between 2 AM and 4 AM, and the studies focused on small doses (1.5-4.5 mg at bedtime) with the hope that a brief period of endorphin blockade before 2 AM might induce an increase in the body’s endorphin production.
In fact, it was discovered that the drug was able to do this in this lower dosage range. It had no effect below 1.5 mg and too much endorphin blockade at doses over 5 mg. A placebo-controlled trial in AIDS patients showed a much better outcome in patients on the drug as compared with those on placebo.
By coincidence, during the research trial, a close friend of Dr. Bihari’s daughter had three acute episodes of multiple sclerosis over a nine-month period with complete spontaneous recovery from each.
Because of his knowledge of MS as a neurologist and of recent evidence that naltexone might have impact on autoimmunity, Dr. Bihari decided to start his daughter’s friend on the drug at 3 mg every night at bedtime.
She took it for five years with no further attacks. At that point, when her supply ran out, she stopped it because she thought she no longer had MS.
About a month later, she developed an episode of weakness, numbness, stiffness and spasms in her left arm ( all common symptoms of MS) and resumed LDN, which she then stayed on for 12 years. During that time she reportedly had no further disease activity.
The exact mechanism of how naltrexone works with immune related diseases is not fully understood. But here’s what we do know.
LDN Works in Several Ways:
A small dose of the drug taken nightly at bedtime increases endorphin levels in the body the following day.
Since endorphin levels are often low in people with autoimmunity, immune function is impaired and the normal immune regulatory function of CD4 cells is affected.
These cells include proteins in the TH-1, TH-2 and TH-17 families that can cause so much damage with autoimmune disease. These cells and proteins that are related to them are what create antibodies to our own tissue, signal attacks on that tissue and, ultimately lead to the destructive inflammatory process that destroys it.
If the T regulatory part of the immune system is weak, these other parts of the immune system can get out of control and cause more significant damage.
The anti-inflammatory effect of LDN has been studied and using it resulted in suppressed TNF-alpha, IL-6, MCP-1, and other inflammatory agents in peripheral macrophages.
It also has strong effect on calming glial cells and given the wide variety of inflammatory factors produced by activated microglia (e.g., proinflammatory cytokines, substance P, nitric oxide, and excitatory amino acids) this is also a significant effect of the treatment.
Opioid growth factor (OGF; [Met5]-enkephalin) is a natural peptide that has been shown to inhibit growth of certain cancer cells. LDN has shown promise in treating liver and pancreatic cancers.
LDN is an opioid receptor antagonist that acts at classical and non-classical opioid receptors including the opioid growth factor receptor (OGFr).
Animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, as well as normal rodents, have shown that topical naltrexone enhances the healing rates of corneal epithelium and full-thickness cutaneous wounds. The mechanism of this general opioid antagonist on growth, and in particular the specific receptor pathway involved, is not understood.
Neuropeptides may play a role in irritable bowel syndrome and these molecules (e.g., enkephalins and endorphins) are present in the gastrointestinal tract and these modulate immune responses.
Upregulation of met-enkephelin (opioid growth factor-OGF) and opioid receptors can all be induced by low dose naltrexone.
LDN displaces endogenous endorphins bound to the OGF receptor. Affected cells become low in OGF which results in more receptors being made.
Receptor sensitivity is increased to capture more OGF and production of OGF is also increased to compensate for the perceived shortage of this molecule.
Higher levels of endogenous opioids and receptors inhibit cell proliferation which suppresses B and T lymphocyte responses. Naltrexone has been shown to reverse a mouse colitis model by decreasing the pro-inflammatory interleukins 6 and 12.
LDN has been shown to stimulate certain parts of the immune system and suppress and down-regulate others. It has been shown to inhibit IL-17, a protein that is part of the TH-17 family. It can also down regulate IL-10 and TGF beta (Transforming Growth Factor beta).
What’s interesting to observe here is that not everyone has the same immune cell profiles and LDN may work better on those that have a profile that best fits the things that it enhances and suppresses.
(Note: If the part of your immune system that is causing problems is not suppressed but rather stimulated by LDN, then you might feel worse after taking it.
Once again, this is very complicated and not everyone with Hashimoto’s and autoimmunity has the same immune configuration. This may explain why some people do well with the drug and others seem not to.)
There is no real consensus on how this all works and considerable debate about how LDN does what it does.
One such question is whether or not immune cells have opiate receptors.
There is some debate in the scientific community about whether or not the effect of opioids on the immune system are due to the fact that immune cells have opiate receptors.
Researchers have not been able to find these receptors, yet there is no doubt that opiates have a powerful effect on immune cells. And there is ample evidence of the functional influence of opioids on these cells.
In fact, in many ways opiates behave like immune cells, themselves. They impact the production of immune cells by acting locally, and inside cells, they affect gene expression and these influences both depend on dosage and time.
One thing that’s also important to understand is that the endogenous opiates in our bodies do not behave the same as drugs like morphine, heroin and other exogenous opiates.
What’s also interesting is that immune cells themselves contain endogenous opiate proteins. They actually carry them to sites of inflammation.
Immune cells have been shown to contain numerous opioid peptides such as β-endorphin (END), met-enkephalin (ENK), and dynorphin-A (DYN), although the most common appears to be END.
These opioid-containing immune cells travel to inflamed tissues and once there, opioid peptide is released from the immune cells upon stimulation with corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF), noradrenaline, and interleukin 1β (IL-1β), and then the immune cells return to the local lymph node depleted of this peptide.
Which means if you can increase the amount of these endogenous opiates (which LDN does) you have more of them available to be delivered.
It’s also interesting to note that research found that endogenous opiates can raise TSH.
So if you can follow the logic of this, systemic immunosuppression (which is the standard approach used to treat autoimmune diseases) may affect the body’s ability to regulate immune cells that are important for the release of endogenous opioid peptides within inflamed tissue.
To further complicate matter it is know that exogenous opioids may impair immune cell function, something not shared by endogenous opioid peptides.
This means that giving pain relieving medication that are opiates may also impair immune system function.
So if you have autoimmune disease and you are using immunosuppresant therapy and opiates for pain relief, you are setting yourself up for failure and may be making the disease progression worse and more severe.
Another really interesting thing that the research reveals is the role of glial cells in the brain and central nervous system on opioids.
This research has shown that these cells can become activated and they can make the opioids not work as well.
This happens via numerous mechanisms, including directly affecting receptors, upregulation of excitatory amino acid receptor function, downregulation of GABA receptor function, etc.
The downstream effects of glial activation result in increased pain, suppressed acute opioid pain relief, increased tolerance, and the development of opioid dependence.
Conditions such as fibromyalgia may involve chronic glial cell activation and subsequent production of pro-inflammatory factors.
And Hashimoto’s and fibromyalgia have many symptoms that are identical. See this post I wrote on this.
In addition, it is widely known that T3 has important and dramatic effects on the microglia and hypothyroidism, “functional hypothyroidism” and “low T3 syndrome” can all result in glial cell activation, making all of this worse.
One theory is that LDN, itself, is a glial cell modulator. It may calm theses glial cells and prevent them from exerting the damage that they do.
What’s also really interesting is that CBD (Cannabanoid) has also been found to calm glial cells. I’ll be exploring this more in an upcoming post.
Naltrexone taken at low doses has virtually no side effects. According to lowdosenaltrexone.org, occasionally, during the first week’s use of LDN, patients may complain of some difficulty sleeping.
This rarely persists after the first week. Should it do so, dosage can be reduced from 4.5mg to 3mg nightly.
LDN Will Interfere With Narcotic Medication
Because LDN blocks opioid receptors throughout the body for three or four hours, people using narcotic medication — such as Ultram (tramadol), morphine, Percocet, Duragesic patch or codeine-containing medication — should not take LDN until such medicine is completely out of one’s system.
Patients who have become dependent on daily use of narcotic-containing pain medication may require 10 days to 2 weeks of slowly weaning off of such drugs entirely (while first substituting full doses of non-narcotic pain medications) before being able to begin LDN safely.
LDN May Impact Thyroid Hormone Dosage
Patients who are taking thyroid replacement hormone for Hashimoto’s with hypothyroidism ought to begin LDN at the lowest range (1.5mg for an adult).
Be aware that LDN may lead to a prompt decrease in the autoimmune disorder (and less inflammation within the thyroid and the rest of the body), which then may require a reduction in the dose of medication in order to avoid symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
LDN Should Not Be Taken With Immunosuppresant Medication
People who have received organ transplants and who therefore are taking immunosuppressive medication on a permanent basis are cautioned against the use of LDN because it may act to counter the effect of those medications.
The same is also true for people who have been prescribed immunosuppresant medications. As we learned above, the long term consequences of this medication may be increased severity and progression of the disease.
There are several important takeaways from this post:
1. LDN is safe and has few side effects
2. Dosage really matters, less is absolutely more!
3. There is ample evidence that it can be beneficial in calming the immune system in autoimmunity, though how it works is not yet fully understood.
There is evidence that it calms TH-1, TH-17 and other cytokines and that it can help calm glial cells in the brain and CNS (Central Nervous System).
3. It is not the magic bullet. If you don’t have an immune system profile that fits the way LDN works in your body, it may not work for you as effectively as it does for others.
And you can’t take it and ignore all the other things we must do to heal Hashimotos such as:
Healing your brain, and calming glial cells, healing your adrenals, healing your gut and doing all of the other things we advocate.
