Food to avoid graves disease

[Santos82]

What food / drink we must avoid eating if we have graves disease and thyroid eye disease?

[Painta]

I have Graves’ disease and I’m controlling it via diet and supplements. I avoid gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nightshade vegetables(tomato’s, aubergine, potatoes, chilli and peppers), all grains(even non glutenous ones), legumes and nuts. I tried just gluten, dairy and sugar and that didn’t work for me - I definitely have to avoid all grains and nuts to. Once your body stabilises you can cope with an occasional ‘treat’ from the above list - but definitely not gluten and definitely only one or two times a month. Everyone is different though - the full autoimmune programme is hard to stick at mentally but if it works for you, you can avoid medication completely or at least cut down on it dramatically. When I cut out everything I saw dramatic results and came off all meds for almost a year but it’s hard maintaining it long term so I have had relapses. Im just realising that these dietary changes need to be the norm for me and not just a quick fix. Even then I have my ups and downs but this time I’ve been carbimazole free since May and generally feel much better. I followed the Amy Myers Autoimmune programme - you have to ignore all the American hype but it worked for me. I tried a period were I stayed on a low dose of carbimazole and reintroduced non glutenous grains and nuts so I could eat gluten free products but I ended up going hyper again. I have experimented with introducing bits of dairy and alcohol but I can only cope with them if it’s an occasional treat. The thing is you have nothing to loose by trying it but you need to monitor yourself and watch your bloods before reducing your meds. I stayed on a low dose of carbimazole until I started to go hypo.

[Teras]

For me, dairy.

[Manz123]

Hi, Santos82,

I follow the autoimmune protocol. You can find more information about it here - autoimmunewellness.com. It's quite restrictive, especially in the elimination phase, however I have experienced brilliant results.

I've had Graves since 2012 and been on carbimazole and PTU when I have relapsed into hyper. Thankfully at the moment I'm not on any medication for my Graves and I feel stable. Supplements and probiotics made a huge difference. I take selenium, vitamin D, B complex and C. I brew my own water kefir and kombucha. I am trialing small amounts of kefir made with raw goats milk and seeing how that affects things. It has been important to work on my stress levels and my relationship with myself. Yoga and meditation have helped me a lot.

[tgirlnc]

With Graves, it is all about reducing inflammation in the body and finding triggers (which is often food) as others have mentioned. I was diagnosed in 2011 with one of the most severe cases of Graves the doctors had seen. I am in remission now and have been for over a year. I contribute that to really controlling my diet, acupuncture and supplementation that I have been doing for past several years. For diet, I have been predominately paleo most of the time. I did an initial reset doing pretty much the autoimmune protocol and then slowly started trying to introduce things back..which I highly recommend doing a reset for at least a month and then moving to paleo for a sustained period. I am now paleo "light"..I can now tolerate some dairy (mostly goat and fermented), a little bit of rice and legumes (but limited). I have also found that it is essential to stay away from anything processed and very bad additives such as rapeseed oil, corn oil, msg, soy (very bad). I also supplement lemon balm, tumeric, high-grade Vitamin C, Selenium, Zinc, Acetl L carnitine (for eyes), and take NAC periodically for liver support. Also, I highly recommend taking digestive enzymes and a probiotic. This will help immensely..especially the digestive enzymes as people with autoimmune usually have an enzyme deficiency which contributes to the malabsorbsion issues in the gut...food intolerance etc.

I do drink alcohol, but very discerningly. I have learned that I can only really drink old world wines because of their bottling standards..French and Italian...typically have strict bottling standars...they don't put any additives in the wine like food colouring, preservatives, flavour enhancers..and they monitor growing practices (like pesticieds etc). You really have to listen to your body to see what causes issues and after you get it to calm down...for example I have found out that I don't really do well eating raw spinach and I tend to avoid shell fish now too because I just don't "feel good" after I eat it.