Who should quit their thyroid medication?
And which supplements for your thyroid should you consider taking instead?
In this article, I’ll walk you through a simple guideline on how to know whether you need thyroid medication… OR… what you might want to consider instead.
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Who Needs Thyroid Medication?
Why Consider Quitting Thyroid Medication?
The Process for Quitting Thyroid Medication
Supplements for Reducing Thyroid Medication
Reducing Thyroid Medication: The Next Steps
The Process of Deprescribing
The Best Supplements for Reducing Thyroid Medication
The fact is that the only people who truly need to be on thyroid medication are those who have had their thyroid taken out. Or, those who have had it destroyed via radiation. For these folks, they will need treatment on a long-term basis – and that is totally fine.
Others are those who may have had their thyroid excessively shut down. This is what we call overt hypothyroidism. This is a case where your thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) gets really high – over 20 – and your T4 goes way below range, close to flatlining completely.
Some of these people will need thyroid long-term access to thyroid medication. That said, many of them do not. Around a third of those even with overt hypothyroidism do not need to remain on thyroid medication. Your thyroid can heal on its own with a little bit of help!
First, it’s always good to consider not taking a pill you don’t need to take.
Additionally, taking thyroid medication comes with its own set of risks. The biggest ones include higher risk of cancer and mortality which we should definitely take seriously.
Beyond that, we also have to know that the medication we take is not the same as the hormone we would make. It can inhibit your body from doing all of the things that it would more naturally do behind the scenes without the intrusion of medication.
A lot of people on thyroid medication often struggle with ongoing thyroid symptoms. They may feel like there is too much or too little, which can even happen when your blood levels are showing as completely normal.
Key Insight: If your body can make its own version of hormone, that will always be preferable to taking a hormone via medication. There really is no substitute for making it on your own.
Let’s talk about timeframes. You should think about a three-month preparation window to help you get started, where you’ll need to do a couple of things:
Here’s something tricky to think about: Your thyroid needs iodine, but once you get too much your thyroid shuts itself down. Any extra iodine can cause your thyroid to go completely out of control, which is why that window is so extremely important.
Too much iodine is just as dangerous as too little. The Thyroid Reset Diet walks you through that process, and how to ensure that you are getting iodine in normal, natural ways, through your diet, that keep you at the right levels for the long term.
You want to ensure that the micronutrients you are taking are favorable to your thyroid. The one that you want to measure would be your iodine levels.
If you are low in iron, you need to build it back up. If you are not low in it, it’s not really something to worry about – it’s possible to overload on it, but don’t stress too much.
Key Insight: When your ferritin scores are below 50, and you are on thyroid treatment, you could do better to have that higher and closer to 100.
But there are many other nutrients that are always useful to your health. Here are some I always like to highlight:
These are critical things that you need for a good immune response, a good detox, and for good repair of thyroid tissue. The best part is that I put all of these into what I call the Daily Reset Bundle. A combination of Thyroid Daily, Calcium Magnesium, and Omega Pure.
We can think of that as the foundation for everything else you would do to maintain your thyroid health. The next thing we would need to think of from there are ways to help your thyroid grow – and some nutraceuticals have been shown to help it do just that.
Some have also been shown to help your body respond better to thyroid hormones, while also helping your body clear other waste that could be slowing your body down. Those are found in what I’ve called Hypothyroid Support.
Next, we need to think about how your body uses these different thyroid hormones. Things like:
The thing to know is that the balance and ratio amongst each of these is so important. Your T2/T3 ratio helps your body take whatever you are ingesting and make those into the ideal ratios – a key part of tapering down your thyroid medication.
Next up, we need to consider whether there is an autoimmune response and how to safely deal with it. If you know you have Hashimoto’s disease, lowering that immune response is also going to improve your odds of healing your thyroid.
That is what something like Antibody Support has been designed to do. A scientifically designed solution to reduce thyroid antibodies and reclaim your well-being.
If you have autoimmunity, then something like Antibody Support can help lower the anti-inflammatory response and help your thyroid have a better chance of healing.
Let’s turn back to that three-month window of preparation that I mentioned. Over the course of those three months, let’s say you have been:
The next thing you want to ensure is that you are within a good window of iodine. This is where a urinary iodine-to-creatinine ratio test is going to be super helpful.
This is a random urine collection which can be done at any time, with the goal of seeing your urinary iodine below 100 micrograms per gram of creatinine.
Key Insight: There are many different urinary iodine tests. Those that are purely ‘urinary iodine’ are not up to muster. We are looking for a very specific ratio.
If you are not below 100 micrograms, it typically means one of two things:
That second scenario is not nearly as common. When it does happen, someone usually knows that they were taking an unusually large dose of iodine for a while.
Once you hit that low iodine window, the process of tapering off thyroid medication is that much easier. In most cases, getting to that window really helps with the next step.
The first thing to note is that you want to partner with a professional on your deprescribing journey. This is not something you want to do alone, and you’ll want to find a qualified medical professional who can walk you through the stages and make sense of the data.
In terms of timelines, the typical timeframe is around two months of active taper. The measurements of your thyroid output aren’t significant until around three months after the taper has been completed. This is a bit of a pitfall to keep an eye on.
In a lot of cases, people can be going through a taper, doing really well, and a doctor may check their levels and find that their TSH levels are far too high. Your doctor may get concerned and put you back on medication. But, this is completely normal.
In fact, it is desirable for your TSH to elevate during your taper. This is how your thyroid gets back in the game and back up to strength, with a TSH that is pushing it.
Therefore, a doctor really has to know how these tests are going to be skewed and look different during the taper process. But, the truth is that symptoms can also happen, including:
When it’s all said and done, you really want to get a good baseline reading. Three months after the taper is the best time for this kind of reading.
Key Insight: Testing is critical both before, during and after your taper. That said, if you are testing during your taper, you need to work with a doctor who knows what to expect and doesn’t rush you back onto medications unnecessarily.
It is not only possible to quit your thyroid medication, but for the majority of people, it is likely that you can get back to feeling your best by deprescribing. That said, it’s only possible when you prepare and partner with a qualified medical professional.
To get your body working better again, I want you to know that it is possible.
If you want to get a sense of where things stand today, I can only recommend taking the Thyroid Quiz to get a sense of your current thyroid health and where you can start to feel your best again. I hope it gives you the insights you need.
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 Thyroid Supplement Recommendation? Take My Thyroid Specific Formulations Quiz Now
3. Need a Personalized Supplement? Check out My Thyroid Specific Formulations
4. Download and use my Favorite Recipes Cookbook Here
5. Check out my podcast Medical Myths, Legends, and Fairytales Here
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.
Dr. Alan Christianson
Alan Christianson is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD) who is a board-certified Naturopathic Endocrinologist with a focus on thyroid disorders. He is the author of The Metabolism Reset Diet and the New York Times bestselling book The Adrenal Reset Diet.
He founded Integrative Health, a physician group dedicated to helping people with thyroid disease and weight-loss resistance regain their health.
He has been named a Top Doctor in Phoenix magazine and has appeared on national TV shows and in numerous print media.
Dr. Christianson resides in the woods by a lake in Northern Minnesota with his wife Kirin.