But LDN may be a good option and could give you the upper hand in dealing with immune system dysfunction.
http://www.ldnresearchtrust.org
http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_ai.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC95944/ Opiates receptors on immune cells
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3962576/ LDN and pain treatment
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850250 TLR4 Receptors
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22826216 TLR4 Receptors promote autoimmunity
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23188075 LDN for Crohn’s disease in children (safety)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17222320 LDN improves Crohn’s disease
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1857294/ Glial cells as “bad guys” opioids and glial cell modulation
Endogenous opioids and immune modulation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1661636/ Endogenous opioid analgesia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3912755/ Mu opiod receptor
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0034-70942012000500010&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en Opioids and the Immune system
http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/111/1/80/T1.expansion.html Table of impact of endogenous opioids on the immune system. ENDOGENOUS OPIATES INCREASE TSH!
http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/111/1/80.full Opioids and immune modulation
http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/v78/n5/full/icb200077a.html Effect of neuropeptides on the immune system
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9610674 Opioid cytokine connection
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/186/9/5078.full.pdf Relationship of T cells and pain relief
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4407783/ Endogenous opioids inhibit TH-1 and TH-2
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12026-008-8018-0 Microglial Cells and Parkinson’s
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1661636/ Endogenous opioid analgesia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2096733/ Endogenous neurotransmitters function as retrograde inhibitory neurotransmitters
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4452882/ T3 and microglia
http://www.ldnscience.org/opioid-growth-factor-ogf/51-ogf/ogf-explanatory
Like most health conditions, Hashimoto’s has no single cause.
It is the result of the perfect storm of factors that include a genetic predisposition, exposure to some pathogen (often a herpes virus), the breakdown of the gut and barrier systems (without or without the help of gluten), exposure to gluten, environmental toxins like radiation, mercury and other toxic chemicals and often, some particularly stressful event.
In this post we explore one of those causes, the herpes virus.
As many of you know, I have Hashimoto’s and have made it my life’s work to understand everything I can about the causes, treatment and management of this disease.
I also have herpes simplex 1 (along with 90% of the population). While this is not a life threatening disease it can be the cause of shame and embarrassment, especially when I get a more serious outbreak on my face or lips.
As a health care practitioner, there are times when having an outbreak of herpes has made me feel like I’m not very good at my job because it can look much worse than it is.
But the reality is that there are few other biological entities as resilient and unstoppable as the herpes virus. All the technology at our disposal is pretty useless when it comes to trying to eradicate this infection.
And I suppose one blessing of having it is that I can not venture too far from the things I know I need to do to stay healthy. The virus will rear it’s ugly head and remind me to get back in line.
In addition, one thing I have observed in my own life is that an outbreak of herpes can also affect my Hashimoto’s, resulting in a debilitating double whammy that can affect me emotionally, physically and psychologically.
So I thought I would explore this in more depth, and look at the relationship between herpes and Hashimoto’s. You may be surprised by the information and the impact that these various herpes diseases can have.
There are 8 different herpes viruses known to infect human beings. These include herpes simplex 1 & 2, varicella zoster (which causes chicken pox) also known as herpes 3, Epstein Barr virus (herpes 4), Cytomegalovirus (herpes 5), Human Herpes Virus 6 & 7 and Human Herpes Virus 8 found in people with complications due to HIV.
While the whole herpes family is believed to be linked to autoimmune disease, there is more research into the link between herpes simplex 1 & 2, Epstein Barr, and Cytomegalovirus and autoimmune thyroid disorders like Hashimoto’s.
The common factors that unite them is that all of them remain in the body forever, they can remain dormant for years and then get reawakened (often by stress or stressful events) and they all have the potential to do harm to the brain because the herpes virus has an affinity to nerve tissue.
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections are very common worldwide. HSV-1 is the main cause of herpes infections on the mouth and lips, including cold sores and fever blisters. It is transmitted orally (through kissing or sharing drinking glasses and utensils). HSV-1 can also cause genital herpes, although HSV-2 is the main cause of genital herpes.
HSV-2 is spread through sexual contact. You may be infected with HSV-1 or HSV-2 but not show any symptoms. Often symptoms are triggered by exposure to the sun, fever, menstruation, emotional stress, a weakened immune system, or an illness (like Hashimoto’s).
While most herpes infections do not cause serious complications, infections in infants and in people with weakened immune systems, or herpes infections that affect the eyes, can be life threatening. In addition, herpes virus attack nerves so they can do damage to the brain by attacking the ganglia.
In fact, Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) is an acute or subacute illness that causes both general and focal signs of cerebral dysfunction. Brain infection is thought to occur by means of direct neuronal transmission of the virus from a peripheral site to the brain via the trigeminal or olfactory nerve. The exact pathway is unclear, and factors that precipitate HSE are unknown.
Epstein-Barr is the virus that causes mononucleosis and is part of the herpes family. Even if you didn’t come down with it in high school or college, you were very likely infected with it, an estimated 95% of US adults have been infected with this virus.
It can present without any symptoms and has been linked to both Hashimoto’s and Graves’ disease. In my own patient population about 80% of the people I have worked have been diagnosed with EBV.
I surveyed our Facebook group and asked how many also had the Epstein Barr virus. Of the 131 (and counting) people with Hashimoto’s who responded 85% were aware that they had been exposed to the Epstein Barr virus.
This is obviously not a rigorous study, but it does show you just how prevalent this infection is in this patient population.
It has also been linked to other autoimmune diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, and Sjogren’s syndrome. In addition, both fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are also linked to EBV.
Epstein Barr can also lead to inflammation of the brain (viral encephalitis). This is a serious concern with Hashimoto’s because it can also have a profound impact on the brain and this inflammation has the potential to lead to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline.
Most people infected with CMV do not have any symptoms. Acute CMV infection can cause mono-like symptoms such as fever, enlarged lymph nodes, sore throat, muscle aches, loss of appetite and fatigue.
In people with compromised immune function, CMV infections can attack different organs and systems in the body and can lead to blurred vision and even blindness (CMV retinitis), lung infection, diarrhea, inflammation of the liver, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis). In more severe cases it can lead to behavioral changes, seizures and coma (again highlighting the impact of the virus on the brain).
It is not believed that the herpes viruses directly cause autoimmune disease. But they do play a part in it’s initial onset and progression and they can certainly make symptoms more intense and be a barrier to healing and feeling better.
There are many reasons for this and I will discuss them in a moment, but first let’s take a look at antigens and antibodies so that you can understand how these viruses cause problems in the body.
Antigens Trigger an Immune Response, Antibodies Bind to Antigens
An antigen is a substance that produces an immune response. So for example, foreign substances such as chemicals, bacteria, or viruses are all considered antigens. Foods can also be seen as antigens by the immune system.
However, an antigen can also be produced inside of the body, and even the tissue cells can be considered to be an antigen at times, which is what happens with autoimmune conditions such as Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s.
An antibody is a protein which is produced by the immune system, and this antibody binds to a specific antigen. Once the antibody binds to the antigen other immune system cells (i.e. macrophages) attempt to engulf and destroy the antigen.
There are number of theories about the different mechanisms that can lead viruses to trigger autoimmune disease. A couple examples are: direct bystander activation, and molecular mimicry.
Direct bystander activation: This describes an indirect or non-specific activation of autoimmune cells caused by the inflammatory environment present during infection. Think of this as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like being caught in a drive by shooting.
In this case, one part of the immune system becomes activated and this turns on other parts which can kill both viral-infected cells, and healthy cells as well.
So, for example, virus-specific T cells might migrate to the areas of a viral infection, and when these T cells encounter virus infected cells they sound the alarm and release immune proteins (called cytokines), which not only kill the infected cells, but also leads to “bystander killing” of other healthy cells nearby.
Molecular mimicry: This is a process where a foreign antigen shares an amino acid sequence or has a similar structure to self-antigens. So for example, a certain virus can have an amino acid sequence that is very similar to the amino acid sequence of human cells.
This can result not only in the production of antibodies against the virus, but can also lead to auto-antibodies against the human cells due to the similarities in the proteins.
Something else that can occur is that viral fragments can attach to human tissue and result in a hybrid that is part virus and part human and this can also be attacked by the immune system.
The mechanisms mentioned above really the end of a series of potential steps that lead to autoimmunity. There are some interesting theories about how this happens. This matters because if we can figure out how it is happening, it can help us figure out what how to treat it.
And what’s also interesting is that this same process takes place with all herpes viruses, it’s not unique to the ones that we’re looking at as examples.
It Starts with CD8+ T-cells
CD8+ T-cells are a kind of cell which inhibits viruses. Basically, once activated they kill bad cells.
Cells infected with the virus are used to make more virus.
Cells which viruses have infected are one example. These cells will be used by the virus to make more virus, so they must be killed by the immune system.
Having a deficiency of them is a common characteristic of virtually every chronic autoimmune disease (including: multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome, systemic sclerosis, dermatomyositis, primary biliary cirrhosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, vitiligo, bullous pemphigoid, alopecia areata, idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, type 1 diabetes mellitus, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, IgA nephropathy, membranous nephropathy, and pernicious anaemia).
Some scientists believe that this CD8+ T-cell deficiency may be partially responsible for the formation of these chronic autoimmune diseases, as well. And one reason is that they aren’t able to control the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) or other herpes infection.
If EBV isn’t controlled, it can cause all kinds of problems in the body. When EBV infects B cells it can make them “auto-reactive”, which means its products (antibodies) target our own tissues.
According to a paper called “CD8+ T-Cell Deficiency, Epstein-Barr Virus Infection, Vitamin D Deficiency, and Steps to Autoimmunity: A Unifying Hypothesis” by Michael P. Pender, one theory is that autoimmunity occurs in the following steps:
1. First you have CD8+ T-cell deficiency – this has a genetic component.
2. Then, EBV (or other herpes virus) infection and spread of EBV because of CD8+ T-cell deficiency (there aren’t enough of these cells to kill these virus infected cells).
3. Increased antibodies against EBV (kind of like a second line of defense), your body responds and tries to bring in more help.
4. EBV infects a specific organ – and, particularly, B Cells in that organ. This corrupts the B cells to attack our own tissue. (One theory is that since viruses and bacteria have proteins similar to our own proteins, we mistakenly attack our own proteins. This confusion by our immune system is the ‘molecular mimicry’ I described above.)
