Thyroid UK members are being offered a free training as part of a study called ‘Hashimoto’s heart’. The study is a collaboration between hashimoto.help and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
The mind and body, individual and environment have long been seen as separate entities. This online training takes the psychoneuroimmunology perspective. This perspective is based on the fundamental unity of the body’s systems. It is the function of these systems to help you stay healthy. The immune system is a part of that.
Patients with autoimmune disease have a different response to stress. They register more stress. Stress does not just come from outside of our body but also emerges as a result of our internal experiences, which influences our self-evaluation, self-identity, self-presentation and self-control. The internal and external stressors are registered in the same way in our body but the internal stressors are present 24 hours a day. The internal stressors have developed to protect us, to make sure we survive although in the long run they can make us sick.
By reprogramming the system, neurobiology, psychological and physiological changes will take place. You will be able to differentiate threat from non-threat and consequently the immune system will balance. You will get yourself back, feeling energetic and vital.
The training provides:
• understanding of the role of emotions as part of the immune system
• inner resources development
• experiential exercises and self-discovery
• development of life knowledge and skills
This is an excellent opportunity to learn about yourself and your body.
If you are interested in taking part in the study please send email to: info@hashimoto.help
For more information on hashimoto.help go here: hashimoto.help/
To see a short animation about the study go here: Here is a short animation about it: vimeo.com/209239507
Written by
lynmynott
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Thanks for posting, I could access the animation but not hashimoto help. Wondered if it is meant to be hashimoto.help but that doesn't look like a complete address!
This is psychobabble, the intended end result being to classify people with Hashi's as mentally ill. If they've had the psychobabble training and still feel ill, then blame the patient because they are choosing to remain ill.
This kind of stuff is happening all over the NHS for all sorts of conditions. Chronic, physical illnesses, are being re-defined as mental illnesses so that treatment can be withdrawn to save money.
This isn't just about saving money for the NHS. This is all about saving insurance companies money in the future. Eventually our health system will be insurance based if we want to get treated within a reasonable length of time. Anyone who can't afford insurance will have to stay untreated or will have to wait for many months or years to be treated by an NHS which has all but collapsed.
Insurance policies usually include payment of living costs if you can no longer work because of illness. But if the condition you have is deemed to be a mental illness then the insurance company restricts its liability to say, 18 months or 2 years. Then you are cast adrift to starve, live off your friends or relatives, or commit suicide. The welfare state has been rapidly dismantled over the last 8 years, so benefits will be difficult or impossible to get.
I have not looked at the information but think your view is an understanable over reaction. Dr.Kendrick puts stress as a major cause of heart disease. Anything that helps to reduce stress e.g neditation is not psychobabble. The mind is powerful .Wish I was not such a pessimist.
Sending people off for psychological therapies when not addressing physical condition is waste of money and delays diagnosis. I wish the whole medical and research professions would stop dumping thyroid patients in the mental health chute.
I’m really surprised at some of the replies on here.
This study isn’t about replacing an auto-immune diagnosis with one of psychological impairment. The study is for people who are ALREADY clinically diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.
The study seeks to help manage one or more of the triggers of the auto-immune process. The main one of focus appears to be stress.
Anyone with an auto-immune disorder knows fine well stress plays a huge part in the activation of an auto-immune response. I only wish someone else had done this study before so that my own triggers may have been identified and managed rather than waiting until after my thyroid function is completely depleted before I was thrown pills.
I think people are reacting to this in entirely the wrong way.
Stress is a very real trigger to a very real disorder acknowledged by these researchers.
Also - it’s a clear fact that symptoms of the ALREADY CLINICALLY ESTABLISHED auto-immune process can and do include low mood, anxiety and depression. And many of us know only too well that L-T4 treatment simply doesn’t always cut it in terms of removing these symptoms.
What I’m saying AND what I believe this research study is trying to demonstrate is that whilst stress is a possible root-cause-trigger, these things are also an OUTCOME of a very real auto-immune disorder. I believe they are trying to research just how many people diagnosed actually include stress as a trigger therefore isn’t it a good thing they teach these people skills in how to manage it better? I hear all the time people asking why the symptoms are treated and not the root cause. Now someone’s trying to do that and still some people have taken issue with it. No wonder thyroid patients get a bad name sometimes - there’s no pleasing some.
Not only that, better management of these things can not only prevent flare ups of hashimoto’s but possibly also help to prevent future auto immune disease activation and progression?
Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing in this study that suggests Hashimoto’s should be treated with “psychobabble” only. But anyone who can say 100% of people mentally deal with the acceptance of a chronic life long illness without any affect on their mood and mental well-being is, in my opinion, very blinkered.
I commend the principle researchers on this study for attempting to look at triggers and contributors to ongoing wellbeing of Hashimoto’s patients. They are clearly doing a lot more to understand the root cause and actual auto immune part than the conventional medical establishment is doing in the U.K (who are going sweet F all to be clear).
I really wish my Hashimoto’s had been caught before it destroyed my Thyroid. To be more clear, I wish doctors would have actually told me I had it and gave me a suggested treatment plan including stress management. Instead they kept it to themselves because they’re of the opinion “the patient doesn’t need to know until the thyroid is truly FUBAR”. Maybe then I could have helped myself more and not ended up the way I did.
Sorry for the long rant but I just can’t believe people are so critical and skeptical of this study: a study that is, for once, trying to deal with the actual auto-immune part of the disease and not just the thyroid dysfunction.
Lyn - I’m grateful for your post and for the opportunity to take part in this study. And i’ll be doing so with optimism and excitement that it may offer me reprieve from some things I know myself I’m rubbish at managing. I’m a big believer that positivity is a big factor in every day well-being (mentally and physically). I know only too well I feel worse in general if ever I slip into skeptical/negative mode and do nothing but sulk, moan and feel resentful. It doesn’t help me feel better to be like that and it certainly doesn’t help me keep friends either. I am really looking forward to this study and I really hope it helps me and others in the future!
Hi Pamela0126, I hope you managed to get in. They are now over-subscribed so there's a lot of disappointed people. However, we will be reporting on the results of the study so watch this space!
I would love to have taken part but if they are now oversubscribed that will explain why I’ve not had a response to my e mail. I will be looking out for any reports on the results.
Well said Pamela and I totally agree with you. As someone with two autoimmune conditions one of which is Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis I am well aware of the effects stress can have both on the chronic conditions I have in terms of triggering a relapse and my mental health when adapting to the huge changes in me I’ve had to come to terms with. I think this is a very necessary study and being open to taking care of our mental health and addressing mental health issues that go hand in hand with chronic long term and often life changing conditions is very important.
Why do the terms & conditions at hashimoto.help refer to payment (Article 8)? If this was a genuine scientific study there would be no payment, this is a scam!!
It's a programme that you can join - a course, if you like, on how to get well. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. It's a bit like paying a nutritional therapist or doctor that you visit but it's all on line.
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