Help For Low Thyroid in Greenville SC
Still struggling with low thyroid symptoms despite being under the care of one or more health care practitioners? It can be frustrating to take medication as directed, do your best to eat well and take care of yourself, but still feel awful. Unfortunately, many low thyroid patients continue having weight problems, suffer with depression, find it difficult to get a good night’s sleep and even develop worsening symptoms while under medical care.
Blood work may show that your medication is doing its job. Your doctor may be saying according to tests, you ‘should’ feel better. But you know something’s not right. What’s going on? In the case of stubborn low thyroid symptoms, what may be needed is an alternative approach to your health. We’re used to a medical model that focuses on symptoms, identifies a malfunction, and then utilizes pharmaceutical or surgical interventions to ‘fix’ what’s broken. In the case of low thyroid symptoms that linger, something’s clearly failing with this strategy.
To start with, the tests medical practitioners typically rely on to identify low thyroid conditions are quite narrow. The focus is on TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels. If the patient’s TSH levels do not fall within a ‘normal’ range, it’s determined the patient has a thyroid problem in most cases. When TSH levels are too high, the patient has an underactive or low thyroid. The next step in conventional medicine is typically to determine how much medication the patient needs in order to adjust TSH levels to the ‘normal’ range.
The assumption is that once the patient’s TSH levels are ‘normal,’ the patient will feel better. Yet this fails to take into account the complexity of the thyroid gland. The thyroid does not act in isolation within the body. Thyroid problems may affect the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system and the reproductive system. Thyroid function is also closely related to adrenal health. Simply adjusting TSH levels through medication cannot ‘correct’ or facilitate balance in the many systems and organs that are affected by hypothyroidism. A much more comprehensive approach is necessary for patients to achieve lasting improvements in how they feel and in their health.
Functional wellness is a type of health care that takes this thorough, holistic approach to thyroid problems. A practitioner who is trained in functional wellness will not rely on one or two tests to determine what is going on throughout your body related to your thyroid symptoms. Rather, he will rely on in-depth testing and a very comprehensive overview of your health history to arrive at an understanding of what’s happening with your health.
With a thorough approach and deep analysis, it’s possible to determine precisely what’s needed for your body to regain optimal function throughout all of the systems and organs being affected by your thyroid condition. Interventions that are safe, natural and drug-free can support your body’s ability to heal itself. When you work with a functional wellness practitioner, you’ll feel better as your health actually improves.