5. B Cells proliferate in the infected organ (your antibody numbers increase)
6. T cells are drawn into the organ and also attack our tissue. Antibodies signal the attackers.
7. Development of ‘structures’ in the target organ, which causes B cells to attack our tissues. (This is dependent on Th17 cells ) This process repeats and builds on itself.
Some common factors that push autoimmunity are:
Low Vitamin D
High Estrogen
High Chronic Stress
Low Vitamin D
Vitamin D and sunlight are very important for CD8+ T cells production, which may explain why countries that get less sunlight have a higher occurrence of autoimmunity. People with Hashimoto’s commonly have low Vitamin D levels.
High Estrogen
Estrogen also decreases CD8+ T cells, which may explain the higher incidence of autoimmunity in females. Women with estrogen dominance and/or impairment of detoxification pathways in the liver may have too much circulating estrogen and this can cause problems with the immune system.
High Chronic Stress: High Cortisol/Low Pregnanolone
Chronic stress can cause reactivation of EBV, probably by downgrading the TH1 immune response. (TH1 are T helper cells that sound the alarm and also induce destruction. They are like the elite soldiers of the immune system.)
When you have chronic stress, your body keeps pumping out cortisol. Cortisol is made from cholesterol and a hormone that helps make cortisol is known as pregnenolone.
Pregnenolone is a neurosteroid and is important in the creation of other hormones like cortisol.
When your body is under constant stress (which is the state of living with an autoimmune disease like Hashimoto’s) and needs to keep producing more and more cortisol something called the “pregnenolone steal” can happen.
This is where cortisol is ‘stealing’ or diverting pregnenolone for cortisol production and depleting it. When pregnenolone is depleted, there will, of course, be less of it to produce more cortisol in the future.
Viruses Hijack the Mevalonate Pathway
When a viral infection becomes active it takes control over what’s known as the “mevalonate pathway.” Viruses use this pathway to make their protective outer coats.
In answer to this, your body makes interferon, which shuts down the mevalonate pathway, which in turn suppresses the virus. However, inhibiting this pathway may also lead to a reduction in synthesis of pregnenolone and Co-enzyme Q10 (which also may be depleted in Hashimoto’s).
One of the most common viruses that causes this pathway to be inhibited is Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV).
There’s also another problem.
When you’re under high stress the body releases cortisol, which suppresses your immune system.
Specifically, the TH1 (or T Helper 1) part of the immune system is suppressed by chronic stress. This aspect of the immune system (Th1) protects us from viral reactivation. Cells and proteins in this family sound the alarm and kill viruses.
When this part of the immune system is suppressed, viral infections can then reactivate- including EBV, herpes and a host of other viruses.
What’s really interesting about this is that Hashimoto’s was originally thought to be a TH-1 dominant disease and some people with Hashimoto’s do have TH-1 dominance.
And here’s where it gets tricky. If you stimulate TH-1, then you may risk firing up the part of the immune system that is destroying your thyroid. So this requires some real skill in dealing with with both Hashimoto’s and EBV or other herpes viruses at the same time.
There are some other things that EBV can cause problems with and these are really significant because they are also common problems with Hashimoto’s.
EBV can cause problems with serotonin, methylation, and can compromise the blood brain barrier and, as we have already seen, lead to neurodegeneration.
This is really interesting because with Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism, serotonin can also become depleted. This one of the reasons why some people with Hashimoto’s experience depression and a lack of motivation and enjoyment in things. So the combination of Hashimoto’s and EBV can lead to some serious emotional issues.
Methylation issues are also quite common with Hashimoto’s and some people have MTHFR gene mutations which can exacerbate this problem. In addition, dominance of the TH1 part of the immune system can lead to methylation problems, as well.
And, finally leaky gut and intestinal permeability are the hallmark of virtually all autoimmune diseases and this is sometimes the sign of a larger systemic problem involving all the barrier systems of the body.
The gut and the brain are very closely related and the same proteins that protect the barrier of the intestines also line the blood brain barrier. When one area is compromised the other can be as well.
So, the combination of EBV and Hashimoto’s certainly has all the ingredients of a potent vicious cycle that can create a downward spiral of difficult to resolve physical and psychological health problems.
Treating both EBV (and other herpes viruses) and Hashimoto’s at the same time can be tricky because herbs and supplements that are known to prevent reactivation of the virus can also stimulate parts of the immune system.
And if these parts of the immune system are causing tissue destruction and flare ups of your symptoms, then you are simply trading problems. And this approach may actually make matters worse.
So, let’s take a look at some obvious and less obvious treatment strategies that can keep EBV or other viruses at bay and not stoke the fires of autoimmunity.
One of the most important treatments for EBV (and other herpes viruses) is having stress relieving hobbies. Many people are aware of the destructive power of stress, but it always amazes me how little they are willing to do about it.
If you have Hashimoto’s and EBV and you don’t do things to reduce stress daily, you are setting yourself up for failure. It’s like walking into oncoming traffic and expecting not to be hit by a car or truck. You are going to be in a world of hurt if you don’t have daily habits for reducing stress.
These include meditation, yoga, qi gong, music, art, relaxation, massage, acupuncture, spa days, mineral baths, etc. These are not luxuries, they are necessities for someone living with Hashimoto’s and EBV.
I’m giving you permission to indulge yourself. If you need a note from your doctor for this, email me and I’ll be happy to write one for you. 🙂
Another thing to be conscious of are foods and supplements that can feed and encourage the herpes virus. The most common are foods that are low in lysine and high in arginine.
These include:
• chocolate
• coconut (coconut oil is fine since it has no amino acids)
• seeds and nuts
• orange juice
• wheat products and products containing gluten
• oats
• lentils
• protein supplements: casein, the protein found in milk may also increase arginine levels.
• gelatin
What’s interesting to note here is that some of these foods are foods we commonly avoid with Hashimoto’s while others are staples of the Paleo and Autoimmune Paleo diets. (This emphasizes the importance of being flexible and of the highly individualized nature of the problem.)
Highly acidic foods and those laden with chemicals can also exacerbate viral infections and lead to outbreaks.
• alcohol
• caffeine
• all junk food
• too much red meat
• processed/white flour products
• food additives
• artificial sweeteners.
These are all also foods that can exacerbate your Hashimoto’s. So there’s no love lost here. Caffeine can potentiate or increase the utilization of arginine so that should be done in moderation.
There are several different strategies for treating EBV and other herpes viruses. Novice herbalists will often throw lots of immune stimulating herbs at the problem like astragalus, ashwaganda and medicinal mushrooms like maitake and reishi.
These are great herbs, but can be a really bad idea for some people with autoimmune disease.
Instead a more targeted approach of attacking the virus and strengthening different parts of the immune system with a more nuanced approach is a much, much better idea. The Chinese Herbal Materia Medica is full of herbs that can accomplish these tasks beautifully.
Here are some herbs that specifically attack EBV and other herpes viruses:
Anti-EBV Herbs:
Angelica sinensis, chrysanthemum, citrus, lithosperum, milletia, paedria, picrorhiza
Anti-Cytomegalovirus:
Isatis root, baphicacanthes, cnidium, lithosperum, forsythia, gardenia, chrysanthemum, vitex, dandelion, epimedium, lonicera
Anti-Herpes Herbs:
Belamcanda, clove, crataegous, dandelion, epimedium, houttuynia, inula, lonicera, portulaca, prunella, rhubarb, salvia, scrophularia
It’s important to note that many of these herbs have multiple pharmacological properties and can therefore be used to accomplish more than one thing if combined properly.
It’s important to strengthen the immune system to treat these herpes viruses, as well, but it must be done carefully.
As we saw before, Vitamin D is important for strengthening CD8+ T cells, as is glutathione and superoxide dismutase, EPA and DHA.
Turmeric is helpful because of it’s anti-inflammatory properties.
Also, there are couple of essential oils that I have found are very effective for first attacking the virus and, then healing the sores.
Ravensara is an excellent anti-viral oil that may applied topically directly on the lesions. Heliochrysum is an oil that helps regenerate flesh and can help to heal the sores more quickly.
My partner, Olesia Farberov makes a fantastic herbal salve with some of Chinese herbs mentioned above and both these essential oils called The Healer.
The Healer, made with anti-herpes herbs and essential oils
This is an absolute must for your purse, pocket and medicine cabinet. I prescribe it to all of my patients with herpes and use it myself because it just plain works.
Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements:
Research has shown that a daily intake of at least 1250 mg of lysine supplements can help control herpes outbreaks.
Zinc, Vitamin C and B vitamins may also be helpful.
Other supplements that can help increase CB8+ cells include:
N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC), butyrate, andrographis, and gynostemma
Western Medication
One area where I actually advocate using Western pharmaceutical drugs is in the treatment of these viruses. Acyclovir is a potent anti-viral and for some people who have really stubborn hard to treat outbreaks, it can be an effective tool in your arsenal.
Another drug to consider is Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). It has the ability to modulate immune function and calm physiological stress. It can also be effective in helping the body to deal with the herpes virus.
At the end of the day, the reality is that these viruses are here to stay. They are remarkably adaptable and persistent and they have there own insidious intelligence.
We can not hope to defeat them, we have to accept them, live with them and adapt our lives to them. And the good news is, the most effective treatments for them like stress relieving hobbies and a healthy diet are also important ingredients in our long term health, happiness and well being.
