Low Thyroid Type

This Hormone Type means thyroid support may need boosting. This is common in the (peri)menopausal years and when you’re high-achieving, active, and driven. 

Low-thyroid symptoms can happen when you’re exposed to higher levels of physical, physiological, mental, or emotional stress for an extended period without adequate recovery or buffers to balance it. This includes a consistent schedule of adequate and restorative sleep.

If this resonates, you’re not alone!

Thankfully, there are many things you can do to help improve symptoms (which don’t include expensive lab tests, supplements, or meds).

It can be simple and starts with a personalized approach that includes: balancing stress and blood sugar, optimizing sleep, reducing your exposure to common endocrine disruptors, and improving elimination pathways (think sweat and gut health).

Read on to find out more.

How it happens 

 A sluggish thyroid can look like fatigue, hair loss, memory issues, cold intolerance, depression, weakness, constipation, low libido, weight gain or weight loss resistance, and more.

Symptoms might be subtle or more severe, and often, women struggle with symptoms long before an issue is medically diagnosed. Taking care of your thyroid health can help put you on a path to improve symptoms and overall wellbeing.

There are numerous reasons our thyroid hormones are affected and are often multifactorial.

These include but are not limited to:

• Chronic stress
• Toxic exposures or overburdened body
• Inflammation, especially of the thyroid gland
• Inadequate diet for your current hormone type
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Overexercising for your body’s current hormone type
• Gut issues, including a permeable gut
• Too much or too little iodine
• Certain medications
• Goiters or nodules of the thyroid gland
• Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune condition

Low thyroid symptoms

Low thyroid symptoms will present differently in different women. You might have a few or many of the following symptoms, while someone else could have completely different ones. We’re all wonderfully unique like that.

Common symptoms include:

• Fatigue
• Hair loss
• Low libido
• Cold intolerance
• Constipation
• Dry, itchy, rough or cracked skin
• Weight gain or weight loss resistance
• Depression or anxiety
• Memory or concentration issues
• Exercise intolerance or muscle weakness
• Joint or muscle pain
• Low heart rate
• Puffy face
• Hoarseness

Dearest Reader,

This information is for educational purposes only and not intended to diagnose or highlight imperfections. You've likely landed here following my quiz at YourHormoneQuiz.com.

No matter what you discover in these results, you're beautiful and perfect as you are. You're good enough and trying hard enough.

We're all unique and will experience hormonal shifts differently. This information is here to highlight that, despite what we've been told, we're not just little men — our bodies work differently — and if our hormones have us feeling less than our best, we absolutely can do something about it.

My aim is to support and empower you on your journey, where you need and want it. Take what you need, leave what you don't.

No judgement here, just good honest support.

XO, Laurie

Nutrient deficiencies seen with low thyroid

These nutrients are important for thyroid health and can sometimes be deficient in those with sub-optimal thyroid function. Getting sufficient amounts in your diet is important, though sometimes supplementation is needed.

Tested to confirm can help to know if supplementation is needed.

• B6, B12 and B9
• Vitamin A
• Selenium
• Magnesium
• Zinc
• Iodine
• CoQ10
• Asparagine
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin D

How low thyroid affects other hormones

Your thyroid regulates the metabolism of every organ in the body. It regulates hormones, body temperature, growth, brain function, and heart rate. When thyroid hormones go low, you’ll feel it and often notice changes in your body.

A sluggish thyroid can impact sex hormones and every other hormone. Not only do thyroid hormones impact other important hormones, but other hormones can also affect thyroid hormones.

When thyroid hormones go low, paying attention to stress hormones, inflammation, and blood sugar balance is important.

What you can do about it

When dealing with hormone imbalance, it’s important to address the cause. What could be at the root of low thyroid? Could it be stress, inflammation, or blood sugar control? Dealing with the root cause is essential.

Restoring balance most often requires — first and foremost — reestablishing a strong foundation with a supportive diet and lifestyle. This includes optimizing nutrition and sleep, incorporating movement and stress management techniques for your unique body and hormone type, reducing toxic exposures, and working on mindset and social support.

A qualified health practitioner can also help you check in with a full thyroid panel that includes the following (be sure to have a look using functional lab ranges vs. the conventional pathological range):

• TSH
• Free T4
• Free T3 (our active thryoid hormones)
• Reverse T3
• Thyroid antibodies: TPOab and TgAb

Other helpful functional lab work that helps to see the bigger picture:

• Sex and adrenal hormones and their metabolites (DUTCH Test is the premier test)
• Full iron panel, including ferritin, serum iron, % saturation, TIBC
• B-12
• Vitamin D
• Complete metabolic panel
• SHBG
• Blood sugar management: HBA1C, Fasting glucose and Fasting insulin

Check out this post for even more ways to get your hormones back in harmony.

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, manage, or treat disease or serious conditions. Always check with your doctor before making any changes. It's important to consult a well-informed health practitioner for personal advice about your situation before relying on general information — we're all wonderfully unique.