Greenville SC Thyroid Doctor Answers – Can Low Thyroid Affect Mental Health?
Since the thyroid plays such a large role in your health, it’s easy to see why you might want to know whether or not it can affect your mental health as well. To answer this, it’s important to first understand how the thyroid works. From there, you’ll have better insight as to how a dysfunction might be responsible for changes in your mental health. As always, if you have questions, it’s crucial to speak with a functional wellness practitioner to learn more.
How Your Thyroid Works
As part of the endocrine system, the thyroid is responsible for using iodine to create two of the main hormones in the body. These hormones, nicknamed T3 and T4, go into the bloodstream to regulate important body functions, such as breathing, body temperature, heart rate, cholesterol levels, muscle strength and more. In fact, thyroid hormones even help regulate the central and peripheral nervous systems that are so important to our overall health and well-being.
What Happens When Thyroid Levels are Too Low
When the body does not have enough thyroid hormones, the systems can begin to slow. As a result, it’s likely you’ll begin experiencing a wide range of symptoms, which can include fatigue, trouble thinking, and even difficulty thinking. Some people even experience erratic moods, anxiety, and depression due to low levels of this important hormone flowing through their blood. If you’ve noticed that your mental health isn’t the same as it was in the past, a thyroid problem may be on your mind. However, in order to determine the true underlying issue, you must work with a care provider who doesn’t take guesses.
Where to Find Help
Speaking to your regular physician about your mental health is important. However, in order to determine if this is related to a thyroid problem, you must work with a care provider who offers more in-depth care for thyroid hormones. Functional wellness practitioners, in particular, are excellent resources. They’ll begin your care by discussing your health (including mental health) in order to determine the tests that are needed to determine what’s really going on inside.
With the results from these tests, your wellness practitioner can pull together a picture of your overall health. This can even point out any issues that could be leading to your change in mood and any other mental health concerns you have. From there, you can work together to create a wellness plan that can resolve those issues and heal your body so each system can begin functioning like normal again. For most, this helps restore their mood and emotions to facilitate better mental health.
Is it Too Late?
It’s never too late to learn how low thyroid may be impacting your mental and overall health. With this, you’ll finally have answers as to why you feel the way you do and can begin the road to improving your health. While this is not an overnight or immediate solution, it’s one that focuses on genuinely healing your body so you can live a better life.
