DEAR THYROID^TM

Hi there.   I’m Liz, the Co-Editor of Dear Thyroid and I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (maybe you’ve read my letter).   After too many days and days and months of pain (and expense, and sheer/utter embarrassment) living with this disease, I decided that I was going to kick its ass.   Maybe you want to kick your thyroid’s ass too.   That’s what this weekly column will be all about: finding non-pharmaceutical strategies to jumpstart our thyroids into working properly (because, for me, the take-a-pill-first-thing-in-the-morning-on-an-empty-stomach prescription for success actually made me feel worse than better).   I’m a food science enthusiast and nutrientarian with a passion for food.   I like to eat it, I like to think about it, I like to read about it and research it.   I collect books full of reliable and controversial/revolutionary food information.   And really, I think food gets a bad rap. ,  I think food gets stereotyped far too often (the same old/dull/bland and polarizing role we’ve had it cast for years — high-fat or low-fat, calorie-dense or calorie-free, good or bad, too much or too little).   And my love for food what it is, it hurts my feelings a little.   Food is so much more than fat and calories and portion sizes, especially when you have a chronic illness or an impaired immune system.

About a year and a half ago, it hit me: medication is only meant to subside the symptoms, not to help the body start functioning properly on its own.   Trust me — that’s a really hopeful message for you and I (and that’s where food comes in).   Food may not be the only thing I talk about on How To Kick Your Thyroid’s Ass, but it certainly will play the leading role.   By no stretch of the imagination am I a medical professional.   No.   Not me.   Never.   The information I will write about here isn’t meant to be the be-all/end-all of health.   These, simply put, are ideas that have allowed me to be well, or more well even whilst living with this disease (including the disappearance of many crippling symptoms, significant weight loss, reduction in my antibody count and in medication dosage).   Not all of these ideas are for everyone, so I ask you to carefully discern what, if anything, could potentially work for you.   Because our bodies, genetics, environments, and backgrounds are so varied, nothing will always be successful for everyone.   However, by the same token, it’s also easy to dismiss these “natural” ideas because they aren’t visibly promoted by mainstream medical professionals.   But please keep in mind that these ideas are science-based (they’re not hocus pocus or spiritual trickery) and also, they won’t make a company any money the way a pill alone does.   I believe in integrative medicine, whereby we combine our doctor’s orders with our own intimate knowledge of our bodies, taking radically proactive steps toward wellness.   I hope that makes sense to you too.   I also hope we can think about health in fresh ways, because so much of the information we currently hear isn’t known to help people with chronic illnesses and degenerative disease to be well.   And that, in the end, is the goal: wellness.

Because I have a hard time shutting up about food and health, I always welcome letters, comments, questions, stories, and suggestions for me and this column.   Seriously, I’d love to hear from you.   Email me at Liz@DearThyroid.com.

Tags: alternative solutions for thyroid patients, How To Kick Your Thyroid's Ass, Liz Schau thyroid nutrition writer, symptoms management nutritionally, thyroid nutrition and health column

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