What caused my Hypothyroidism

[Mitsy123]

Does anyone know how I can find out? I've seen a list of possibilities, but I can't see which one might apply to me, and I also don't know if I have some thyroid function or none at all. Any ideas anyone? Thx again.

[Clutter]

Mitsy123, 90% of hypothyroidism is caused by autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's). NHS will usually only test thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOab) but some patients are negative for TPOab and positive for thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAb). If TPOab comes back negative it might be worth ordering a private TgAb test.

The other 10% is caused by thyroidectomy, radioactive iodine ablatement (RAI) and idiopathic (they don't know why).

You can be sure you have low thyroid function because you are on 100mcg Levothyroxine. The only way to tell how little your thyroid function is would be to stop Levothyroxine for 4 weeks and have thyroid function blood tests. I don't recommend it purely to satisfy curiosity

[Hidden]

Hello Mitsy123,

This site explains all the causes of hypothyroidism.

stopthethyroidmadness.com/c...

You can only actually test thyroid function by tests Miitsy as Clutter has already advised.

Flower007

[Heloise]

Hi Mitsy, My first part of research for this made me think that it was due to an iodine deficiency. Your body needs it for so many reasons but the breasts and thyroid need it primarily. A deficiency can be due to the fact that fluoride, bromine and chlorine have affected the receptors for iodine and since seafood and iodized salt are the usual sources, it can fall short. But now I have more of a holistic view. If as Clutter suggested it is an autoimmune problem as in Hashimoto's, then you need to fix the immune system but if it just hypothyroidism, a functional medicine doctor like this one suggests there can be 24 different causes and when negating the causes, you could possible restore good function of the thyroid gland. Your thyroid gland will attempt to work under all circumstances. I'll post his first video and you can find the rest on youtube if you want to pursue it.

youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_CP7l...(Not working as expected?)

[Heloise]

If you want to understand how the glands work together, this man is very knowledgeable.

youtube.com/watch?v=T_Re4ja...(Not working as expected?)

[Mitsy123]

Thank you everyone x

[Hidden]

I think the short answer to this question, which is the most important question of them all, is the medicine doesn't have a clue.

However, exposure to nuclear accidents and explosions damages the thyroid. The fall out from these is probably much more widespread than was understood years ago. Whether you might have had some of that depends when you were born, and where you lived as a child.

Iodine deficiency causes goitre, and it is worth thinking about - do you drink milk? I only just realised that I have probably been iodine deficient for most of my life. It might not be the primary reason for my Hashi's. but it could have played in.

When recently Chancery posted, asking if anyone had any guesses as to what caused hypo without Hashi's there were a few interesting posters suggesting that a period of near starvation or really bad nutrition might be associated with that. Which could link back to iodine deficiency again, and to the close association in Hashi's with illnesses which affect the absorption of key nutrients, like celiac disease, H pylori gastritis and autoimmune gastritis.

I would guess that there might be more than one cause of Hashi's - based on my experience, and that of a friend, who is very different in symptoms.

The frustrating thing is that between us on this board we have all the clues to solving the problem. We just don't know which clues in our lives are relevant.