How do you know if your thyroid gland is still working?
If you have ever wondered if your thyroid was still functional, shut down, or making half of what you need, then let’s dive and sort out what you can do about it today.
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May 23, 2019
Update – Which Comes First: Thyroid or Adrenals?
June 3, 2019The Complete Guide to Testing Your Body For Toxins
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June 3, 2019Your Thyroid Calculator
As far as I am concerned, the goal of thyroid treatment is to not need treatment anymore. Instead, you should focus on getting your thyroid to a point where you no longer have to worry about the performance of your thyroid.
That is why I have put a lot of work into crafting this handy thyroid calculator (Click Here). It is going to give you an answer in two specific ways:
- A Percent Number – How much there is versus how much there should be.
- Micrograms – How much your thyroid gland is truly making.
Bottom Line: How cool is that? You can simply plug in some numbers and learn so much about your health – and what you can do to optimize it. You can even track it over time to see how it is changing with your treatment.
What You Need To Know
In order to use the calculator to its full extent, here is what I would like to know:
- Your weight
- All the thyroid medicines you are on
- Your gender
- Pregnancy/menopausal status
Key Insight: Women have a lot more hormonal considerations that need to be taken into account. Men simply do not, even if they are taking testosterone.
Understanding Your Answers
Once you get the chance to use the thyroid calculator, here are what some of the numbers mean and what you can do about them.
You can still feel your best even if you are at 0%. Please know, though, that your gland will more than likely not take over in a case such as this.
A score of 0 could relate to something such as thyroid surgery, having been removed (partially or completely), there is also a variation of Hashimoto’s disease known as atrophic – which is where the gland shrinks and goes away (and is rather common).
We can also see this at any percentage in between. If you are somewhere around 50%, your gland is making about half of what your body needs. At 75%, it is at about three quarters.
If you are at 80 – 90% it may be fair to question whether you need to be on thyroid treatment at all. If your body is close, or even over, then you might just be fine letting your body handle the last step.
Action Steps: Raising Your Percent
Let’s say that your percentage is lower than you need to feel your best. Here are just some of the things you can do to help raise your percentage:
Metabolism Reset Challenge
One of the easiest ways to do this is by joining us in our next challenge. We have had so many people experience amazing thyroid results, and I have seen two distinct categories of people coming through this program:
- Folks who are not on treatment but are told they need it.
- Those who are taking more than they need.
Bottom Line: The results of the Metabolism Reset Challenge continue to amaze people, and I would love for you to join in on the next one. If you are ready to learn more, this is your chance to hear the full story and what you can do to take your health to the next level (Click here to join).
Selenium
The Daily Reset Pack is a targeted multivitamin made for those with thyroid disease. Within it, you will find the right types and amounts of selenium (and the right minerals to maintain a strong balance with it) (Read: What supplements are important to take, what nutrients not to take).
There is so much data about selenium being:
- Cancer-protective
- Good for your thyroid
- Body detoxifying
The truth is that selenium is so important, in so many ways, but it is also lacking in our day-to-day diets. Personally, I am a fan of a handful of Brazil nuts a week, but it is also smart to add selenium through supplementation.
Avoiding Iodine
This is the pitfall of most multivitamins – they have iodine! Look at all of your labels and avoid anything that has iodine in it, and consider avoiding “sea vegetables” as a food category altogether. Those two steps alone can go a long way.
Our thyroid is a very strong concentrator of iodine. Every speck of iodine that gets into your bloodstream, and then eventually pulled into your thyroid.
This means that any time you have iodine in your body, it is going to be interacting with your thyroid (Read: Benefits of a low iodine diet for your health).
Optimizing Your TSH
Before we begin, we need to have a really solid understanding of what TSH is, what it does and what it can do. This is going to help give us a solid understanding of why a test like this exists, and why learning more is going to help us with our health down the road (Read: Should you ignore your TSH).
Key Insight: There is another thyroid calculator that I put together named “what are your best thyroid levels?” This can help you get a much better idea of where your TSH should be, and the closer you are to your optimal TSH the better you will end up feeling.
The cycle works something like this: when your thyroid makes too little hormone, your pituitary gland makes more TSH. The same applies if you are on thyroid hormone. If you have too little, you make more TSH. If you have too much hormone, you make less.
I have heard plenty of doctors suggest that you can ignore your TSH. These same people have come to me, and I have screened them for their heart health and other issues and noticed the same thing time and time again. They have had these trademark low-TSH outcomes.
Bottom Line: Forcing your thyroid to work harder, through a high TSH score, does not mean that you are making your thyroid stronger. That is why dialing in your TSH is a great idea, to where your thyroid is working but it is not overworking.
Thryobalance
This is one of our specific supplements that is a specific nigella extract (Read: Is Nigella Sativa the next miracle her for Hashimotos). This is so interesting, and studies have shown that the right versions of this extract can help reverse the inflammation and under-activity from thyroid disease.
In a broader sense, studies with Nigella have shown the following benefits:
- Allergies
- Arthritis
- Asthma
- Autoimmune disease
- Cancer growth
- Diabetes
- Hair Loss
- High Cholesterol
- Hypertension
Nigella oil is not commonly available as food. Some versions have been reported to be adulterated with other plants including black caraway. This substitution would make the compound ineffective for improving thyroid function.
Key Insight: For optimal weight loss and greater thyroid health, take 2 gel caps of Nigella once daily with meals. Like any supplement, take it separate from any other thyroid medication.
This black cumin seed extract has been used forever in Middle Eastern cuisine. It is ridiculously safe and there are absolutely no drawbacks to it. For someone who is close to optimal thyroid performance, nigella extract can help them take things to the next level.
Try The Calculator Today
Interested in learning more about your thyroid and how it is doing? Try the thyroid calculator today to learn more (Click Here). After learning more and taking the right steps, you can then retest using the calculator again and see how your improvements are making a real difference.
P.S. Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you now:
1. Schedule a Thyroid Second Opinion with me, Dr. C, Click Here for Details
2. Need a Personalized Supplement? Check out My Thyroid Specific Formulations
3. Download and use my Favorite Recipes Cookbook Here
4. Check out my podcast Medical Myths, Legends, and Fairytales Here
Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a Naturopathic Endocrinologist and the author of The NY Times bestselling Adrenal Reset Diet, The Metabolism Reset Diet and The Thyroid Reset Diet.
Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what really works has helped hundreds of thousands of people reverse thyroid disease, lose weight, diabetes, and regain energy. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.