Notes from Studying with Dr. M.M. Van Benschoten, O.M.D.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24008857: herpes and Hashimoto’s 3 case studies
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2013/867389/: Role of herpes 6 as a trigger for autoimmune thyroid disease
http://jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/22169789/645: Role of viruses in Autoimmune disease
http://www.virologyj.com/content/6/1/5: Viruses and thyroiditis
http://www.dana.org/Media/GrantsDetails.aspx?id=38800: herpes and MS
https://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/condition/herpes-simplex-virus: good general info on herpes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654877/ : Viruses and thyroiditis
http://www.cellandbioscience.com/content/1/1/24 Affects of thyroid hormone on HSV-1 gene regulation
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/health.2013.58162 Large cohort on TH levels and HSV 1 activation
EBV and Hashimoto’s
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8750577: Elevated Epstein Barr titers in AIT
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20404456: Immune responses to EBV in AITD patients
http://www.bioline.org.br/request?mb10037: EBV activation in AID patients
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ad/2012/189096/: Hypothesis of how this all happens
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16055563 Serotonin and EBV
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21289059 EBV and methylation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20826008 EBV and the blood brain barrier
Infections and Autoimmune disease:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2665673/ role of infections in AID
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360274/ Molecular mimicry
http://www.direct-ms.org/sites/default/files/FujinamivirusMS.pdf
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-10-scientists-link-viral-infection-autoimmune.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12699597 T3 autoantibodies can cause latent EBV activation!
Molecular mimicry
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3266166/
Neurological impact of herpes:
http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/journal/v3/n2/full/ncpneuro0401.html Neurological impact of herpes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3437531/ Herpes infections in the CNS
http://www.herpes.org/whitepaper-the-psychological-effects-of-herpes/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175921/ Anxiety and depression and viral disease
http://medind.nic.in/daa/t12/i1/daat12i1p188.pdf Viral infections and depression
http://www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com/articles/which-viruses-can-trigger-thyroid-autoimmunity/ Good descriptions and solutions
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11572634 virus induced autoimmunity
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22095454 molecular mimicry as autoimmune intitiation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25445494 B cell epitope spreading
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11140461 Epitope spreading
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360274/ Bystander activation
http://justherpes.com/facts/foods-to-avoid-with-herpes-diet/ Herpes food
A Meeting of the Thyroid Minds, Boulder Colorado 2015
This last weekend, I had the honor and the privilege to be invited to a mastermind in Boulder Colorado that was hosted by Michael and Izabella Wentz. It was a meeting of some of the top people in our field and we gathered together to share some of the things we have learned with each other.
In today’s post, I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts (while they are still fresh in my mind) about some of the important takeaways from the event both for deepening our understanding of how to heal Hashimoto’s and also of how we can better serve each other and our world.
If you aren’t familiar with a mastermind (I wasn’t until last year) the basic idea is that you bring together a group of people with similar goals and collectively the brain power of everyone’s minds creates a kind of quantum up-leveling of ideas and understanding on your topic. The sum becomes greater than the individual parts.
For those of us working in the world of thyroid health and autoimmunity, the purpose of this event was two-fold. To share ideas about what we have learned in working with this unique patient population and, also, how we can have successful businesses so that we can have a bigger impact, help more people and improve patient care for the millions struggling with these diseases.
In this post, I’m going to focus on my top five takeaways from the event.
Here they are:
1. The profoundness of your “why”
2. It’s all about the proteins
3. Diet matters times infinity
4. Root cause is plural
5. Hashimoto’s isn’t the end of your life, it’s the beginning of your journey
At the event there were quite a few speakers (the Wentzs have a wonderful, generous spirit and wanted to highlight as many people’s brilliance as they could) and it made for a very rich weekend of content (far too much for me to cover in this single post – which means there’s a lot more to come, stay tuned 🙂 ).
But time and time again, in smaller groups and as introductions to the different talks people shared their “why”. And by that I mean the experiences and struggles that motivates them.
It was truly inspiring to hear story after story of people overcoming some really serious adversity and illness and taking the momentum and mind shift resulting from that and going on to do some really amazing work.
On my way there, I read a book because (being a knucklehead) I missed my flight. I had brought a box full of copies of my book to give to everyone and long story short, I didn’t give myself enough time to check the box and get to my flight.
So I had some time to kill and I finished reading The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. (You have to read this book!) It’s all about using obstacles, disappointments and adversity to transform the world. And not just in a “glass half empty or half full” accentuate-the-positive sort of way.
This book takes it to a whole new level and it points out the incredible blessing of failure, illness, and disappointment. And, essentially, some of the greatest inventors, thinkers and doers of history weren’t defeated by hard times, pain and struggle they were made possible by it. And instead of fighting it, they embraced it and used it to their advantage to do great things.
And this event was a real life example of this. Everyone there has overcome something major and now they are motivated by it. And the common thread was that we are all inspired to help others and do whatever we can to make the world a better place. And that difficulty is daily being transformed into action.
One thing that was brought up by Andrea Nakayama was the accountability loop that I shared in a recent video I made. You have a choice to be the victim or to make the obstacle your way.
So I encourage you to really spend some time finding your “why” and if you are feeling defeated and discouraged know that you are not alone is this and that the opportunity is there for you to accept it, embrace it and use it to create great things of your own.
The other part of your “why” that you really need to explore, in my opinion, is the physiological “why” of your signs and symptoms. What this event reminded me of, once again, is how complicated this all is and how many different layers they are to these health challenges.
If we can find at least some of the “why”, then we can find important clues to getting you better, faster and more deeply. This brings me to my next takeaway (see how I did that?):
The keynote speaker of the event was Dr. Datis Kharrazian, who has been a longtime teacher and mentor of mine (and many others in the group). He shared his “why” which was poignant, heart breaking and deeply personal and involved his mother’s health struggles. And it has motivated him to become an extraordinary clinician and researcher.
(I don’t know if you guys are aware of this, but people are going to be talking about the research that he is doing for generations. That’s how important this is. He and Dr. Vajdani of Cyrex Labs are helping to unravel the mystery of autoimmunity – I am not exaggerating when I say this could be Nobel Prize level research in the way that it will transform our understanding of autoimmunity.)
Dr. K shared some of this research he has been doing over the last year or so, which was funded entirely on his dime (and we’re talking a serious pile of dimes) because these issues that are so important to us with autoimmune diseases are not really seen as that important to the powers that be.
There are many layers to this research and it’s going to be released soon, and he’d have to kill me if I revealed the details because it could compromise the study, but here’s the big takeaway: It’s all about the proteins.
Autoimmune reactions are reactions by your immune system to various proteins. Or, really, protein fragments – the sequences of amino acids that make up those proteins.
They are what cause the immune reaction that destroys our tissue.
Proteins are the building block of life. So these proteins and the amino acid patterns that make them up are everywhere. In lots of different foods (and many you don’t think of as proteins like grains and vegetables) and in meat and in the tissues of our body.
And these proteins are the “on switch” for autoimmune destruction. They turn on the antibodies (which don’t destroy tissue) that signal other parts of the immune system to attack, kill and destroy.
And because these amino acid sequences repeat all over the place, all kinds of different tissue can get destroyed. Really important stuff. One example of this is the affinity of thyroid antibodies (like antibodies to TPO and T3) to tissues in our brain.
Proteins don’t just signal destruction of the thyroid, they can also signal other parts of our immune system to destroy our cerebellum and myelin, the sheath that protects our nerves. (Destruction of myelin is what causes Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
This is one of the reasons “why” some people with Hashimoto’s will develop encephalopathy. Their brain is being attacked and, in some cases, it’s being signaled by TPO. The most common symptoms of this process? Memory loss, fatigue and depression!
These proteins are a really big deal!!! Which leads me to my next takeaway (see how I did that again? 🙂 )
The single largest source of these proteins is the food we eat. This is why it makes me insane when doctors say things like “Diet doesn’t matter”.
That is a very dangerous lie.
Not only does diet matter, ignoring the role of diet can literally destroy you. What did we just talk about? These proteins leading to destruction of parts of your brain.You lose your brain, you’re done. You have no life.
Much of the research that Dr. Kharrazian and Dr. Vajdani have done involves testing the effects of these various proteins on the thyroid axis and the brain. And the results are going to be available to us soon and it’s going to radically transform how we can help you, but for right now here’s what we can tell you.
Dr. Izabella Wentz did a very interesting study of 2, 322 Hashimoto’s patients and she collected some really important data on just how important and effective dietary changes are.
Here are some of the results:
This illustration reveals just how effective diet is in improving symptoms and lowering antibody levels.
And here’s some more important information on some common foods that may cause problems:
Highly reactive foods per IgG test sampling:
100% – Cottage cheese, brewer’s yeast
90%- cola, safflower, whey, baker’s yeast
80%- casein, blue cheese, chicken, cow milk, goat milk, rosemary, yogurt
70%- corn, cheddar, Swiss, licorice, mushroom, sugar cane
60%-pineapple, pinto bean, ginger, oregano, oyster, white potato, sesame, walnut
For myself and my patient population I know that tomatoes can also be a problem. And as we know gluten, dairy and soy proteins can also wreak havoc.
Spinach can also be a problem. One thing I’ve observed with spinach is that it can actually reduce iron levels. I had a patient who was eating spinach salad 3 times a day and she was severely iron deficient.
I tried everything and nothing worked and finally I said stop eating spinach and that turned out to be the problem. Once she stopped, we were able to successfully restore her iron levels to the normal range.
One important thing to understand about these foods is that you may or may not react to them. As I said this is highly individualized. You can use the percentages to make an educated guess about what you might react to, but you are unique and you may not have these same reactions.
Here’s another quick tidbit that’s really helpful: One important thing you can do to strengthen the T regulatory or the “good guy” part of your immune system is to feed them fiber: here’s what Dr. Vajdani drinks every morning: Pay attention to this, this is the guy who probably has done more research on autoimmunity than anyone on the planet:
Psyllium powder
Hemp or chia seed pwder
Flax seed powder
Almond milk (You can substitute coconut milk if you are sensitive to almonds.)
As I said above, an important thing to understand about all of this is that there is tremendous variability and millions of possible permutations of this. So everyone doesn’t have sensitivities to all these foods. But, you really need to figure out which foods you have a problem with.
