Greenville SC Thyroid Doctor Answers – Can Birth Control Pills Affect My Thyroid?
Women turn to birth controls for various reasons or perceived benefits. Unfortunately, taking oral contraceptives—like all medications–involves risks, too, and side-effects that should be carefully considered. If you’re concerned about your thyroid health, birth control pills deserve an especially long hard look.
Oral contraceptives contain hormones that can affect the thyroid gland and thyroid hormone in ways you likely never imagined. The thyroid is involved in virtually every physiological function in the body. Thyroid hormone’s interaction with female hormones is among the most complex involvements of them all.
If you’re altering levels of estrogen and progesterone by taking oral contraceptives, which is what they do, other hormones in other systems throughout your body are going to be affected, too. This includes thyroid hormone.
One problematic interaction between female hormones affected by birth control pills and thyroid hormone involves estrogen dominance. This condition involves elevated estrogen levels, and progesterone levels are involved as well, such that the proper ratio of estrogen and progesterone is out of balance. Estrogen dominance can cause, contribute to or exacerbate hypothyroidism in several ways.
Estrogen dominance can inhibit the thyroid’s ability to produce thyroid hormone. It can also interfere with proper conversion of thyroid hormone into its usable form. Your thyroid gland may be functioning properly and producing adequate thyroid hormone, but cells cannot utilize it. Estrogen dominance can also disrupt the process whereby thyroid hormones reach and enter cells. You may experience symptoms of low thyroid in any of these three cases.
As if you aren’t experiencing enough symptoms from a thyroid condition, estrogen dominance can make you feel worse. This condition can cause many of the exact same symptoms of hypothyroidism: hot flashes, brain fog, weight gain, moodiness and headaches. Patients who have low thyroid or Hashimoto’s disease aren’t likely to feel any better when estrogen dominance is left unaddressed.
If you want to protect your thyroid health, rethink the use of oral contraceptives. You may not receive much information on the effects of birth control pills on the thyroid if you ask your general practitioner or gynecologist. A functional wellness practitioner however will provide in-depth information about the connection or interaction between taking the pill and potential thyroid issues.
If you already are on the pill or have taken it in the past and you now have a thyroid condition, the support of a functional wellness practitioner can likely help you attain symptom relief. Your condition almost certainly involves complexities that aren’t being addressed through conventional medical care.
Functional wellness focuses on gaining a comprehensive picture of what is going on in your body. It is then possible to sort out the interactions among hormones, organs and systems. Customized therapeutic support can then help correct imbalances by addressing deficiencies and dysfunctions.
IMPORTANT: Never discontinue using medication without your doctor’s consent.
