Because we view our patients as whole people not a specific symptom we have a good chance at helping in some way through diet, supplements and lifestyle changes. In the case of thyroid issues they are definite patterns to what happens leading up to the problem starting. I commonly see stress as a major factor and I will explain why. I also see one of those stresses commonly as having a new baby or having children!

If you give direct help to the thyroid you are just offering symptom relief that actually masks the real issue.

For example, hormones to help the thyroid but you then ignore and mask the stress on the adrenal glands. You might feel somewhat better but you will never actually get better as you aren’t even addressing the adrenal problem.

The problem with a Thyroid blood test and why you still may actually have a thyroid problem even if it came back normal

Let me start by explaining the problem with most thyroid blood tests and why they may NOT be showing your thyroid problem up.

Firstly, the range of what is normal may not suit you as an individual. Your personal "normal range" might have been on the higher end of normal levels and as issues have arisen it has significantly dropped but is still within the GP's normal range. So you have felt a big drop, high to low, but you are still classed as normal on the GP blood test so no help can be given.

So what happens if for some reason, maybe a particularly stressful time in your life, has mean't that your thyroid has had to work really hard, everyday pumping out extra thyroid hormone to keep your blood levels normal and to keep you going?

For example you may have just had a baby, or second or third and you are tired looking after them, but you HAVE to keep going and looking after the family. In my experience mothers tend to really neglect themselves at this time in life and eat really poorly.

So what will happen in this scenario and other like it? Your thyroid will become increasingly tired but it is still doing it job good enough to keep your blood levels normal. But.. you become tired, the GP takes a blood test and it is fine, but behind the scenes you have an absolutely exhausted thyroid from all the extra work it has had to do.

Picture this analogy as an example.

A woman sets off running at 10 mph and she has to maintain that speed. Ordinarily as she gets tired she sits down, recovers and then off she goes again at 10 mph. But this time she isn’t allowed to sit down and rest, she has to keep going at the same pace.

Now picture some stress coming into the equation, maybe a dog is chasing her!

She now has to run at 12 mph to keep ahead of the dog. The dog then runs off and it’s okay to slow down, but only back to 10 mph! She must run at this pace as it’s her normal “daily life” pace.

We have a speed camera and after a few miles we check her speed and she is still at 10 mph, all is fine.

This equates to a normal thyroid blood test. After 50 miles we check the woman speed again, and yep the speeds all good still at 10 miles per hour.

But lets have a closer look at the woman, she's exhausted, frazzled, sweating, tired and looks thoroughly ill! But still she's powering on to keep up the 10 mph speed.

This represents the "normal" thyroid blood test from the GP that shows all is fine even though you feel tired and ill.

Now let's go another 50 miles down the line.

We speed check the runner and she's dropped to 5 mph, a blood test here shows a problem and you get classified as under active or hypothyroid. But you are a long way down the line, you have been feeling ill for ages with no help. Now you are really ill you can get some help.

But what you might understand from this is that you could have been helping yourself long before that point. Now you are just picking up the pieces rather than working with some health that is still there. You should have listened to the warning signs your body was living you. Actually, you did listen, you felt ill, tired and over weight but no help was offered!

I hope this has helped with your understanding of thyroid problems. I have found that my Avatar health scan is able to detect "tired" thyroids before they crash and burn and we can put in place nutritional foods plans (blood sugar balancing) and supplements to help recovery. Read on for more information on the Avatar scan.

Let’s look at a list of under active thyroid symptoms:

In my opinion and from what I see in my clinic the most common reason a thyroid problem starts is from an adrenal problem. The adrenals are another organ in the body and they produce two hormones amongst others called adrenalin and cortisol.

So let me keep it simple. The adrenals are very active in times of STRESS.

The stress hormone cortisol actually inhibits the action of the thyroid and suppresses it. So high stress equals low thyroid and tiredness.

Another hormone that has a similar action and inhibits the thyroid is oestrogen, the main female hormone that very often gets out of balance.

Have a look at the symptoms of stressed / burnt out adrenal glands and high oestrogen.