Cyrex labs has a lab test called Array #10 that tests about 200 different dietary proteins and tests them the way we actually eat them. For example, many labs test for IgG and IgA reactions for raw chicken and turkey. When’s the last time you ate raw chicken? I hope it wasn’t recently.
Array 10 tests for reactions to cooked chicken, turkey and other foods because cooking changes the proteins.
And here’s a clinical pearl: Since the problem is these amino acid sequences, the affinity that is formed is based on longer sequences. If you can break down those sequences into smaller pieces, then you can can slow or stop the destruction.
Digestive enzymes that break down protein have the ability to do this. They break apart the amino acid connections and can render the protein harmless or at least less harmful.
But, here’s the bottom line: This is whole thing is highly individualized and there are a million different causes and variations of causes. Which leads me to my next point ( see how I did that a third time?):
I love Izabella’s main theme of finding your root cause because it’s so simple and obvious, yet it’s so profound. Find the root cause and fix it.
But here’s the thing. You probably have thousands of root causes and you need to keep searching for them. Because they are the root of all your physical, mental and psychological problems.
One example that came up in Dr. Kharrazian talk was the patients we all have to do everything right, take all the right supplements, fix their adrenals, get their thyroid working properly, clean up the inflammation, detox their livers, heal their leaky gut and do the Autoimmune Paleo diet perfectly, but they still don’t get the results we had hoped for.
The problem? Leaky gut is only part of it. There’s the levels of bacteria in the gut. There’s the fact that the dendtritic cells in the intestines can be primed and over excited, the Kupffer cells in the liver can also be primed and over excited.
Another interesting clinical pearl: The dendtritic cells in the intestines actually produce TSH. Another presenter Dr. Allen Christianson shared a case study with a patient whose TSH was all over the place, upend down, up and down.
Well, he discovered that when they treated her for a chronic sinus infection her TSH went done. Dendritic cells are found in tissue that has contact with the outside environment such as the over the skin (present as Langerhans cells) and in the linings of the nose, lungs, stomach and intestines.
I discovered in researching my book that these cells can actually produce TSH. Here’s the study.
See? It totally makes sense if you understand the “why”.
All of this stuff is connected and there are many levels. One of the things that Dr. Kharrazian also brought up was that leaky gut can lead to the loss of something known as “oral tolerance”.
I’m going to explore this a lot more in a future post, this one is getting long :). But, basically, here’s why it matters.
Oral tolerance is what keeps us from having hypersensitivity reactions. This is from an interesting article on this.
Let me translate parts of the abstract:
Oral tolerance is the state of local and systemic immune unresponsiveness that is induced by oral administration of innocuous antigen such as food proteins. (That’s saying you don’t respond to harmless things like proteins., which we have just learned are not so harmless. Because if you lose oral tolerance, they aren’t innocuous anymore).
The local and systemic effects of these regulatory T cells prevent potentially dangerous hypersensitivity reactions to harmless antigens derived from the intestine and hence are crucial players in immune homeostasis.
(In a perfect gut, regulatory T cells, the “good guys” of our immune system prevent potentially dangerous hypersensitivity reactions. Yeah, Hashimoto’s is a an example of a “potentially dangerous hyper-sensitivity reaction”.)
This is just another level of our growing understanding of what is going in our bodies. Which brings me to the last point which Stacey Robbins so eloquently out for us:
The first presenter at the event was Stacey Robbins and she shared something beautiful: Hashimoto’s is not the end of your health (or life as you know it), it’s the beginning of your journey.
The good news is that we are all traveling this journey together and there are some really amazing people working on this.
But the reality is we are only in the infancy of understanding what is going on and what we need to do about it.
But there is reason for optimism because there are some great minds and some incredibly devoted people who are working day and night to help you.
So let me end on a positive note and say how grateful I am am to all the people who attended the Thyroid Mastermind and to say our work now has just begun!
The obstacle is our way and the journey is our path and together we will find hope, help and healing.
I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us. I have a feeling it might just be historic, and just think, we all get to be part of it!
Please share this with whomever you can think of. There’s some really valuable stuff in here!
Have a great day! (Unless you have other plans.)
Best,
Marc
My chicken scratch from the Thyroid Mastermind, Boulder Colorado, 2015. Hosted by Dr. Izabella Wentz and her husband Michael Wentz.
http://www.nature.com/mi/journal/v5/n3/full/mi20124a.html – article on oral tolerance
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768616/ – paper on the immune system as regulator of thyroid activity
Hey people!
I was asked by a Turkish Hashimoto’s support group to answer some questions.
They had a lot of them (41 to be exact).
Many of these questions are universal and they will benefit you no matter where you live. And I also go into much more detail in my new book, Roadmap to Remission.
One thing this showed me was that Hashimoto’s knows no borders and the quality of care worldwide is pretty poor.
Yet another reason why we are here.
Please check it out and share it with anyone you think might benefit.
And if you don’t have a copy of my new book, what are you waiting for?
Here are some of the reviews that have been coming in:
“This is the definitive book on how YOU can get your Hashimotos into remission–and stay there. Although the book contains tons of information, it is surprisingly an easy, digestible read.
Something you can refer to again and again. It answered all of my many questions from both a conventional and alternative medical perspective. You can tell the author has been there, done that, and is willing to share the whole journey.
It’s like having a conversation with a compassionate, slightly quirky genius, who only wants you to feel better because he understands the nightmare you are going through. If you have Hashimotos, then this book will be the best investment you will ever make. You’ll save yourself from years of confusion, pain, suffering, financial drain, and ill health. What have you got to lose?” D
“If you, or anyone you love, is living with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, this guide is a must have. There is so much wisdom packed into this book – I am happy I bought it, so that I can read it time and again. I also have had my highlighter out to notate the nuggets of wisdom that pop out of each section.
The other thing I love about it, is the tone of the writing. Marc Ryan has taken clinical information and made it accessible, all while making the whole thing somewhat funny. Not belittling the scenario with the humor, but sprinkling much appreciated levity over a sometimes too heavy subject. I found myself chuckling throughout the read.
I highly recommend reading this guide. The angle of Chinese medicine that is included is quite interesting, and different than any of the other thyroid books out there. You will not be disappointed.” Amanda Baker
“Rescue Remedy is what I call this book.Rescue from the myriad of medical practitioners that have poor knowledge base of Hashimoto’s Disease, rescue from tons of misinformation, rescue from believing there’s no hope and you must live the rest of your life feeling horrible.
Remedy because there’s a “potion” that will heal you if you are brave enough to try it. The information does take time to absorb, but that’s ok because review of concepts and ideas are right there at your finger tips.” Julie
Click the link above and get a copy for yourself. You just mind find hope, help and healing.
Hashimoto’s Awareness: Created to Bring Awareness and Fund Research into Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
Pearl Thomas and Fabienne Heymans have both worked with me to get their Hashimoto’s into remission. I knew that they were both in New York and I suggested that they meet and support one another.
A short time later they contacted me about their passion to create a non-profit dedicated to people suffering from Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.
I knew without hesitiation that this was an organization I wanted to support. I am proud to be on the Advisory Board of Hashimoto’s Awareness, the organization that they created.
Here are their stories:
Pearl and I were simultaneously raising awareness of the disease individually, holding our own support groups, had active Facebook pages, and we were exploring ways to expand.
At the time, Marc Ryan L.Ac. and functional practitioner, was giving us both consultations separately. One day, he suggested that we connect because we were both living in New York City and had the same passion to be of service to the Hashimoto’s Community.
On March 16, 2014, we met in Hu-Kitchen; now, our favorite paleo diet restaurant on 5th Ave. We immediately saw the possibility of creating something bigger than ourselves together! Our combined energy was effervescent and both of our big dreams coincided with each others.
We were both in remission from Hashimoto’s and passionate about sharing our journey with all who were still struggling with the disease. It was simply serendipitous! We became teammates and dear friends to-be. Together, we became unstoppable.
We immediately filed for a non-profit organization known as HA! Today, we have launched a campaign on Crowdrise.com and with the funds we are starting to organize the very first National Conference for Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis!
Co-founder, Fabienne Heymans
It is truly by accident that I was diagnosed after being sick nearly all my life. I experienced highs and lows, as you all know, I am sure! The symptoms included brain fog, extreme fatigue, joint pain, hair loss, thinning skin, sensitivity to perfumes, just to name a few.
By February 2012, my immune system was at its worst! Menopause only made matters worse. I was scheduled for surgery to remove one of my parathyroid glands which was inflamed to twice its normal size!
The scan of the thyroid gland showed many patches on the tissue and a biopsy confirmed Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Yeahh, thank you God!!
Ironically, one of the best days of my life!! I finally had an answer to my question about why I had all these symptoms. I finally confirmed that, “NO, I wasn’t crazy” all these years!
The surgery was supposed to be a minor procedure. But, my body, after fighting all these years, on every level of my being, was emotionally, psychologically and physically exhausted.
After the surgery, I was not waking up from the anesthesia. The entire day went by and still I wasn’t coming back from the place between life and death.
To keep the story short, I finally woke up with the determination to make a difference for all the people that are in despair, struggling with Hashimoto’s, and who don’t know how or where to look for support.
All my life, the medical field insisted that all my lab tests were normal and therefore they claimed that my symptoms must be of psychological origin. I promised myself that no one should ever be in this position ever again and from there everything changed!
After reading Dr. Datis Kharrazian’s book, Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal I researched and found a Functional Practitioner in NYC. I learned the critical importance to stop eating gluten completely.
I started taking the right supplements according to Dr. Kharrazian’s protocol and I started feel significantly better.
Although the journey is ongoing, I have a strong support system and a great community as a resource when I need it. Today, I live a productive life in NYC and dedicate my days to empowering others with Hashimoto’s to live a symptom-free life.
Co-founder, Pearl Thomas
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in February of 2012. I was fortunate enough to have been referred to a wonderful integrative physician who gave me proper testing for early diagnosis. Months leading up to my appointment, my personal trainer noticed my energy levels going down in our high intensity workouts.
I was cranky, my hairline was thinning and I was experiencing 2-3 inch hives on my calves, that were itchy, brown colored and stuck around up to three weeks. I took action and made an appointment for blood work.
Two weeks later, at my follow-up appointment, I was diagnosed. My TSH and TPO levels were off the charts. I was instructed to start a natural hormone medication Nature-throid, stop eating gluten, wheat, soy, and dairy and was instructed to start adding supplements such as Liquid D3, B-12, Omega 3’s, probiotics, and meditation. (Speak to your doctor before trying supplements to be sure they are right for you.)
At the time, I realized this was a serious condition and it was time to act NOW. I chose to start doing some research.
Fortunately, I stumbled across a book by Dr. Datis Kharrazian, who some call, the Functional Medicine Guru, the book is called, Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal and I started reading.
I found out that Hashimoto’s disease was killing my immune system, brain function, and circulatory system. Everything he wrote about from vitamin deficiencies to recommending a diet free of gluten, soy, wheat, corn and eggs; I was dumbfounded.
This book was my best friend. His research gave me hope that I could put this disease in remission quickly. I followed his protocol diet and began my journey to remission.
Six months later after following Datis’s protocol diet, I was sleeping better, finally losing weight, my hair was thicker, and I was no longer depressed or experiencing anxiety attacks. It was working. Changing my diet was working! I then went for my next round of blood work and my results came back, my TSH and TPO were now in normal range!
My doctor stated, “You are a miracle walking. I have not yet seen someone’s levels go up so quickly.” I was in full remission from the disease. And in that moment, I knew this was possible for others.
Today, after three years in remission, I’ve dedicated my life to being of service in the Hashimoto’s community. And through that, I am the Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director of the not-for-profit, Hashimoto’s Awareness.
I work alongside an incredibly talented and driven friend and kindred spirit, Fabienne Heymans, who is also in remission from the disease.
As we work with some of the top experts in the community, we have a great vision for this organization and how we might be of service in many ways to others.
We are committed to bringing clarity to the community that is in need of education on this serious disease and we believe we will make the difference worldwide.
What I will share with others struggling with the disease is that you are not alone. Remission is possible if you’re willing to do the work.
We are here to support you in an empowering way and we promise your journey to remission will be inspiring, powerful, and supported by a community that stands as your greatest fans.
About Hashimoto’s Awareness
We are committed to bringing clarity to the community of people suffering from the auto-immune disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. According to the AACE, 30 million people in the United States are diagnosed with hypothyroidism and 90 percent of those people have Hashimoto’s Disease.
HA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
We invite you to join us on our campaign page HASHIMOTO’S AWARENESS CAMPAIGN: “HEALING TOGETHER”!
Your donation allows HA to drive diagnosis and treatment of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis through education, advocacy and advancing research.
Clinical Pearls from Working in the Trenches
Hey, people!
Wow! Another year has flown by.
We’re celebrating the second anniversary of launching our website and Facebook group.
I am a big fan of looking back at the data and the experiences and analyzing what we learned.
And, hopefully, we can continue to build from that and improve what we are trying to do.
And that is to help and educate people to heal their Hashimoto’s.
Over the course of these 2 years, I have had over 1,500 consultations with people with this disease.
I’ve listened as people described their symptoms, their struggles and their health histories and I’ve also taken a number of surveys and polls at our Facebook support group which has now reached 22,000 Likes.
I want to thank everyone who has joined us for their continued love and support!
This is something we could not have achieved without you.
You truly inspire me day in and day out!
A PRACTICE NOT ANALYZED IS NOT WORTH LIVING
In this blog post I’m going to summarize the top 3 things that I think are really important (from a clinical and practical point of view) and I’ll share a few odds and ends that are just really interesting to me.
And, just so you know…
Much of what we have learned over last 2 years will be summarized in my new book which is due out at the end of April 2015 called Road Map to Remission: A Practical Guide to Hashimoto’s Healing
It’s basically an owner’s manual for living with a Hashimoto’s body.
You can learn more about it here: Check out a video series on my new book.
If you haven’t yet done so, sign up to get on our email list so you can get all the latest updates, videos and research on Hashimoto’s.
Here are my top 3 clinical pearls and a little discussion on each and why I believe they matter to you.
Pearl #1: The Digestive Tract Is Ground Zero For Hashimoto’s and Autoimmunity
The more I work with people and help them turn their lives around, the more I realize that the digestive tract and, in particular, the intestines are ground zero for Hashimoto’s and autoimmunity.
And I can’t tell you how many people have shared with me that their doctors said that diet doesn’t matter.
Saying diet doesn’t matter for Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism is kind of like saying alcohol doesn’t matter to an alcoholic.
The importance of diet can not be overstated and this is really a “no brainer”.
Yet, I am also continually surprised at how many people refuse to accept this or want to negotiate a kinder, gentler half way approach that doesn’t involve them changing their diet and, of course, their lives.
Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune disease and that means that your immune system is attacking your your own tissue.
Tissue attack and destruction is induced by immune system stimulation.
Where is your immune system?
An estimated 70 – 80 % lives in your digestive tract.
So everything that passes through there interacts with your immune system.
Also, there is a lot of research evidence that shows a clear link between “leaky gut” or intestinal permeability and autoimmune disease.
The breakdown of your intestines is a breakdown in the barrier to your immune system and this clearly is a factor in the initiation of autoimmune disease.
But it is also an important factor in people’s symptoms because if this is not addressed you have constant immune stimulation and constant tissue attack.
And this is not reserved for only the digestive system.
It’s effects are systemic. It has a ripple effect all over your body.
My advice is always get off of gluten, dairy and soy 100% and for many, because of the state of their intestines, this is not enough.
They need to do more.
For almost everyone, we recommend a version of the Autoimmune Paleo diet designed for autoimmune disease and Hashimoto’s, in particular.
And while you’re doing this, it’s a great time to work with someone like me because you can get a lot accomplished by working aggressively to heal the gut, clean up the liver and reduce systemic inflammation at the same time.
I have gotten messages on Facebook and emails from hundreds of different women and men who have credited this mind shift and change alone with completely transforming their lives.
If you’re on the fence about your diet, you’re just prolonging your misery needlessly.
It’s such a simple part of the solution.
This last year I became a bit obsessed with this area of study and research.
In fact, I did a video series and created a special program for it.
If you haven’t had a chance to see that yet, here’s a link: SAVE YOUR BRAIN (FROM HASHIMOTO’S)
(There’s 3 parts. The first 2 describe the issues and the third tells you about the solution.)
Why did I decide to give his so much attention?
Because, brain fog and memory issues are the number 2 problem for everyone with Hashimoto’s.
(Fatigue is number 1 and that is often brain based, as well. So you could argue that this is priority #1)
And here’s why it matters.
When you lose your brain, you lose everything.
The problems that Hashimoto’s can cause are relatively minor compared to what happens if neurodegeneration and autoimmunity inthe brain progresses past a certain point.
This can be a major factor in Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s type symptoms and it can lead further to something like Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy.
Because Hashimoto’s (often the combination of hypothyroidism and autoimmunity) does a double whammy on the brain.
This leads to massive inflammation of the immune system in the brain which, in turn leads to major destruction of neurons and brain tissue.
The immune system in the brain is not like the immune system in the rest of the body.
It has 2 speeds, balls to the wall and calm. There’s no middle ground.
And there’s no off switch. No regulatory part of the immune system to calm it down.
It goes crazy until it can’t go crazy any more.
And when the immune cells in the brain (the microglia) get excited and activated, they chew up everything around them.
This is not good.
This process also has a profound impact on how you feel.
The anxiety, depression and inability to handle stress are not coincidences, they are another example of how this process upsets thebalance of your brain’s neurochemistry.
Neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, catecholamines and GABA are all impacted and can become deficient in people with Hashimoto’s.
These are you “molecules of emotion”.
They are directly responsible for your emotional health and well being.
And guess what else has a huge impact on the brain?
The gut.
The digestive tract is really the body’s second brain.
And these 2 interact with each in very important and significant ways.
So this is really one big pearl of wisdom.
Focusing on healing these 2 areas long term may just give you the greatest return on your investment of time, energy and money.
Another epiphany I had this year was discovering something called the 80/20 principle.
This is often used in business and in marketing, but the idea has universal applications because it comes from a basic law of nature.
It’s also called the Pareto Principle because it came from an economist named Vilfredo Pareto.
He observed that 80% of the wealth in his country was owned by 20% of the people.
Ok, so what does this have to do with Hashimoto’s?
Stay with me for a moment…
Well, it turns out that this basic idea applies to just about everything in the natural world.
Look around you…
…Most people spend 80% of their time with 20% of their friends.
…Look in your closet, you wear 80% of those clothes 20% or less of the time.
And on and on.
You can apply this to everything, including your body and your health.
And it’s not about the numbers, ok?
It might not be exactly 80/20, it could be 85/15 OR 75/25.
The point is that there is an imbalance in cause and effect.
Relatively few things cause the majority of results.
Why does this matter?
Well with Hashimoto’s, this means 80% of our problems are caused by 20% of the things we need to work on.
Or let me put it another way:
If you are like many of the people that I have worked with, then 80% of your symptoms are caused by 20% of the choices you made today…
…now imagine if you could fix 80% of your symptoms fast by figuring out what those 20% are and then make some changes…
…and get that 20% to really count…
You see where I’m going with this?
Well, obviously, if this is true, we need to figure out what the 20% is.
And I believe that I have a good idea where to start.
Spoiler alert! You just learned 2 important parts of this 20%.
The brain and the gut.
If we had just 30 seconds together before I was whisked away in a black sedan by terrorists, here’s what I’d tell you.
This seems like an over simplification, but it’s one of those things that is a fundamental truth.
Many of us who struggle with Hashimoto’s spend an enormous amount of time searching for the right information, the right doctor, the right drugs or combination of drugs and the right supplements.
But often the solution is right in front of us and it doesn’t require doing anything more.
It requires a steadfast devotion to doing less.
We’ve been conditioned in our consumer driven society to always want more.
And we’ve also been conditioned to think the answer is in a pill.
The pill that will deliver more is seductive and difficult to resist.
But the truth, for many, the most successful things you can do to feel better requires the ruthless application of simplifying your life.
If you really want to get better and find remission, become passionate about doing less.
And look at every part of your life. Especially at those things that you do compulsively.
Eat less sugar.
Watch less tv.
Read less news.
Spend less time with people who don’t support you or bring you joy.
Do less of the things that cause you stress.
And when you identify those things that are among the 20% that cause 80% of your misery.
Give them up 100%.
At the end of the day, this approach not only makes you healthier, it also gives you a much more rewarding life.
These were some interesting observations I have made:
1. More than 80% of the people I worked with had Mono and were exposed to the Epstein Barr Virus.
Clearly this virus is somehow involved in Hashimoto’s. How? The research is far from definitive. Theories include activation of NF Kappa Beta, activation of rouge B cells and proteins like IL-8.
Other common infections that are involved in the initiation of Hashimoto’s include Lyme disease, Yersenia and Herpes Viruses.
2. The most common symptom is fatigue.
Of all the many potential symptoms of Hashimoto’s fatigue is by far Public Enemy #1.
And fatigue is often brain based which means it is the result of neurodegeneration caused by hypothyroidism and autoimmunity in the brain that we mentioned above.
3. The disease is progressive. My teacher and mentor, Dr. Datis Kharrazian and others have identified 3 stages. Read this post to learn more about this.
4. Many people have more than one autoimmune disease or at the very least antibodies to other tissues.
The truth is that most doctors don’t test for or look for it. But, very often, it’s there.
One of the most common places for these additional antibodies is to brain tissue, especially cerebellar tissue.
And one thing I stress is that this matters because it means that the stakes are very high.
Autoimmunity to different parts of the body is the same basic process and it just finds different tissue.
And some of the places it can go can be life threatening.
This part of the equation must be taken very seriously.
And at it’s root what is autoimmunity?
Destructive inflammation.
And this means that reducing inflammation needs to be job 1.
And the best way to do that is to create an anti-inflammatory life.
This is without exception a simpler life because all the common excesses are known to cause more inflammation.
Well, that’s all for now.
I can’t wait to see what this next year will bring!
And if you’re not aware of it, I offer a free 30 minute Hashimoto’s Healing Discovery Session.
In it you can share your story with me. Tell me where you are and where you want to be.
I’ll make some recommendations that I think will help right away and we can discuss how else I might be able to help.
I set aside time every week to talk with people who have Hashimoto’s and I’d love to talk to you.
You can schedule a free session by clicking here.
Just a warning. These are all booked out 2 to 3 months in advance.
If you have a more pressing issue and you’re interested in working with me, shoot me an email at [email protected] and we’ll set aside time for you sooner.
Best,
Marc
In our previous post, we took a look at the relationship between Hashimoto’s and SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), if you have not yet read that or aren’t familiar with SIBO please read it here.
SIBO, see part 1 for larger image
In this post we are going to discuss SIBO treatment and solutions. This information came from a lecture I attended in November 2014 taught by Dr. Datis Kharrazian and entitled The Neuroendocrine Immunology of Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth.
One important lesson that I have learned after working with over 750 people with Hashimoto’s is that there are 2 things that are really important for getting good clinical results:
#1. Figure out the mechanism. In other words, where’s the problem? With Hashimoto’s it is often in multiple places and it’s not only the thyroid.
#2. Figure out how advanced it is. Hashimoto’s, like all autoimmune disease, is progressive. We have identified 3 stages of progression. (Read here to learn more ).
In a general sense, the further it has progressed the more you must do.
Another really valuable lesson I have learned is that, often, some of the most effective treatments and solutions come from subtraction.
Many common health problems are problems of excess. Too much sugar, too much stress, too much inflammation, too much salt, too many chemicals.
A simple and effective way of treating too much is by taking things away.
If you have insulin resistance or Type 2 diabetes, stop eating sugar and refined carbohydrates.
If stress is killing you, stop doing the things that cause you so much stress.
If you have too much inflammation, stop eating and behaving in a way that causes so much inflammation.
If your sick from too much salt, stop eating salt.
If pollution is killing us and our world, stop using so many chemicals.
Such a simple solution, so hard to actually do.
At first.
The reason is that we are conditioned to be consumers, not subtractors.
However, if you have Hashimoto’s, learning the habit of being content with less (sometimes a lot less) may just be the key to your healing.
Nowhere is this more true than in the treatment of SIBO
Diet Must Be the Foundation of Treatment
With SIBO, the foundation of treatment is diet because many of the bacteria feed on foods that are common in our diets.
And if you’re like a lot of people I’ve worked with you might be asking yourself, “Why not just wipe them out with antibiotics?”
According to the American Journal of Gastroenterology, recurrence of small intestine bacteria after antibiotics is quite high (the most commonly prescribed being Rifaximin).
Many people have to keep taking antibiotics over and over again for months with limited results.
And there is a tremendous cost to your immune system and to your future ability to defend yourself.
(There is no better way to be defeated by an enemy than to give him repeated opportunities to adapt to your weapons.)
The only thing that really works is to do the diet as a foundation and then use something to eradicate the bacteria along with it.
There are a number of herbs that are quite effective for this. Particularly those in the berberine family like goldenseal, coptis, etc.
A pilot study by Spanish researchers found that probiotics worked better than pharmaceutical therapy for patients with chronic abdominal distention and SIBO.
“Based on this pilot study results, we can suggest that the probitoic herein (Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus plantarum, Streptococcus faecalis, Bifidobacterium brevis) used has a higher efficacy than metronidazonal in the early clinical response of patients with chronic abdominal distention and SIBO.”
The SIBO diet is a terrific exercise in subtraction and should generally be done for a month or so to get the best results.
Since there are many foods that feed these bacteria, there are many foods that must be eliminated from your diet for this initial period of time.
Foods to Avoid:
Fructose: sugars, artificial sweeteners, corn syrup
Grains: rice, wheat, quinoa, millet, amaranth, and some non grains like tapioca
Legumes/Galactans: beans, peas, chickpeas, soybeans, lentils
Fructan-containing Vegetables: lettuce, onions, artichokes, beets, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, peas, asparagus, okra, shallots, mushrooms, green peppers, cauliflower
High-fructose fruits: grapes, apples, watermelon, cherries, kiwifruit, bananas, blueberries, mangos
Meat products: Breaded or processed meats such as hot dogs, bologna, potted meats, most cold cuts (added starches) and there are some who say to also avoid beef, pork and lamb.
Foods to Eat:
Nuts: All nuts except pistachios
Vegetables: All vegetables except those listed above
Low Fructose Fruits: apricots, avocados, cantaloupes, grapefruit, honeydew melons, nectarines, oranges, peaches, pineapples, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes
Meats: chicken, fish, eggs, (and beef, lamb and pork in moderation)
Fats: Animal fat, oils
The first step of treatment involves the diet as foundation and something to address the bacteria (like the herbs mentioned above).
Either during or after that Spartan menu, it is important to address the root causes and related issues of SIBO (read about these in Part I )
These problems include:
1. Too little stomach acid. Here’s the exception to the healing by subtraction rule. If you have too little stomach acid, you need more.
A simple treatment is to take things that boost stomach acid levels such as apple cider vinegar, lemon juice and ginger root.
Supplementing with Betain HCL may also be beneficial (consult your doctor for this).
2. An immune suppressed gut. Often the cause of this is too much corticosteroid treatment and/or too much cortisol from stress.
Here the subtraction rule works quite well. Stop the corticosteroids (unless you have a condition where you must take them) and do something about stress.
A great daily exercise in doing less? Silent seated meditation.
3. Injury to the gut nervous system (The Enteric Nervous System)
This type of neurodegeneration is permanent. However, this nervous system also has remarkable plasticity and a capacity to rewire itself.
There are couple of really important things to do here:
#1. Vigorous, (I mean really vigorous to the point of tears) gargling. Gargle with several glasses of water throughout the day.
This activates part of the nervous system connected to the vagus nerve which has a very strong connection to the gut.
#2. Stimulate your gag reflex. Order some wooden tongue depressors online and gently stimulate this reflex by pressing down on the tongue.
#3. Coffee enemas. Make sure the coffee isn’t too hot, and hold as long as possible. This causes nerve firing in the brain.
Start with a moderate amount and mild coffee, you can gradually increase both the amount of liquid and the strength of the coffee.
(Best to do it in the bathtub if you have one, so you are close to the toilet.)
Good question. You need to treat it for as long as it takes. And you may have to revisit this periodically. Generally speaking, the more severe it is, the longer and more committed you must be to healing it.
This may take several months.
It’s also true that the better you are at really following the diet and not cheating, the better the outcome and the faster your results.
Apex Energetics has recently released 5 new SIBO products and we have started using them with promising results. Click here to purchase from our online store.
What’s exciting for me as a practitioner is that they have adapted some of the formulas we have already used with excellent results and given us another option for people who have complications.
Clearvite-GL
Clearvite-GL: ClearVite-GL™ (K95) is based on Apex’s popular ClearVite™ formula and is designed to offer gastrointestinal and metabolic support.
This formula includes the powerful combination of hypoallergenic nutrients, amino acids, and minerals that other ClearVite™ products have, but excludes sources of rice and pea protein for those with sensitivities to grains or peas, or who require low carbohydrate content.
It also contains no sugars, which makes it ideal for anti-yeast diets. ClearVite-GL™ is also intended to support liver detoxication and chemical biotransformation with targeted nutritional cofactors.
Suggested use: Mix 1 scoop with up to 4-6 ounces of water. Mix well before drinking. Use once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
Repairvite SE
Repairvite SE: RepairVite-SE™ (K98) is based on Apex’s popular RepairVite™ formula and is intended to offer targeted intestinal support.
This product includes a limited amount of ingredients to offer support for those with certain dietary restrictions.
A high-quality, selective blend that includes brush border enzymes, L-glutamine, and zinc carnosine is incorporated to help support intestinal cell metabolism and the intestinal microbial environment.
Suggested use: Mix 1 scoop with up to 4-6 ounces of water. Mix well before drinking. Use once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
Sibotica
Sibotica: Sibotica™ (K97) incorporates key strains of probiotics that are intended to support the intestinal microbial environment, as well as the intestinal mucosal barrier.
This product may also help support the immune system via certain immune pathways. Key ingredients include Lactobacillus casei, Bifidobacterium breve, and Lactobacillus plantarum.
Suggested use: Take 1 capsule once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
Enzymixpro
EnzymixPro: EnzymixPro™ (K99) incorporates a special proprietary blend of various enzymes, including brush border enzymes, that has been designed to support the gastrointestinal system.
This formula combines a broad spectrum of enzymes to help support the digestion of sugars, starches, fibers, proteins, and fats. It also includes HCl for further digestive support.
Proprietary Blend: 1372 mg of Betaine HCI, Pepsin (porcine), Bromelain, Protease I, Protease II, Protease III, Protease IV, Glucoamylase, Cellulase, Sucrase (invertase), Maltase, Phytase, Pectinase, Lactase, Alpha-galactosidase, Lipase, Amylase I, Amylase II, Peptidase.
Suggested use: Take 1-2 capsules once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
Enterovite
Enterovite: EnteroVite™ (K100) incorporates nutrients and a proprietary blend of fatty acids in a formulation intended to support the intestines and intestinal cell function.
This unique formulation is designed for those who are sensitive to certain food components, such as certain starches and fibers, and who want additional intestinal support.
Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), normal bacterial end products of complex carbohydrates, play important roles in intestinal microbial balance and function.
Diets that are low in resistant starch and fiber can result in a low production of SCFAs. Key ingredients include butyric acid and calcium propionate.
Ingredients: Vitamin E (as d-alpha tocopherol acetate), Calcium (as calcium ß-hydroxy ß-methyl butyrate & calcium propionate) and a Propriety Blend: 575 mg* of Butyric Acid (as calcium ß-hydroxy ß-methyl butyrate), Calcium Propionate.
Suggested use: Take 1 capsule once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
The Neuroendocrine Immunology of Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth, by Dr. Datis Kharrazian, DC, 2014
Should You or Shouldn’t You?
Every year when flu season rolls around I get questions concerning whether or not to get a flu shot.
As with everything Hashimoto’s related, this is a seemingly simple question wrapped in a crazy complicated not-so-fast answer.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that everyone aged six years of age and older get a flu vaccine.
However, when you have Hashimoto’s you are not “everyone” and there are some unique challenges that need to be factored in first.
Some People with Hashimoto’s Get Wiped Out By the Flu Shot
In my experience in working with over 2,000 people with Hashimoto’s, I have found that some patients just get completed wiped out after getting the vaccine.
So, naturally, I have tried to figure out why. (‘Cause that’s how I roll.)
One person who has some great insight into this is infectious disease specialist Dr. Kent Holtorf, an MD I have a lot of respect for.
He’s a clinician and researcher and he operates outside of big pharma.
One thing he recommends is that people with mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic neurological illnesses, and fibromyalgia not get vaccinated because he has seen it “devastate” them.
I thought this was interesting because we have looked into the connection between fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s (here’s a link if you missed that post) and these 2 patient populations have a lot in common.
So I would add Hashimoto’s patients to this list.
Because people with Hashimoto’s also have mitochondrial dysfunction, many have chronic neurological issues and more importantly, they also have an overzealous immune system.
Viruses and Hashimoto’s
And while viruses have not been definitively linked to the initiation of Hashimoto’s, upwards of 80% of the patients I have treated have been exposed to Epstein Barr virus somewhere in their history.
Of course, Epstein Barr (which is in the herpes family) and influenza virus are not the same.
However, the same part of the immune system is stimulated by the the influenza virus.
And if this is the part of the immune system that is over excited, then it stands to reason that bad things may happen if we make it mad.
It’s not nice to fool mother nature.
The Influenza B Virus and Hashimoto’s
In fact, there is also strong evidence that the Influenza B virus is also involved in the formation of Hashimoto’s, in some people.
So, what does that tell us?
That tells us that, for some people, the influenza vaccine (which is the exposure of dead fragments of the influenza virus to the immune system) may result in an aggressive immune response.
Which may result in a flare up of Hashimoto’s because this is also the part of the immune system that attacks the thyroid.
And for some of those people, that flare up may be “devastating”. I have seen this happen in my patients and this is precisely what Dr. Holthorf is describing, as well.
And these effects can be severe and long lasting because they may fire up the process that led to Hashimoto’s in the first place.
Of course this is not true of everyone. Some people with Hashimoto’s can tolerate the vaccine and do just fine.
Should You Get a Flu Shot?
Like so many things with Hashimoto’s, there is no simple yes or no answer.
If you are among the group that is triggered by viruses, then you run the risk of igniting the fire that already burnt you.
Another question is, what is your risk of exposure?
If you mostly stay home or work from home and have limited contact with other people, your risk of exposure to the flu will be small.
On the other hand, if you have school aged children who love to share every germ and virus imaginable, then your risk is considerably higher.
Also, there’s the question of whether or not you have other serious health conditions, in addition to Hashimoto’s.
If you have a serious chronic illness like emphysema, diabetes or heart disease, catching the flu could have life-threatening consequences for you.
You’ll have to weigh the risks of getting the vaccine and triggering a Hashimoto’s flare up against the potentially serious complications from catching the flu.
Generally, if you’ve had a flu shot in the past and didn’t have an adverse reaction, then you’re probably ok to have another.
Another thing to be aware of is that it’s kind of a crap shoot with the flu vaccine because the manufacturers simply make an educated guess about which strain will be prevalent next year.
And they are not always right.
What about those of us who don’t want to play with mother nature, but also don’t want to get the flu?
Fortunately, there are some really excellent natural solutions for this.
These include herbs and essential oils that have broad spectrum anti-viral properties and can help protect against both the cold and the flu.
Chinese medicine has a wide variety of broad spectrum anti-bacterial and anti-viral herbs that have been used for centuries to treat many infectious diseases.
In fact, there are whole schools of Chinese medical thought that are based on some very famous texts that taught early Chinese doctors how to treat infectious diseases.
2 of the most famous are The Shan Han Lun or On Cold Damage by Zhang Zhong Jing (thought by many to be the Hippocrates of Chinese Medicine) and Wen Bing Xue or Warm Disease Theory authored by five medical geniuses of the Qing Dynasty.
These texts were (and still are) the clinical manuals for generations of doctors who had to treat epidemics long before the advent of vaccines.
And they have saved countless lives.
Let’s take a look at some effective herbs that you can use both to protect you from the flu and to treat it if you get it.
And I’ll also show you where you can get an excellent herbal formula that has these herbs in it.
Ban lan gen (Isatis indigtica root): Ban lan gen has broad spectrum anti-bacterial effects and has shown to be effective against influenza viruses.
Ye ju hua (Chrysanthemum indicum flower): Has both anti-viral and antibacterial properties. In one study, 501 patients were treated with good results.
Jin yin hua (Honeysuckle flowers): Very effective in treating colds and influenza. Broad spectrum antibiotic effects. In one study involving 393 children an herbal formula made with an herbal inhalant showed marked preventative effects.
Gang mei gen (Ilex asperella root): An effective herb for treating cough and lung issues.
There is an excellent herbal formula that I take whenever I travel or am around sick people and which I prescribe to my patients called Gan Mao Ling.
This formulation has all these herbs and a couple of others in it and it is available at this website: Click here to check it out!
Take 6-8 tablets prior to being around people who may be sick and 3-6 tablets 3-4 times a day if you feel like you are coming down with the flu.
Often this is preceded by a scratchy throat and congestion.
Another way to protect yourself is to use an inhaler that has essential oils with anti-viral properties.
This is excellent for children and for traveling, as you can carry it with you and just take a quick inhale when you need it or fear that you may have had some exposure.
The influenza virus is air borne, so you can attack it where it lives.
Ravensarra is an excellent oil that is known for it’s broad spectrum anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. It is also great for asthma because it is anti-spasmodic and it’s an expectorant (helps clear out phlegm).
Mentha piperita or peppermint is also an excellent oil which is anti-microbial, analgesic, anti-infectious, it has broad spectrum anti-bacterial properties, and it’s great for clearing out mucous. It’s also very beneficial for your brain.
Eucalyptus oil is a great decongestant, aids breathing by opening up your airways.
Picea mariana or black spruce is anti-spasmodic, helps clear out mucous and is broad spectrum anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral. and it’s a great anti-inflammatory!
Here’s a wonderful inhaler that has all these oils in it: Click here to check it out!
It’s great as a preventative and for clearing your sinuses when you have a cold or flu. I love using these when I travel, especially on a plane where you bound to get exposed to something.
You can take this as often as you need to. It’s pretty potent, a little goes a long way!
Those are 2 excellent solutions to the flu and they are quite effective.
The key is to take them before you have been exposed or as early as possible when you feel it coming on.
http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/c/5949/145399/fibromyalgia/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12428064
http://www.thyroid-info.com/hashimotos-encephalopathy.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18240111
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20625285
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18788945?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn
http://www.virologyj.com/content/6/1/5#B104
Chinese Medical Herbology and Pharmaclogy, John and Tina Chen, 2001
The Aromatherapy Practitioner reference Manual, Sylla Sheppard-Hanger 1994